Do you lie to friends?

[thir]

thir, I usually agree with your posts but I have to disagree strongly with this one....."lying is always wrong"...yikes.

Yikes? Well I can understand that it sounds sort or radical, but personally I have always felt better when people say what they mean. In the long wrong it makes life easier.

And would you honestly want to hear someone say, "Actually thir, you look like bloody hell, very tired, like you've just been sick and gained 20 lbs." when you ask them if they like your new hat?

This may qualify as more information than asked for ;-)
If I ask about my hat, it is my hat I expect an answer to.

Seriously, lying by omission does not mean that you have to say everything that pops up in your head, and which no one has asked for. At least, that is how I see it.

Also seriously, I am simply not comfortable with people who say I look good if I know I look like hell. It is a situation I can identify with because of my illness, and so I can say with honesty (having been in this very situation frequently) that I do not want it. If people feel like commenting on my looks, I expexct them to say what they think!

If I make a dinner and it tastes awful, I expect people to say so, so I can learn to do it better. I know this is hard on other people, and would be hard on me as well. But it is what I, myself, want.

Like I said before, should we run around lying constantly...no. But a small (read: harmless---and it's a personal choice what you find to be a harmless lie) lie of omission or "white" lie can make life more bearable for the liar *and* the person being lied to.

BTW, I love your hat...and have you lost weight?

Yes, it is different from person to person what they consider harmless - an important point. And if everybody answers how good you look in your new hat, you never know what anybody thinks of anything (by extension.) And you have all the trouble of trying to tell someone that 'you really mean it'.

I understand that others have different opinions, and would like to point out that I am merely saying what I myself would really want.

[Ozme52]

Seriously, lying by omission does not mean that you have to say everything that pops up in your head, and which no one has asked for. At least, that is how I see it.

And therein lies the problem with questions such as this. We have different definitions.

So when you say it's never okay to lie... and I say it is... we maybe saying exactly the same thing... with different definitions of what constitutes a lie but the same definition of acceptable intercourse.

Speaking of intercourse.... shall we "_ _ _ k"?

[Thorne]

Speaking of intercourse.... shall we "_ _ _ k"?

Oh for crying out loud!

Somebody get a hose. Oz woke up from his nap.

[Ozme52]

Oh for crying out loud!

Somebody get a hose. Oz woke up from his nap.

LMAO... what's wrong with a little talk?

[thir]

And therein lies the problem with questions such as this. We have different definitions.

So when you say it's never okay to lie... and I say it is... we maybe saying exactly the same thing... with different definitions of what constitutes a lie but the same definition of acceptable intercourse.

I do not think so..I still think lying is a pestilence in all but a few very special situations - like to save someone's life or the like. I do not believe in 'white lies for the sake of the person lied to' - I think it is patronising. I do not think black lies are good either.

Omission of information is different - and hard to define. And that is why I say there is such a thing as more info than people asked for.

Speaking of intercourse.... shall we "_ _ _ k"?

Ah, Spring has come to you as well, has it? ;-))))))))))

[leo9]

I do not think so..I still think lying is a pestilence in all but a few very special situations - like to save someone's life or the like. I do not believe in 'white lies for the sake of the person lied to' - I think it is patronising.

More than patronising, it's arrogant.

I'm reminded of an episode of "Voyager" we saw recently. The holographic Doctor discovers a gap in his memory a year and a half old, apparently related to a vanished crew member. It turns out (SPOILER WARNING)















that the crewman died on the operating table in circumstances which sent him into a cybernetic breakdown, and Torres deleted the memory to save him. So now they have to decide whether to do it again... and the conclusion is that the Doctor has become a person, and when people have problems, friends help them cope, not decide unilaterally to keep information from them for their own good.