Catching someone in a lie

Have you ever caught a someone in a lie?

When I use the term “lying“, I’m not referring to “a song by an Australian band”, or “a 2006 film”, or even “a horizontal position” kinds of lying. Nope; I’m talking about the good ol’ fashioned kind of lying: when someone tells you “a deliberate untruth”.

Recently this happened to me. I sort of pushed the envelope. I asked questions to which I was receiving vague answers and had actually just decided to drop the line of questioning altogether when the universe intervened.

Well, the universe by way of a table of bystanders (sitstanders?) who may or may not have overheard the conversation, the particulars of which I won’t publish here One of them made a statement to the person that I was talking with and she was forced to acknowledge it, thereby giving away that what she had been telling me was not true. A big, fat lie.  She could not have been and not have been some place at the same time. Turned out, she was there. After she told me that she was not there.

So. She didn’t comment at all after answering the bystander, thereby contradicting what she had told me just a few minutes prior.  What should I do about this?

I ultimately decided not to do anything. Why should I, now that we both know that she was not telling me the truth?  I have been giving some important information about her character (and perhaps our friendship) that I did not have before. I guess that’s enough.

Interestingly, she was not the only person in this particular week that I realized was lying to me. Right to me face. When asked a direct question. Unbelievable, right?

For now, I think that I’ll keep that in the back of my mind.

Moral: I guess there’s a lot of lying going around…so be careful out there!