Acceptable and unacceptable lies

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Hi everyone, I used to be terrible at lies, or trying to hide / not mention something, but now I'm much better at it. I just wanted to ask you about lies which are acceptable, or not so acceptable in your opinion.

I'll give a few examples, and I hope you can please reply to it based on your experiences, or what you personally think.

- I'm on a date with a girlfriend, and she's asking me personal questions, or asking about issues which I wouldnt want her to see a negative impression of me about it. Say, she asks if I live with my parents or alone. And I tell her I live alone, despite the fact I still have a few days before I actually move.

- People asking about my disability, and I just tell them I dont have any disability or tell them its a very minor issue which is barely noticeable, even if in certain social situations it can be more noticeable.

- I tell someone I'm poor and miserable or pretend to be when I'm not so much, so they can sell me something for cheaper or give me various benefits without having to go through a more complicated procedure to get the same thing.

- I tell a friend I'm busy when I'm not, or couldnt answer the phone because I was busy, when in reality I was just in a bad mood.

- I tell a different story of something, in a way that would sound as something good enough to allow me to get something important, when in reality certain parts of the story doesnt match what actually happened or what the situation really is.

- Someone finds out I lied about something, and I just tell them I didnt know, or pretend like I didnt mean to lie about it.

I think the it's ok to lie thing is normally to spare peoples feelings. Generally being deceitful and misleading people is not really ok.

How about lying to yourself to protect your feelings and to impress your friends and family. Would that be Imposture Syndrome?

This is entirely up to you. If you know you can get away with saying that you're living alone then you can tell her that, being so you're moving out in a few days anyway. But you need to remember that there is no shame in living with your parents. So if you do decide to tell her, just add a bit of emotion to it, like "yes, I was living with my parents which I do feel a little embarrassed about, but I am moving out in a few days." Then you can add a lie like "it just took me a while to save up" or something like that.



I have swept my disability under the rug in my offline life, and I don't tell anyone about it. If someone does ask, I just say something like "I don't like loud noises" or "I've always been really crap at math". You can dislike loud noises and be bad at math without having an ASD, as long as you don't express your dislike to loud noise in an autistic way.



I'm not sure with this one. A lot of people do this but I don't like pretending to be more disadvantaged than I really am, in case I get found out, by spies or something. But I suppose it depends on what country you live in and what the laws are. But just be careful when money is involved. I like to be as honest as I can when there is money involved, as I'm not the sort to milk the system.



This is OK. I'm sure everybody has done this at least once.



I do that too, usually to avoid trouble or embarrassment.



If you think it will sound plausible if you pretend you didn't know about it then it's OK. I do this a lot too.


Hope this helps.

I agree, I call these white lies - it's perfectly acceptable when not wanting to hurt someones feelings and isn't causing others to be hurt out of bad intent. though in reality - everybody lies, it's a human thing though these days i pride myself on not doing so without valid reason like if i know someone is coming to visit and i intend on potentionally not following through with seeing them then i try be mindful and let them know but might lie as im worried what they may think of me

this ruined my life.

This seems to be the commonly accepted practice among people, especially NTs. It's just that I hate it that children are taught "lying is bad", and yet when we grow up, we're expected to tell these "hite lies" in certain situations. And that's just stupid. If certain kinds of lies are acceptable in certain kinds of situations, why can't people just teach that to children from the beginning?

You need to develop some sort of moral code rather than asking other people what kinds of lies are acceptable.

Do you want people to believe and trust you? Are you willing to be caught lying and to get a reputation as a liar? Do you care about how your lies affect other people? Do you value honesty? These are the things you consider to develop a moral code.