Lying: Gender Differences? Split from "update to my stealth love story"

[tekla]

guys are usually more decieving and lying...

You need to get out more.  While men tend to be better at the thousand little lies, no one tells the one big lie better than women do.

[buttercup]

Sorry bout the heartache.

guys are usually more decieving and lying...

You need to get out more.  While men tend to be better at the thousand little lies, no one tells the one big lie better than women do.

Could you enlighten me on what the big one is?      

[Tanya1]

guys are usually more decieving and lying...

You need to get out more.  While men tend to be better at the thousand little lies, no one tells the one big lie better than women do.

yea guys sometimes lie to look good or get respect.

[NicholeW.]

guys are usually more decieving and lying...

You need to get out more.  While men tend to be better at the thousand little lies, no one tells the one big lie better than women do.

yea guys sometimes lie to look good or get respect.

Hmmm. Interesting thoughts, both. Different ways of operating? Guys: boisterous, rabble-rousing, preening in that understated way that includes 'straight-talking' (read: using their notion of 'truth' like a club.) Women tend toward being able to attempt to remain in-relationship and still point out some discrepancy in quiet and understated ways often enough (The BIg One.) Surely not, doesn't that belong on the male-side of the equation?   

Upbringing? Working to remain viable in a culture set-up on the basis of demeaning one gender and lauding the other?

That seems like a consideration as well. Off-the-cuff, brash and an intention to be hurtful and dismissive do not "The Truth" make, but guys often think and act as though those were the ONLY NECESSARY ingredients of "The Truth."

Sometimes the truth is much better than "The Truth." If guys weren't raised entitled they might understand that a bit better.

Since they don't, usually, I'd say Deniz did this just about right. Why risk body when she had already lost her heart? I suppose the 'honest' thing would have been to simply say 'O, by the way, I have a penis even though you wouldn't think so from the way I look.'

Result: a beating, loud and rude words from him and deep anger, resentment, humiliation -- probably on both sides. Does any of that serve "Truth?" Get real! That serves jaw-jutting machismo regardless of how it's exterior is decorated by whomever.

Nichole

[tekla]

OK, men lie to make themselves look good, women lie to get what they want.  You might have to lie a lot of little lies to make yourself look good, but if you lie to get what you want, your really going to hurt someone.

[NicholeW.]

Deniz started a thread to update us on her relationship quandry and the chat has been taken in a direction that seemed like a topic in itself. Thus, I split some of the posts from that thread and have begun this thread as a discussion about lying and how or whether gender differences make for different lying styles.

Nichole

Posted on: February 29, 2008, 07:40:43 AM

OK, men lie to make themselves look good, women lie to get what they want.  You might have to lie a lot of little lies to make yourself look good, but if you lie to get what you want, your really going to hurt someone.

Huh? So a thousand small cuts that totally wipe out any form of relational honesty in order for one party to plump his 'image' are better than a lie told one time outright to 'get what I want?'

What is the difference, exactly? And how, exactly is the 'one big one' going to be worse?

This is beginning to sound like a 2nd grade playground argument over gender-distinctions. Maybe the boys and girls should just separate ourselves into different sides of the playground, tekla! 

Nichole

[Tanya1]

women lie to get what they want. 

It depends really, sometimes women lie to avoid hurting someone or being mean- just to be polite. sometimes men do the same.

But people in my perspective regardless of gender are rather prone to lying when first meeting someone. But sometimes lying is good because you may not want to give too much information that isn't nessecary.

Guys usaully try to impress girls they like and may lie a bit or try to look like someone they are not. They usually try to look macho in front of girls. Even nerdy guys or those stereotypical nice guys try to impress girls with some type of act.

IDK, but girls usually get hit on, but when girls do approach guys they may also to try to impress a guy. But I believe they mostly try to "Test", "get to know", "see how they think" and "try to play with those cards"...

Lying is in both genders. However impersonation and being an "actor" is a little bit more in guys- not trying to stereotype or anything but guys during a relationship usaully turn out to be very different from before.

But I'd say one thing, Guys are VERY bad liars, some maybe good, but you can usually tell if a guy is lying, what he thinks of you, if he likes someone or not etc...what they are really good at is hiding their personality flaws at the beggining of a relationship.


PS. Not trying to act like a expert or anything, so somebody else may want to shed some more light...

[tekla]

I'm not even thinking into relationships yet.  I'm just thinking that guys tend to tell other people what they want to hear (eager to please and all) while women tend to tell lies based on what they want other people to think.

"Yeah, I'm the best, baddest, right guy for the job - Etc. Etc.  Etc.  Is a world away from....

"You still my love (as they just got back from the divorce attorney.) 

Men might (and do) lie about all the little stuff - yeah it's a thousand lies like "I only had a couple of beers with the boys" (When in fact, a six pack would not have held the empties) but if a woman every lies to you, its gonna break your heart - male of female - which is why girls trust boys, far more than they trust other girls.  No one dies from the death of a thousand paper cuts.  They die from the knife in the heart.  Read the recent post, about a guy, who's GF lied to him, time in and time out, and then broke up with him on some pretense, because she could not admit the truth.  Ouch.  Ask yourself, how does he feel tonight?

There is a reason that the most successful professional killers in the history of the world, the best spies, are all girls.  Jesus was the only guy betrayed by a kiss from a guy.  Most guy got that from a girl.

[Keira]

The number of times I've heard from girlfriend that
a guy invented some, or many things about their past
or present situation, incalculable.

I doubt any women would lie that much to make themselves
look better. That of course comes back to bite the guy later
if he went to far. Often though, the girl will excuse
these lies, at least initially if they're not too outlandish
(a bit like a resume being embelished). But, later when the
relationship's on the rock, they'll come back on the carpet.

Of course, a women will lie too. Most often to protect herself
or the feeling of others (this is a cultural thing undoubtably).
So, women's lies are usually less agressive and overt.

Of course, if she's cheating, hey she'll lie like the best of men :-).

[NicholeW.]

I'm not even thinking into relationships yet.  ...

... which is why girls trust boys, far more than they trust other girls.  No one dies from the death of a thousand paper cuts.  They die from the knife in the heart.  Read the recent post, about a guy, who's GF lied to him, time in and time out, and then broke up with him on some pretense, because she could not admit the truth.  Ouch.  Ask yourself, how does he feel tonight?

There is a reason that the most successful professional killers in the history of the world, the best spies, are all girls.  Jesus was the only guy betrayed by a kiss from a guy.  Most guy got that from a girl.

Ya think a thousand paper cuts don't hurt? Don't leave at some point a very bad taste and response to the cutter in the one who's cut?

That's rather ludicrous when you stop for five seconds and just hold that in your mind.

I think you will find that women actually do trust other women, a whole lot more than that ridiculous platitude you re-unearthed about us implies. It's simply a matter of when one places that trust in another woman. But, believe this, when it's something big and not simply some fluffy stuff about 'competition.' Then we trust other women.

O yes, we trust other women to help us with the big things. Like saving our skins when we've realized that we may have gone too far with a guy who might well do what guys do: "get physical." What she told him she told him to save herself getting, perhaps, physically hurt. And you know it. He aches now, but he doesn't do something to end her life or cripple her. And he finds a new 'love' and goes about his business once more. That's cruel? 

So, can we simply 'cut to the chase' and go about this in a straight-forward fashion instead of continuing to dance around the crux of your problem with women? Something along the lines of this, perhaps.

Why does tekla hate/despise women? Particularly those women who have a transsexual past? What is it that you find so very disgusting about the entire sex? And why the venom and the seeming inability to ever chat about 'CD' issues? You're always posting on 'transsexual' issues? Yet, you id as CD? Hmmm. Ready for those truths to come out?

Isn't it time you just laid out the agenda you have and speak to the heart of the matter? Show us just how 'honesty and truth' are supposed to work?

Nichole

P.S. Please be aware that 'having a relationship' and 'being in relationship' are two different items. Go read Portia's plea to the Duke in "A Merchant of Venice" and try to replace 'the quality of mercy' with first, 'the quality of a love affair' and then with the 'quality of relationship' and see if you cannot tell the difference then. 

[tekla]

Go read Portia's plea to the Duke in "A Merchant of Venice" and try to replace 'the quality of mercy' with first, 'the quality of a love affair' and then with the 'quality of relationship' and see if you cannot tell the difference then.

Odd, I didn't think we were in Elizabethan England anymore, (Otherwise I would have kept my ruffles)  and hey, as long as you are using Merchant as some sort of uber text, please tell us what you think of Jews?  Or are you just picking and choosing what you like to be right?

In my careers, both of them, honesty was paramount.  I got students kicked out for plagiarism and cheating, (I made it my point in life as a matter of fact) and if you ever lie to me on a show call, it will be the last time you ever walk on that stage. 

Either way, its lies - its a difference of quality and duration, and style too.  It does not make one right or one wrong.  Each is wrong, each is lying, just a matter of style.

And I've got several swell paper cuts in my life, yeah they hurt.  But I've also cut myself deeply on more than once occasion, there is a huge difference.  One takes a few bad words to get rid of - the other an emergency ward, and doctor, big difference.

[NicholeW.]

That still didn't answer the question. The ones about agenda? And misogyny?

That answer seemed like just a lot of sturm und drang significant of nothing much at all except deflecting those questions.

Sorry you've been hurt, no one deserves to be sent to an ER over a love affair. No one.

N~

[tekla]

I don't think that even people in an auto accident deserve to be sent to the ER.  Hence my non-prize winning idea of building everything out of foam rubber and stryofoam.  Hey, it would work to keep people from being hurt at least.  Motor mounts and engine heating aside.

Do you want your doctor to have cheated his way through Chem?

Or the guy/girl at Midas to have cribbed his/her way through break jobs?  Is it ok for them to say "sure" when asked if they bleed the lines, if they have not?

Exactly in your life Nichole, what is a person worth, if thier word is worth nothing?

And, why is love any differerent than a brake job?  Why should TRUST the people I work with, when I tell them to "put a wrench on every bolt" and when I ask them if they did it, have them lie to me?  It's not like I'M GOING TO BE UNDER IT, why should I care if it falls?  It's only full of electric cables an inch or two in diameter, connected directly to 'power from the pole' as it were, and its only falling on a water/beer soaked floor, and it only weighs half a ton, and its only falling from 45 feet in the air - heck, how badly could that hurt people?  (And that's just the lighting, the sound - sound by the pound - is slightly heaver.)

Everyone who lies has an agenda.  And its thier agenda, and thier agenda only.  Does anyone ever lie to make someone else feel better?  No, they lie to avoid consequences, or because they don't care.  Either way.

And misogyny - ain't got nothing to do with that, I was just saying that men and women have (on the average) different styles, and different definations, of lying.  An ommision of critical fact might be seen - and on the average is - by men as a cleaver use of language.  Women think its lying.  Redefining terms, is cleaver to men, and might even be valid - women see it different.

To wit: you might remember a a few years ago when an Ex-President said "I never had sex, with that woman, Miss Lewnsky."  I'm sure - and I know a lot of people, all guys, me included, who would agree with him, that a hummer is not sex, 'no meat in the taco is not cooking' - but I've never met a girl who thinks that.  Perhaps because they do all the labor in that transaction.

But really, what degree of lying do you accept from people around you.  Obviously, a lot more than I do.

[NicholeW.]

"Everyone tells the truth, tekla. You simply must hear the truth they are telling you." Someone called the 'old sage' said that a few thousand years ago. I find that they are right, not clever at all, simply right.

I hear your truth. Find it sad-cynical with a kind of bitter after-taste. But, I wonder, do you hear your own truth? Do you hear 'clever' or, perhaps even more appropriately, as you wrote, 'cleaver:' not a parsing of your truth, but a heavy-handed axe-like instrument falling over and over trying to cut sinew and bone to fashion whatever it is you attempt to fashion into the image you are comfortable with?

The cleaver works to hew out the form of other lives you'll never know.

I can see leaving the complexity of academic politics for the kind of physical labor you say you do now. Makes perfect sense in fact, seems cleaner with the sweat and grime I would bet. Buoys you in a way that a suit and books can never manage. Perhaps with the dirt it is cleaner than the academic life. Such jobs often are it seems.

But that core of unease remains, no? The cynic covers the soft heart of the boy rejected. Which sufferer is more alive than the other? *sigh* No matter, they both live and that's the core of it. The worst of it, and the blessing of it.

There's an ease there somewhere that cannot be hewn. It's simply there. To discover that is the task.

Be well, Kat. 

Nichole

[Rachael]

OK, men lie to make themselves look good, women lie to get what they want.  You might have to lie a lot of little lies to make yourself look good, but if you lie to get what you want, your really going to hurt someone.

<-- never seen a more male sentiment....
Someone fetch and angrogyne to mediate... or this is going to turn into man bash woman, woman bash man....


Tbh, both sexes lie, BOTH to make themselves look good, AND get what they want, HUMANS lie....
Get over it.
R >

[Rowan_Danielle]

OK, men lie to make themselves look good, women lie to get what they want.  You might have to lie a lot of little lies to make yourself look good, but if you lie to get what you want, your really going to hurt someone.

<-- never seen a more male sentiment....
Someone fetch and angrogyne to mediate... or this is going to turn into man bash woman, woman bash man....


Tbh, both sexes lie, BOTH to make themselves look good, AND get what they want, HUMANS lie....
Get over it.
R >

There might be different frequencies in the types of lies based on gender.  But you're right in that both sides lie to make themselves look good and both sides lie to get what they want.

Now there are some lies that are gender dependent.  "I'm pregnant" could be one.

[lady amarant]

Now there are some lies that are gender dependent.  "I'm pregnant" could be one.

Well, technically not gender so much as biological sex dependant ... I'm in a splitting of the hairs mood tonight... 

Though that is quite an important distinction to make...

[tekla]

Its a difference in frequency and damage that I'm thinking about.   Since they both are done out of a sense of self, that's not the issue.   That in the end the hundereds of little lies might well add up to the one big one, perhaps.  Still, its a basic, and frequent difference.


And the rest of that stuff is overthought.  Some people are just dumb enough to keep on doing what they like, just because they like it.  That's me, dumb enough to do what I enjoy, and avoid what I don't.  And it was not even the academia I disliked.  It was the students.  I could have researched and written forever - matter of fact, I still do some of that.

[Rachael]

humans will do what they like, becuase they like it... thats life....






oh yeah, and freewill...
R >

[tekla]

One of the poets once said that most people have lives of quite desperation.  I'm not all that sure he was wrong.  And, I'm sure lots of people do lots of things they don't like, from staying married 'for the sake of the kids' to jobs they hate - but hate being homeless and/or hungry more.  I'm sure I'm not the only person who ever did things because they thought they were 'expected' to.