I Lie Alot - aspergers vs. dishonesty.

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I think we have extremes of lying too much and barely lying at all.

I'm capable of lying but I feel a physical discomfort when I do and I'd rather not lie. I remember when my mum made me lie about being out of town so I could vote early and I felt extremely uncomfortable about it. I was angry at her for a whole day, especially when she told me to stop being stupid and just do what she said. It was one of those last minute things too. God I hate it when that woman does that to me. I think I lost some respect for her that day too.

White lies I can do especially when people ask you what you think and they really just want you to agree with them, though when they ask about clothing I will give my honest opinion or simply say 'I don't know' because honestly I know very little about fashion.

I practically live a lie at school. I have to be someone I'm not so that I'm not treated like crap.

I lie pretty often. I find it very difficult to lie when confronted.

To suggest that AS always causes an aversion to lying, and that someone who lies often can't have AS, is silly. Being (in a sense) narcissistic and having low self esteem is pretty common with Asperger's; it's tempting to invent lies to protect my self-image. Just little lies usually. I'll say I studied for 3 hours instead of 1, I'll say there was heavy traffic if I'm late somewhere, I'll tell my dad I got something done if I intend to have it done by the time he gets home. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who spends hours thinking about and analyzing society and the way the mind works. Morality is subjective.

I only lie when I need to. But I'm very good at lying! If I wasn't good at lying, I think I would have been kicked off the dole ages ago.....

I find I can't lie as I'm too outspoken and say what I think at times.

I've had many issues with lying or bending the truth.
People have told me that I can't have AS because of this... that aspies are notoriously honest and "can't lie".

But as some others in this thread have mentioned, I learned that lying could be an effective coping/defense mechanism in the short-term. To me, it was a way to shape socialization to my terms. If I was out around people and I totally misunderstood an expression or a gesture and got communication wrong, I found that I could lie about my error/miscommunication, fill in the gaps in whatever these people were expecting to hear, and they were usually satisfied. If I was honest with them, they tended to get frustrated or angry with me and think I was either stupid or not paying attention to them.

I know this is wrong. It is leading people on. In the past I did not have this kind of objectivity, and I hurt a lot of peoples' feelings in the process. Today I try my best to be honest with people, and let them know if I am having trouble understanding them, even though it invites scrutiny and criticism on me.

I can relate to everything the OP says, except for the ToM-piece. Sometimes my lies have even been superfluous, but I guess theyre all social-related. I think I lie mostly in situations where I foresee, that the truth would be to heavy for people. Maybe it means that I dont expect people to be open enough to deal with my thoughts and emotions without becoming close to traumatized, because my thoughts and emotions dont fit to normality. If I tell the truth I risk to be accused for being too sensitive, over-reacting and so on, and people often give me the advice to stop thinking about >important< stuff. When I tell something, people can also think its sad and try to cheer me up, when its not sad at all AND SO ON. If I see that it is going to be a big effort to be honest about personal stuff I mostly just shut up.

Lying used to be a problem around 20, and I got away with it, but it led me into confusion about myself, and now Ive learned to be honest even though I know I leave many people with a question mark, because I dont bother explaining too much, just leaving them shocked with my views.

Sometimes my lies have been generated by other people when I have received a question about a compact story they believed about me, and I just had to answer yes or no. It was just easy to say yes or no to continue with something else, whereby I didnt really realize what they where asking before I answered, and then it got complicated to turn around, and so there are situations where people actually make up stories around me like that, and I have a feeling of guilt afterwards.
I think it used to happen because I was used to adapt and "catch the ball" from my surroundings, and so such spesific stories and the expectation of the person asking me the question drove me to "go with the flow", if that is even understandable.

Concerning making a reputation: My reputation is in your head, spooking around along with your own desire to make one for yourself. Just watch and learn while I dont care.

I have an extreme distaste for lies and deception of any kind. Lies and decption only serve to confirm the fact that so many people (especially NTs) out there are totally unworthy of my trust... and as Aspies, we often have issues with trust. The only time that I will practice lies or deception are those all too frequent times when I am surrounded by people who have already violated my trust, so that I might gain some small degree of privacy in my isolated Aspie world without the rest of the world being able to so precisely predict my behavior and use it as a tool against me.