Last week, we explored nine signs to watch out for if you suspect that somebody is lying to you. In this week's slightly more evil edition, we present the flip side: eight sneaky tips for lying effectively.
In a nutshell: don't act like a guilty liar. Maintain normal eye contact, don't act defensive and don't embellish your lies with extraneous details. To make your lies more believable, pair them up with half-truths or full-truths and like a good actor, the more you can subconsciously convince yourself that your lie is true, the more convincing you will seem when you actually tell your lie.
WARNING: Lying is not good for you, and is usually more trouble than it is worth. You have been warned.
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8 Comments
I feel evil reading this, but now I'm prepared.
You never know -- there might be a situation when lying might actually be for the greater good. :)
You should also tell that some time telling the truth just like you don't care is more efficient than lying
I won't believe a thing anyone here says
I always lie. :)
In some situations lying is forgivable. Katie Courac asked President Obama would he ever lie to the American public and he answered YES... but with the caveat that telling the truth would be critical to American peace & security. So its OK to lie in self-defense or the defense of others. Like bad guys ask if you are the only person in the house and you lie and say "No my husband is upstairs cleaning his gun for work." - Acceptable lie.
The best way to lie is to psych yourself out by actually believing in the lie when you tell it. Spies use this trick to "beat the box" - polygraph machine. Try to control your "tells" (body language). Do NOT shake your head "No" when your making a positive statement. Like saying: "I am absolutely telling you the truth!" but your head is shaking like your thinking "No don't believe me." Bad liars do this all the time.
Do not cross your arms. Don't shift your eyes or blink too much. Don't moisten your mouth as lying makes your mouth dry. Try not to show sweat around your forehead. Your heartbeat changes when you lie but people who are taking your pulse can only tell. Look at the bridge of the nose of the person being lied to as it looks like your staring straight into his/her eyes. Rear back into your chair at work and put your hands behind your head when lying. This conveys to them that you are comfortable around them and willing to share openly.
When someone tries to call you on the lie do not try to defend your lie. Just give up and say "OK believe what you want. I'm done here." Otherwise you look guilty. When someone is trying to dig a story out of you try and look disinterested while you concoct your whopper of a lie. That way they will have to keep digging it out of you and it won't appear to be a lie, at first. So don't embellish too much.
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Try and leave the story incomplete and go away from the scene. This will leave the person desiring to get more of the story from you later. Now you have more time to get all your ducks in order.
President Reagan was famous for saying: "Trust but verify". So when you have a WHOPPER of a lie that must be verified by others DON'T tell it until you have a massive back-story setup. Make sure all your friends and relatives are on-board with the lie and know the correct answers for verifiers. Use real people, places, things, addresses, and phone numbers. Sometimes when some of your back-story hits a snag create a defunct entity (i.e. bankrupt company, verified deceased person, etc.) that USED to exist but does not anymore - impossible to verify.
Like if your going to lie on a resume at least have all back-story channels covered by people who are willing to support your lies on the phone or by mail or email. People can fake a small company you never worked for. Also if your not sure what the REAL companies will say on your behalf - call them yourself acting like a prospective employee trying to verify your employment. If they tell too much truth try and figure out how to twist that into a believable lie.
Remember lies are usually by COMMISSION. Lies of OMISSION are lies too. People who leave out important details in a statement leaving the truth to the person's imagination is a lie of omission. Private Detectives do it all the time when using a pretext in an investigation. People think they are cops but they NEVER said they were cops - get it?
Never lie to hurt anyone or to make yourself richer. Only do it in defense of self or others.
Spooky
Excellent detailed advice (that I would have a difficult time articulating in a single illustrated blog post lest my drawing hand fall off)! Thank you, Spooky.
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