A Collective Commitment to Deception

On how lying is built-in to our culture

All my life, people have described me as “blunt.”

Never in a nice way. Always as a complaint. An unspoken request to “stop, like, saying stuff.”

For a while, I ignored the feedback. I didn’t see how my simple directness could be bad or wrong.

Then eventually, I decided to take this feedback seriously, and started retraining myself to speak less bluntly and more considerately. My relationships improved BIGLY.

But now, after years and years of fine-tuning my communication skills, learning how to think before I speak, be non-violent, and all that…. guess what?

I still think my “bluntness” was never a problem!

Because, it turns out, the “bluntness” was actually just me exposing the pervasive indirectness, passive-aggression, and “little white lies” that have been normalized by our culture!

Our culture LIES and LIES and LIES SOME MORE!

And you bet your ass I’ve been compiling a dossier.

There’s only so much whittling-down of my self-expression that I’m willing to engage in, before it begins to feel like an attack on Truth itself.

So now, in defense of myself and others who see through the lies,

I will speak from my heart.

Bluntly!

When I say our culture lies, I mean it’s very normal — and often encouraged — to say what one doesn’t mean.

For example, this phenomenon shows up a lot in the dating scene.

Take “Netflix and chill.”

Apparently, “everybody” “knows” that when someone says they want to “come over to watch a movie” or “come upstairs for some coffee,” what they actually want is to have sex with you.

It’s an unspoken code, made out to be some cute, flirty thing
— when, functionally speaking, it is a lie.

You don’t actually want a movie or coffee. You want sex.
So why shroud your true intention in codes, on the presumption that the other person will just ~read your mind~ and know what you actually want?

That’s textbook deception, friend!

When I’ve lamented on this Netflix-and-chill thing, I’ve been told (patronizingly) that '“saying ‘I want to have sex with you’ just isn’t as sexy.”

And to that I say: I disagree! 😃

Personally, I don’t want the kind of unconscious sex that has to be tiptoed-around in conversation like we’re doing something shameful or taboo.

Taken further: I don’t believe any Truth-exalting culture would find this kind of secrecy/deception sexy in the first place.

Another example of commonplace deception:

The standard greeting of “Hi, how are you?”

Obviously, I’m a literal person. Certain social cues just seem to fly right over my head.

So in my youth, when someone would ask me “How are you doing?” I would give them an explanation of… how I was doing! Be it good or bad!

But then afterwards, I’ve been told by friends that the correct answer is “Fine.”

Why? Oh, because apparently, when someone asks how you’re doing, they don’t actually want to know how you’re doing!

Yet another unspoken code I’m just ~supposed to know~! 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲

Why is it me who’s SuPpOsEd tO kNoW that someone doesn’t actually care how I’m doing? Why would they ask the question at all, then???

To me it’s like: If you don’t want the answer, don’t ask the question.

😤

ONE MORE, now that I’m on a roll:

Sarcasm.

Dear God, do I hate sarcasm.

Look: I can get snarky with the best of ’em. Snark is not the issue.

There’s a specific brand of “sarcasm” that I find anti-Truthful, and it’s this:

When someone says literally the opposite of what is true, but with a specific tone of voice that’s supposed to signal that they’re lying.
So anyone who doesn’t pick up on their tone is considered stupid.

This is such a common trope in “comedy,” one might get the impression that lying itself is just funny somehow, for no other reason than because it gives us a chance to mock and belittle people.

Example:

Person A: “Do you think it might rain this week?”

Person B: “Yeah, because [sarcastic tone] it always rains around here.”

Person A: “Really?”

Person B: “No, you idiot.”

…

Pardon my naivete, but I don’t see what’s comical about malicious sarcasm.

Someone lied and somebody else believed them. Where is the joke in that?

I hate it!!!

I could give many more examples, but I would risk sounding trivial.

Besides, it’s not these specific examples that are giving me grief. It’s the overall acceptance of un-Truth in standard communication.

It bothers me — on a soul level — that people flagrantly say stuff they don’t mean, even when telling the Truth is a perfectly viable option.
The worst is when it’s normalized, encouraged, and rewarded.

But, being the possibility-motivated chaote that I am,

I just can’t help but wonder

what our world would be like

if deception weren’t the default setting.