I can be very good at lying, but usually I really don't like doing it - I have fundamentally honest morals in life.
However, I'm also a really bad person and I've told some big-small lies in the past:
Basically, I've always seemed to convey a character of strength, resilience and independence, no matter what I was feeling inside. As a child I always saw how kids would look after each other if they ever fell and grazed their knee or something like that. If I fell and grazed my knee there was never anyone there for me. I would sort myself out. And in all honesty, that was my preference, but I still felt the void of having anyone to care for me occasionally.
So then, as a teen I was in a long-term relationship with someone who would turn out to be emotionally abusive, but at the time I thought he was loving and loyal. I had the same experience with him, that when I needed him he wasn't there for me, that I always had to look after myself. Which is where the lying started.
Continuing with the analogy of a grazed knee, I found that he would give me just a word of sympathy but no more. And so, if I wanted the care that I really needed, it had to be more than just a grazed knee - like a deep cut or a broken leg. I got into the habit of embellishing a lot of stuff that mattered to me simply to raise it to the level where I would get the proportionate response from my partner.
Doing this for 5 years changed me as a person. I started to become my lies. Eg. If I told him I had a phobia, which was actually just a fear, I had to become that person to make the lie possible and to make it work. In the end I'd effectively turned my fear into a real phobia just by thinking of it as such.
So my lying was never intended to harm anyone, but I guess it does constitute manipulation at the very least. I feel bad about it, not least because of how it's affected me. But at the same time, I feel he drove me to that because he did turn out to be a nasty piece of work. I never lie to my current partner in this way, but my current partner still has to deal with all the issues that I "created" for myself back then. I'm not sure my current partner knows this is how some of my issues developed, although I think he sees through me more than he lets on which is one of the things I love about him. He's such a caring person, I don't think I would ever have lied if I'd met him first.
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AQ: 32 (up to 37 when answering instinctively); EQ: 21 - 24; SQ: 31
Reading the Mind in the Eyes: 32
RAADS-R: 85
RDOS Aspie score: 115/200; NT score: 79/200