Has anyone been accused of being a liar?

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MrMacPhisto
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18 Aug 2018, 12:00 am

Has anyone been accused of being a liar due to lack of eye contact?

Someone once made assumption that if you don’t make eye contact you are lying. Which I think is a ridiculous statement, and also think it is a bit of a childish statement as well.

I was accused once due to me not making eye contact which really upset me.

I think someone needs to change that theory and explain how there are other reason for lack of eye contact and to take those things into consideration.



Tequila
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18 Aug 2018, 12:29 am

A lack of eye contact could be considered submissive rather than lying.



Blue Thunder
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18 Aug 2018, 12:40 am

I don't think so. I read a book recently about body language that stated that people lying make more eye contact sometimes. Lack of eye contact is seen more as being shy from my experience.



MrMacPhisto
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18 Aug 2018, 12:52 am

They used to say that lack of eye contact was a sign of lying. I watched a programme from about 25 years ago on YouTube and they made that reference. Also I once stayed at a friends house that also told me the same thing because I was making eye contact. This person taught there son that lack of eye contact meant lying. I don’t agree with that assumption but there are people that do. Sadly I got accused of lying because someone believed that assumption and I was actually telling the truth.



Magna
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18 Aug 2018, 1:08 am

Two times I can think of where I believe I was strongly considered to be the suspect due to me being very uncomfortable with the situation and avoiding eye contact.

First in high school. Apparently someone filled one of the teacher's pottery mugs full with rubber cement. He was upset about it and questioned all of us asking if anyone did it. He asked me later privately if I'd done it (which I hadn't). I felt wrongfully accused.

Years later I worked in an insurance claims processing office. We all were given a number of claims each morning which were distributed to us by our supervisor. We each had a mail cubby for our stack of assigned claims. We were on quota being required to process a certain number of claims to maintain employment. One of my co-workers was a minority woman. We were all called to gather around the supervisor's office. The supervisor informed us that some had put a racially charged offensive note in the co-worker's cubby and the supervisor said the perpetrator could meet with the supervisor privately or admit it right then and there. I was extremely uncomfortable with the situation and I don't think that I imagined the supervisor looking at me long and hard. It turned out that the co-worker made the note herself and put it in her own cubby. Why? She had been consistently falling behind in her production and feared that she was going to be terminated. I was very angry at her for putting all of us, who were innocent, in that position.



Spiderpig
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18 Aug 2018, 1:27 am

A lot of times. A teacher even acted like my continuous lying was a very well-known, undeniable fact. I’m not sure if eye contact was much of an issue at that point.

At any rate, you have to accept that to almost everyone, by instinct, lack of eye contact means you’re afraid of them, and, in turn, this means you have a good reason to be afraid beyond the simple fact that they may at any time, just because they feel like it, either beat the crap out of you themselves or get someone else to help them do it. In other words, they’ll always see it as a sign of cowardice and everything associated with it, and it’ll duly revolt them.

Funnily enough, I learned the theoretical importance of eye contact as a matter of honesty, but long before I made the connection above. Therefore, I began to force myself to keep my gaze fixed into other people’s eyes, or very close to them, whether I was talking to them or not, and without necessarily paying attention to them. I felt a stupid pride in apparently beating them at their own game. Little did I know yet that in life, when things seem so easy, you’re missing something crucial and solving the wrong problem. Very few people in that environment looked likely to beat the crap out of me, and I failed to realize I’d never dare play that game with someone who did. In particular, it must’ve helped women see me even more like a creep.


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Last edited by Spiderpig on 18 Aug 2018, 3:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

Spiderpig
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18 Aug 2018, 1:34 am

Magna wrote:
First in high school. Apparently someone filled one of the teacher's pottery mugs full with rubber cement. He was upset about it and questioned all of us asking if anyone did it. He asked me later privately if I'd done it (which I hadn't). I felt wrongfully accused.


Once, the small amount of money we had collected that far for a trip we were planning for the summer vanished. Guess who was almost everyone’s first suspect.


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Tequila
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18 Aug 2018, 1:39 am



Dear_one
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18 Aug 2018, 1:57 am

There are African tribes which consider eye contact totally hostile. There are wide variations in cultural expectations for eye contact. There are also a lot of idiots who consider body language equivalent to a legal document, because they read an article in Cosmo about it.
My ex accused me of being a liar just because my reactions were not what hers would have been, and because we had not had various experiences in common.



MrMacPhisto
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18 Aug 2018, 2:12 am

Dear_one wrote:
My ex accused me of being a liar just because my reactions were not what hers would have been, and because we had not had various experiences in common.


This is an issue that I am on about.

I find what can be a danger are these daytime panel shows like Loose Women or The View where they talk about relationships etc in a very unnecessary way. You always get one on the panel who would say something like he was lying due to lack of eye contact and people listen to it and take it as fact.



Purpledragon
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18 Aug 2018, 3:32 am

Dear_one wrote:
My ex accused me of being a liar just because my reactions were not what hers would have been, and because we had not had various experiences in common.


My ex also did the same. Just because my feelings and reactions didn't match his he accused me of being a liar and told me I should stop being stupid.



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18 Aug 2018, 3:57 am

Most people can afford to assume what is normal to them is “objectively” normal, period. We can’t.


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Joe90
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18 Aug 2018, 4:59 am

Sometimes when someone asks me something and I say the truth, if they stare at me afterwards I grin because they're giving me a "I hope that is the truth" stare, and so my grinning makes them think I'm lying. Then I laugh more because of their disbelief.

By the way I only grin/laugh if the situation isn't serious, as in "no laughing matter" serious. If it was really serious, and I was telling the truth, I don't think I would grin if the other person is staring, obviously because I am feeling emotions seriously too.


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MrMacPhisto
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18 Aug 2018, 5:38 am

Sounds familiar I have done a few times.



naturalplastic
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18 Aug 2018, 6:30 am

A famous author (wish I could remember which one) once said that "it's easy to fool diplomats. Just tell them the truth. They never believe you". Diplomats do intrigue on a higher level than most folks and always assume that you're lying and plotting on their same 3D chess level, and they apparently cant handle someone who is just dumbly and innocently honest.

Similarly it sometimes seems like "the way for aspies to fool all NTs is for the aspie to just tell always tell NTs the truth because then the NT will never believe you". What diplomats are to most NTs, that's what NTs are to aspies (higher level liars who assume others lie as much as they themselves do). Lol!

I have recently run into a string of folks who responded to me with that game of giving you that "I know you're lying- but its ok" s**t when I wasn't lying at all, and it wasn't even logical to even think a person was lying in the situation because lying would have cost me more than I would have gained. It can piss you off.



Spiderpig
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18 Aug 2018, 7:19 am

Not only do they like assuming you’re lying; they also like assuming you’re stupid. That’s why they have no trouble assuming you’re lying when it makes no sense for you to do it.


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