Do women have a bigger issue with honesty than men?

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Although obviously both genders have a predisposition towards lying, I've noticed a certain kind of dishonesty that seems to more prevalent with women, especially feminists. Specifically, an unwillingness to be honest with their feelings or motivations (emotional dishonesty) and resistance towards admitting fault or accountability. I realize this is a controversial statement that would garner a lot of hate but let me give you a recent example.

Recently I went on a Facebook musician's community where people could message each other to meet up to play music. One woman had written several posts complaining about not being able to find anyone to meet up with lately, presumably due to Covid. Now, there's been many people who have been playing music with each other remotely/virtually but this woman was suggesting that she was actually interested in meeting in person but no one else wanted to. She never said this directly but most of the evidence from what she said would lead most rational people to believe that was her intention. After all, many people were already meeting virtually so there would be no reason to complain that it was impossible to find anyone to do that. People willing to meet in person, however, are a bit more scarce. As well, the phrase "meeting up" more often than not denotes a live meeting. One guy who had been reading her comments chimed in and scoldingly told her that she shouldn't be meeting with anyone and should be social distancing. Her response wasn't to tell the guy to mind his own business because it's her life and she can do whatever she wants but to say that she was in fact staying home and that she was referring to after lockdown. This came off as extremely disingenuous to me since she didn't need to prove this anonymous stranger wrong as it wasn't his business anyway and yet she felt the need to do just that, despite evidence suggesting otherwise.

My suspicions were confirmed when I started talking to her and said that I was a drummer and had a jam space in my house. Eventually she texted me and asked if I had Instagram, which I thought was a strangely irrelevant question. After all, my Facebook profile is virtually completely open to the public so if she wanted to see pictures or videos of me, she could already do that. She replied that she gets nervous meeting with people, which I also found strange since she was the one complaining that no one wanted to meet her but whatever.

A day or two later, I get a friend request from her but I'm hesitant to add her because 1. I'm already kind of suspicious of her motivations and her character and 2. I'm generally more hesitant about adding random people these days unless I know them or have some kind pre-existing connection to them. I explain this to her and she replies that it's her policy not to meet up with people whose identities she can't verify. I then respond that, as stated, my Facebook profile is already public so she doesn't even need to add me to see who I am (I also explain that seeing someone's profile is no security in regards to confirming who they actually are and whether they're safe to be around but again, neither here nor there). I ironically ask her if the problem is that she can't see any of my profile content and she unironically says "yeah".

Now, right away I know she's lying but I have to wonder why... and then it hits me: the only thing she can't see is my friends list. Truth is it's actually hidden from everyone but she obviously didn't know that and was trying to get me to friend her so she could snoop around and see if I was worth meeting up with or some kind of weirdo because, y'know, people apparently judge you based on how many Facebook friends you have, not what kind of person you are. I mean, there's literally no other explanation as to why it was so imperative that I accept her friend request. So I call her out on this by subtly making reference to my friends list being the only thing not visible on my profile and, surprise, I never hear back from her again.
After doing a quick check of her profile... another big surprise, she's an LGBT feminist.

So yes, this is one example of this kind of deceptive behaviour from a woman (specifically feminist) but it's very far from an isolated incident and is something I've found to be quite common among them. It's far more unlikely to see this much deception and dishonesty in such a brief, concentrated time frame from a man, certainly not without provocation. This woman was just lying her fool head off to anonymous people online for basically no reason and it was pretty disturbing but still not uncommon. I've tried to understand what compels these types of people to behave like sketchy sociopaths and then complain that the world isn't fair to them and that they're being victimized by straight white males. If you're going to compulsively lie about your motivations, treat people like they're idiots, judge them based on superficial nonsense and then blame the victim, people are eventually going to stop trusting you. You can argue that women have every right to be untrusting of men because of some kind of perceived social "power imbalance" but there's a fairly simple solution to this... DON'T TRY TO MEET ANONYMOUS MEN ONLINE IF YOU DON'T TRUST THEM. I've used this very argument plenty of times when discussing it with them, to no avail... it usually ends with "Don't dictate to me what I can and can't do, your male privilege is showing." So I guess the logical solution is lie to people and treat them like imbeciles. Yeah, that's way more practical.

In conclusion, it's hard to feel much empathy towards people like this and even harder to engage with them and that's why I've all but given up. It's not worth it. When everything's about pushing your own personal cause to the point where everyone else becomes just another casualty, you're not deserving of respect or empathy.

Give us some more examples then and don't forget to include the ones where men have lied to you.

I haven't noticed a difference myself. Both men and women seem to be equally dishonest, but I've noticed that men tend to be less discreet about it.

What I'd suggest is that when your "spidey sense" starts to go off, stop and rationalize it. I know, as Aspies, we don't want to jump to conclusions and misjudge someone (as we ourselves have has a lifetime of being misjudged.) And I know we're apt to misread people, so that self-doubt is there. We want to give them the benefit of the doubt that they never seem to give us, in general principle.

But, without throwing all that away, it's good to start adding the other factor of "something seems off here, maybe I should back away rather than confirm that the beach is crazy and suffer the damages."

And, yes, NT women quite often contradict themselves to save face, probably more so statistically speaking than NT men or Aspies of either gender.

"Resistance towards admitting fault or accountability" is an very popular problem and it's usually an issue of fragile ego, sometimes other mild (or not so mild) mental health issues. I can recount many examples of people either gender doing or saying stupid things just to avoid admitting being wrong.

The internet is full of freaks and the art of avoiding the potentially dangerous ones is a survival skill.
The lady you describe obviously acts unhealthily.

That's because you're a man. Seriously. People of this kind usually target the opposite gender.

Absolutely true. Best avoid such people and if you can't, keep your boundaries very firm.

I'm not like that... I try to be an honest person wherever possible. (Admittedly, my ego isn't fragile... but it's not inflated either. I think.)

You could be right.  While women can fake enjoyment when they are actually bored or miserable, men can fake entire relationships instead.

You should take into account that women tend to worry about their physical safety more than men do, for obvious physical reasons.

And, since it obviously wouldn't be very diplomatic to say something like, "I'm trying to make sure you're not a rapist or a murderer," it should be no surprise that many women are less than straightforward about whatever precautions they are taking to protect themselves.

Women who identify as feminists are likely to be even more concerned about their physical safety than women in general are, for two reasons: (1) They are likely to pay more attention to violence against women. (2) They are more likely to be targets of various kinds of harassment, simply for calling themselves feminists.

So it's likely that much of the "dishonesty" you observe is motivated simply by physical self-protection.


Even if "it wasn't his business anyway," she might have wanted to clarify her intentions for the benefit of other onlookers. So far, I see absolutely nothing wrong or suspicious here at all.


Not strange at all, not even slightly strange, if you consider what I said above about the precautions women need to take.


So far you haven't identified any good reasons whatsoever for your suspicions. Did you have any other reasons to be suspicious?


Probably a common strategy for many women these days. My own strategy is very different from hers. But, for a woman who (unlike me) doesn't reject today's whole legal-name-based social media culture in the first place, it's a reasonable strategy.


It's certainly not 100% security, but every little bit of information does help. And it is up to her -- not you -- to decide which pieces of information she considers to be a crucial sine qua non.

When discussing a possible meeting with any woman whom you don't yet know very well, I would strongly recommend not challenging her self-protection strategies, whatever they might be. I personally would immediately classify as a "creep" any male stranger who does that with me.


On what grounds do you even suspect, much less "know," that this is a lie?


According to what I've read about this matter (I'm not speaking from personal experience because I don't use Facebook myself), one of the reasons why "people apparently judge you based on how many Facebook friends you have" is simply that a profile with very few friends is more likely to be a fake profile. On the other hand, if you happen to have some mutual friends, that might make a person more inclined to trust you (after first conferring with said mutual friend).

So it does not seem to me unreasonable for someone's self-protection strategy to rely, in part, on seeing someone's complete profile including their friend list. I see nothing necessarily evil or suspicious here.

Of course there are other, more malevolent possible reasons why someone might want to see a stranger's friend list. And of course the above-mentioned strategy is very annoying if you personally happen to have very few Facebook friends for reasons other than your profile being fake.

Nevertheless there are perfectly understandable and likely non-malevolent reasons.


Again I would call this self-protective, not deceptive.


"lying her fool head off"??? You have not identified even a single likely lie.

I don't understand what you mean, I just gave you a plethora of reasons why I believed she was lying... just because you don't accept those reasons as valid doesn't mean they don't exist. I made it pretty clear that she alluded multiple times to wanting to meet in person, which means she lied to the guy who called her out on not social distancing. She had no reason to justify herself to him since, as stated, it wasn't his place to tell her what she should be doing but she still felt the need to "prove him wrong". This is a tactic that many women (and, yes, some men as well but much less so) use to take the moral high ground, even when they know the other person is correct about their intentions. There's no need to do this, especially if you believe that you're in the right, so that really just solidifies the fact that they're not secure in their actions so they hide the truth. Someone who was confident in their actions would say "I don't care what you think, I can do what I want" but she obviously did care and therefore twisted the narrative around to make herself look "right" either way. It's an ego/pride issue taken to a pretty pathetic extreme since the guy was a completely random stranger whom she didn't even owe an explanation to.

As for my profile, I clearly explained this as well... there's no way she couldn't have seen everything on my profile since it's all public. Not public for certain people, public for everyone. I have plenty of photos AND videos of myself to verify who I am and they're all immediately visible. But according to you, not being able to see my friends list made her suspicious that my profile was fake, even though countless, obviously real profiles with plenty of visible content oftentimes have hidden friend lists and/or few friends. Gotcha. She was lying, period.

Also, why ask for my Instagram profile BEFORE sending me a Facebook friend request anyway? Instagram profiles can easily be faked as well and they're absolutely not a good verification of who someone is because they're mostly pictures and they could easily be of someone else. The answer is simple but you're overcomplicating it because it appears you have a dog in this fight. You're seriously bending over backwards pretending like you don't notice anything suspicious about this, which is kind of suspicious in and of itself. I mean, it's one thing to say MAYBE the person was telling the truth about SOME things but the way you're going overboard with the hear no evil, see no evil routine is a bit much.

I would just find some other person to date.

I could but then I'd be writing all day... I gave this example because it was the most recent and it stood out. A lot of examples have a significant number of details like this one that are necessary for context and accuracy. Also, it's not simply lying in general, it's more about twisting and distorting reality to cover for insecurities, which I don't have as many examples of from men. But, to be fair, as one person mentioned, it's possible I've engaged more with women in these particular scenarios so my experiences reflect that.

It wasn't a dating site, I wrote that it was a musician's community for people to play music with. I had no intention of dating her and, even if I did, I doubt she'd be interested since she's gay.

"Alluding to" wanting to meet in person does not necessarily mean that the person saying this intends to meet in person immediately. A lot of people are really tired of lockdown, even while still understanding that it's still necessary. Simply voicing frustration at being unable to meet in person does not constitute a statement of intent to violate social distancing rules.

What, more precisely, did she say, that led you to believe she intended to plan immediate (rather than eventual) in-person meetings?


Whether it was "his place" or not, his remark might have led her to realize that perhaps other people, too, might be interpreting her remarks as an announcement of intent to meet with people before the end of lockdown. That being the case, why shouldn't she clarify her intent, if indeed that's not what she meant?


You might have a point here if she and the "completely random stranger" were the only people in on the conversation. However, given that the conversation was being witnessed by a whole bunch of other people including you, it's only natural that she would want to clear up any confusion.

I really don't understand why you perceive a lie here. You seem absolutely determined to assume the worst.


However, she would have no way of knowing that she is seeing "everything" unless you accepted her friend request.

You might feel that she is being unduly nosy. But this would mean only that you and she have an incompatibility in your respective getting-to-know-people polices, not that she is lying.


To be more precise, it may have deprived her of one of her preferred routine ways of determining whether a profile is fake.

What do you think her reason was for wanting to see your friends list?


True, but different people use Facebook in different ways, with different expectations.


Perhaps she had hoped to get more info about you before sending a Facebook friend request? Perhaps she might have hoped that the Facebook friend request would be perceived as less nosy, or generally less forward, if you were to interact a bit on Instagram first?


Be that as it may, it would have been an opportunity to interact with you in a different medium and thus, hopefully, gain more insights about you.


What, exactly, is the alleged "simple" answer? What do you think her aim was?


My only "dog in this fight" is that I am a woman and you are making a blanket accusation against women -- and you are backing up that blanket accusation with an alleged example that makes no sense whatsoever.


Nothing to pretend here. I see absolutely not the even the tiniest, slightest basis for accusing her of lying.

I'm not saying you should trust her, either. You don't know her, so you have no idea how trustworthy she might or might not be. But, based on what you have said so far, it does not appear to me that you have caught her in any lies.

I can understand that you would feel annoyed by her apparent desire to see your friends list, given your own preference for not sharing same. And indeed you don't owe her your friends list. But this doesn't necessarily mean she's lying or has some malevolent motive. It just means you and she have incompatible ways of getting to know people via Facebook.


My stance here is "innocent until proven guilty."

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 18 Feb 2021, 11:54 am, edited 2 times in total.

Oh wow, now that I think about it, that does sound like what I've been doing. Well, at least I had the common sense to always have my dates at public places.



I thought the same thing.



I should probably do the same as you... I tend to try not to judge anyone from a mistake or two, but maybe this is the kind of thing I shouldn't compromise on.

1 If a guy has problems with 'lgbt style feminism' he probably doesn't deserve honesty or the companionship of anyone other than cis het men.
2 Women are socialised to lie for the sake of nicety so, probably
3 Women also lie for the sake of safety so if she feels unsafe, she's not going to be 100% upfront
4 Can't expect someone to be 100% upfront unless you are, too
5 If a guy talks about how he's against feminism & lgbt rights, can't blame someone for being cautious around him

That's apparently true for many women, although this varies by cultural background.


Yep, and it should be noted that "Feeling unsafe" may also include not yet knowing whether one is safe.


Yes indeed.