Why do we lie?

Today I decided to take a break from writing about celebrities, politics and the economy. Even though these are some of my favourite topics, for the next few weeks there will be a moratorium on all articles concerning that (don’t hold me to that; I do go back on what I say).

On to the actual point of this article.

This was originally a question that Colin had asked me when we had gone out the past weekend. Somewhere between the third round of tequila and the tenth cup of coffee, he turned to me and said:

“Why do we as men lie to women?”

Now we’re the type of people that before we even answer our own questions, we ask everybody else the question first and then dissect their answers. Here are some of the common answers we got:

“Guys are assholes”. “We don’t respect women”. And some nonsense about fear.

You’re going to have to ask CJ about that last one, since it made absolutely no sense to me. (Sidebar: for those who don’t know him, CJ is one of my closest friends. He runs an incredible fashion blog called ourMode with his adorable girlfriend, Katherine. You should check it out!)

It was hearing all these replies that got me thinking about a similar different question (that’s not a typo FYI):

Why do we, as people, lie to each other and more importantly to ourselves?

Is lying instinctual or a learned behaviour?

Honesty is supposed to be one of the tenets we say we hold dear. But we don’t exactly stay true to that do we?

It’s something we all do. We lie about big things and we lie about small things. We tell lies of omissions and we tell blatant lies. We lie to the people we love and we lie to the people we hate.

But more importantly we lie to ourselves.

Is it because we are afraid to face up to the truth, that we turn to lying? It can’t be as simplistic as that.

When I lie, I do it because as that specific moment it suits me to keep things hidden. But I also do it at times when there is no clear benefit for me, so that’s not necessarily my answer.

I”m quite fond of my lies of omission actually. If you don’t ask me a specific question or even if you phrase that self-same question incorrectly, I will find a way to omit something. Its not malicious and I know its not pathological. It will just happen.

I know plenty of people that I would not classify as dishonest, but they will lie about the smallest things without batting an eye. And I’m not necessarily talking about large-scale constructed lies. I’m talking about small ones. Inconsequential things.

Are we just naturally dishonest or is there a deeper reason to this?

Anybody care to share why they lie?