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gassy
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11 Oct 2010, 5:55 am

I got in a little argument with one of my housemates.

Basically I said "I asked you to clean up before"

He said "You definitely didn't".

I said "Im pretty sure I did. i cant be 100% certain so i may be wrong, but Im pretty sure I did".

Anyway he basically accused me of lying because i back tracked a bit.

I accept I shouldn't of said the first bit the way I did because that isn't what i meant and should have said something like "im pretty sure i asked you to clean up before".

But anyway in your opinions would that constitute as lying?



Cate
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11 Oct 2010, 6:16 am

No. I don't consider that lying. To me, lying is a conscious distortion of the truth, a deception. If someone is upholding the truth the best of their ability, although their words are perhaps not true, I do not think it constitutes lying.

I.E. If party A were to knowingly lie to you about certain information and then party B were to request from you this information, you would unknowingly pass the false information to party B. The information you passed was the truth to the best of your knowledge, though, in fact, it wasn't true. In this situation I would consider party A to be a liar and you to be honest, even though you both passed the same erroneous information to party B.

By the way, these sorts of power scuffles with roommates are some of the worst experiences in life. All I can say is: keep cool, be honest to the best of your ability, and know that the people who really count are behind you. I wish you all the best.



Dr_Horrible
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11 Oct 2010, 6:29 am

The best thing you could do is to write up everything which everyone are going to do and when they are supposed to do it. That way, no one could forget their responsibility. And no, you weren't lying, though there is a high probability that your room-mate is lying.



wavefreak58
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11 Oct 2010, 6:43 am

gassy wrote:
I got in a little argument with one of my housemates.

Basically I said "I asked you to clean up before"

He said "You definitely didn't".

I said "Im pretty sure I did. i cant be 100% certain so i may be wrong, but Im pretty sure I did".

Anyway he basically accused me of lying because i back tracked a bit.

I accept I shouldn't of said the first bit the way I did because that isn't what i meant and should have said something like "im pretty sure i asked you to clean up before".

But anyway in your opinions would that constitute as lying?


The problem here is that the guy is using the details of a situation (whether or not you actually told him) to avoid the core issue (he failed to clean up). He successfully diverted the stream of the conversation away from his trashing the flat to your inability to speak truthfully (which is of course a false assertion in an of itself).

NTs pull this crap all the time.


But to answer your question, for me, a lie is any behavior the intent of which is to obscure the truth.



OddFiction
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11 Oct 2010, 7:15 am

I would say not only did your actions not constitute lying,
your roomate was either lying in self defense, or in forgettfulness,
Your retreat to a maybe was very mature,
And your first sentence was very much the way most NT's say things -
So there is no spectre of guilt upon you in any way shape or form.

Now go tell him he's a jack(rabbit) and that you deserve better :P



League_Girl
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11 Oct 2010, 12:39 pm

To me a lie is when it's deliberate. Like on Friday I said I'd be at the aspie gathering but that day came and I decided to bail out because my parents were in town and I was busy putting furniture together and I didn't want to stop and leave and leave my husband and mom home with the work. I did not know this was going to happen so I didn't really lie just because I didn't keep my word. I knew they be in town but I didn't know I was going to be busy.

Someone not remember things things accurately or someone not having the same point of view as you over what happened between you two isn't lying.

If you tell someone something and you were wrong because you were misinformed or you didn't know what you were talking about, you weren't lying. But would it still be BS what you said? Oh yeah but I would refrain using that word to that person.