I never lie

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Looking for personal experience here. I once found a copy of the book

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/161 ... Night_Time

and read the first few pages - I put the book down and have never finished it.

A few things in the book really stuck with me. One of them was a quote something like:

"I never lie. I find when I start thinking about one thing that is not true, I then start thinking about all the other things that aren't true, so I find it is just easier to just tell the truth".

Has anyone ever had a personal experience like this? Is this typical of ASD or atypical (yes, I know typical of a atypical subset or diverse people on the spectrum is a bit of a stretch)?

The quote really stuck with me.

When you tell a lie, eventually you will have to tell more lies to either support the first lie, or to explain why you lied in the first place.

and I never tell the truth.

<cough> Sorry, this really just sounded like some kind of riddle thread. Even though it's not, I couldn't help myself.

More to the point, I think the concept of a lie is interesting and defined differently among people. Is a lie saying something untrue? -or is it saying something that you are aware is untrue? This is an important distinction because assuming you never lie, then by the former definition everything you say must be correct at all times, which is not accurate for anyone, ASD or not. If the other definition though, yes, people on the spectrum are often less likely to knowingly misrepresent the truth, though like anyone, our perceptions of what is "true" in this world are fallible.

To throw another curve ball into things, I ask the question: Is masking lying? If so (depends on your definition), then in a sense some ASD folks may actually lie more than NTs.

I read the book.

The main character has many of the classic symptoms of high-functioning autism and Asperger's.

He seems like some sort of composite character to me.....because the symptoms of high-functioning autism and Asperger's are presented within the same person.

My dad is the same and so am i. I get very anxious when i have to lie. My father on the other hand is very honest on principle and finds it immoral.

The character, by the way, is heading towards being a great success within the book.

What symptoms/behaviors to you consider to be "more HFA" and what symptoms/behaviors to you consider to be "more Asperger's"?

In the USA they were combined in the DSM-V. In the DSM-IV they were separate.

I can specifically relate to going down a path of thought and having it create a rain or flurry of other related thoughts or posibilties - it can sometimes be overwhelming. Sometimes it is very useful. It is a blessing . . . and a curse.

His exquisite sensory reactions are HFA; his love for license plates and sequencing is Aspergian.

This happens to me and all the items gets stuck in a bottleneck and I can't think or do anything, much less lie or tell the truth. Frequently, for me, the truth is very complicated.

In general though, I believe I have read that people on the autism spectrum have difficulty deliberately lying.

In general, I do not lie, as in I do not deliberately represent something as true, if in fact I know it is not true.

I used to think this was a virtue.

It has taken more than half a century for me to realize that most people freely lie about all kinds of things, important or not.

I don't lie for normal reasons.

NTs lie because it is socially advantageous. Either to make themselves look good, avoid looking bad, cheat on a loved one or to save people's feelings.

That's not my way of lying.

I tell stories.

Some aren't true.

Esp before I knew what maladaptive daydreaming was, I told people about my imaginary world. Much as a child might.

But when I get accused of lying it's usually false because it's usually for reasons I wouldn't bother with or care about.

I am an honest person but I have no difficulties lying when I want/need to.

I also never lie. I like to be honest with people.

Have heard of the book, but never read it.

But I am not surprised that its main character is a bit unrealistic by showing all of the text book traits of HFA on cue in a way that would never exist in a real autism spectrum person in real life. No one has ALL of the traits. And the traits you do have ... dont appear on cue in a didactic manner.

I cant claim that I "never lie". But the older I get, and paradoxically, the more social advanced I get in the NT world, the more it astounds me how much NTs lie compared to moi.

If you wanna fool many NTs ...just tell them the truth...and they will never believe you!

When I was very young, I found the world so confusing that I assumed that nobody would lie deliberately, making it even harder to decipher. I am still very honest overall, and can never do those brain-teasers that involve known liars.
However, I have learned a lot about lying, which is often used to either avoid or promote the use of force. My older sister trained me to support her "don't tell mom" stories as soon as I could talk.
I was initially opposed to all lying, and didn't understand the idea of a "white lie," but it is really pretty simple. A white lie minimizes harm. If I have driven a bit over the speed limit, and nobody else has noticed, but my parent is prone to over-react badly, it is probably better to say it didn't happen and pretend to have gotten an appropriate response. If I know that you are not the father, but that it is working out for the best for all concerned, I'll stay quiet.
Being partly to blame for an accident is a strong motivation to lie, but falsely blaming another is a black lie.
Another big trouble with lies is that every time we remember something, we make a new copy to re-file, and in the process, our memories can actually change to match our lies, so that we have far less to remember. Then, even habitual liars act on what seems true to them, even in the face of solid evidence.

Yeah he was too literal and also too mathematical for me.

I've always had a socially approved specialist interest in books then later in life in literature.

And been quite bad at maths.