Has anyone with AS mastered the art of lying?

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I mean, has anyone on here learned how to lie without feeling bad about it and, thus, screwing it up? If I could learn to lie without feeling guilty, my husband could supply me with the particular lies I need to tell in order to get what I need in life. It's that guilt that gets in the way and makes me unable to tell the lies or maintain one for very long after telling it.

If anyone has managed to overcome the so-called "integrity" that occurs naturally in so many aspies, I'd like to know how he/she did it.

I don't want to hear "honesty is the best policy," either, because it is clearly not. People who lie all the time get what they need out of life while people like me who are honest either have to rely on others with high empathy skills (who lie for them) to fulfill even basic needs or those needs just go unmet and we suffer.

My husband just convinces himself that the lie is necessary by thinking about what would happen if he told the truth vs. the lie, but even when a lie is necessary, I feel guilty about it -- that it is "wrong." I guess I need to know how to rewrite my moral code that, after all, other people wrote for me when I was a child.

Absolutingly. I think it happened with me in middle or high school - my whole group of friends from that time onwards could be considered 'smooth criminals', I've only gotten one speeding ticket from a real person in my entire life, and my mom was in the passenger seat.

Nope. I'm not even good at the little white ones.

I'm in the "Not sure if I have it or not" category re ASDs, but I'm very bad at telling lies and would normally never do so, so maybe this will be of some use to you:

(Apologies in advance for the possibly inane examples; I interact very little with people, and have become increasingly unwilling to try and pander to people's expectations in any case, so I very rarely have cause to lie.)

If I must tell a lie, then while I'm making up whatever I'm going to say, I imagine that actually happening. So if, for example, I want to lie that I bought something at the supermarket when in fact I bought it at the corner shop, as I'm thinking up the lie that I went to the supermarket, I'll imagine myself going to the supermarket and buying it there. (So you'd have to imagine yourself doing, or saying, or thinking whatever lie your husband supplies you with.) Then when I'm actually telling the lie, I recall the imagined scenario rather than what I actually did. This works reasonably well, although I'm always very relieved when the subject is changed. If I had to tell a very elaborate lie, I would try and imagine everything in great detail beforehand, but I'm not sure I'd manage to keep it up.

The other thing, though, which is more pertinent to your question, is that I have to convince myself that the person I'm lying to doesn't deserve, or at the very least doesn't need to know the truth, or that it will make the situation much more annoying, difficult or unpleasant if I answer honestly. For me, this is mostly if someone asks me something that I don't think is any of their business. I'll still find it easier to bluntly tell them that it's none of their business, or to answer honestly and then watch them try and wrap their heads around the fact that, for e.g., I like being alone at Christmas. But if that tactic seems inadvisable, I can overcome my unwillingness to lie by reminding myself that e.g. how I'm spending Christmas is none of their business, and they shouldn't have asked me about it in the first place.

If your problem is white lies, i.e. being expected to say "I really like your new haircut" when you're thinking "what the hell happened to your head?!", a trick that works (a little) for me is to find something about it I do like and then compliment that. So with the haircut example, I might think the cut is horrible but they've had some highlights put in that are an interesting colour, so rather than "Wow, it's awful", I might say, "I really like the highlights!". That isn't a lie, so I can pull it off halfways convincingly, although I fear the initial look of dismay on my face is sometimes too obvious... Also, there is rarely a reason to feel guilty about making someone feel a little better about themselves, so lying outright in circumstances like that, if you can do it, is not wrong, IMO.

Socially, omission tends to work just fine for me. What isn't stated either in body language or words is imperceptible to many.

I wouldn't want to lie without feeling bad about it, I've been used, mistreated and abused by too many sociopaths to whom that behavior is as natural as breathing and I would never want to be like them. I despise liars, probably more than anything on earth.

As coffeebean says, if I don't want others to know something, I simply fail to mention it. Or just shrug if anyone asks.

I don't think I could have the heart to have to knowingly lie to people.

I wouldn't want to lie because I wouldn't want someone to do it to me, I want to be trusted, and lying is wrong.

I could say "yes", but would anyone here believe me!!.
... it would be lying though


I find it difficult, lying by omission is much easier.

Cheers

Maybe try focusing on your goal, and what it is you value, rather than on the process by which you get there. And use omission, people tend to fill in the blanks themselves, so if you can avoid correcting them that helps, too. But I don't think it should be easy to lie, just something one might learn to do out of necessity sometimes. If it's too painful to you to lie, don't.

But self preservation does sometimes necessitate keeping quiet in the face of something wrong. You can think of that as a lie, but life is easier if you can think of it as letting someone else be wrong. Sometimes it really is better not to fight every battle.

Last edited by Waterfalls on 30 Nov 2013, 9:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Lying is hard. Truth is easy. I love truth because it's real.
Liars use language to manipulate.
Truthful people use language to communicate.

I have lied, on many occasions. I'm not good at it. I hate it, and I hate myself later, even if it was for a "noble purpose".

My boss has learnt through bitter experience not to include me in new meetings with clients, because I can point out all the problems with a particular project, and all the ways in which it will likely go wrong.

I think you need to know that stuff so you can make contingency plans and budget accordingly. My boss agrees, but clients don't like it.

So now I don't go to client meetings.

And that suits me just fine.

Omission, a non-committal shrug or changing the subject is definitely the best option, I agree, and is usually what I will do if at all possible.

But especially in a one-on-one conversation, people can sometimes be very insistent, and then I find myself having to decide between being blunt or being dishonest, and blunt just isn't always the better choice. Especially because when I get blunt, I can be very blunt indeed because I'm already angry at being put in that situation, so that tends not to go so well...

NO I cannot lie at all. If my mom asks me if I like her shirt and I don't, I say I don't. (I used to go more in-depth: it makes you look bigger, the sleeves are uneven, the coloring does not compliment you, etc.) but I have at least learned to be more tactful, even if I always speak the truth.

Possessing the skill doesn't mean I lie for any motive except staying out of trouble. Generally speaking I loathe deceit, and my abilities with it help me every day in sorting out the truth.

Exactly. I don't see why anyone would want to be able to lie without feeling guilty. Lying hurts people.

"Little white lies" are not something I really do. I prefer to tell the truth and have learned to do so politely most of the time. It's easier to tell the truth in a diplomatic way than it is to deceive someone; it doesn't take so much mental multi-tasking. Besides, people don't like being lied to, even if it is just a little white lie.

There are a few situations where lying can help people... a very, very few. In those situations, I seem to be able to lie, if I have to, by treating the lie as though it were true. When I tell a lie like that, I believe it while I'm saying it. But I don't think I could do that if it was the kind of lie that hurt someone. I can't remember how long it's been since I had to do that... I just know that it's something I can do, if I really have to.