How Can You Tell If You Are Being Lied To?
Are You Being Lied To?
There are many ways to tell if someone is being dishonest with you and I am going to give you just a few tips that should help you separate out fact from fiction.
Eye Contact
There are two distinct traits used by someone who is trying to deceive you when it comes to maintaining eye contact. One is to avert the eyes away from yours, perhaps they focus on your mouth when they speak rather than your eyes, or they drop their eyes to the left or the right, this is a signal that they are not confident in their ploy and that they may be afraid of discovery. If they are looking up and away to the left or the right they are visualizing their story as they create it.
The second trait is entirely the opposite, they go out of their way to maintain eye contact, the eyes are opened up just a little bit too wide, and they don’t blink. This is a tactic used by one who is used to being believed when being deceitful and they are the “more practiced” liars among us. They believe the old adage that people do not look each other in the eye when being deceitful so they go out of their way to maintain the contact, because they are concentrating so hard on keeping the eye contact with you, they forget to blink!
Too Many Details
Everyone has events happen that may delay them or keep them away from time to time, but a classic tactic of the liar is to fill in so many details that you will be astounded by the richness of their story, after all, who would take the time to fabricate the color of the shirt their buddy was wearing and how he had a mustard stain on it???? It’s fabricating an alibi……….the more details, the more believable, so why would you double check? Usually these “details” are fragments based on fact, but if you get a six paragraph, detailed explanation of an event, something is up, (or covered up).
Outrageous Stories
Prevaricators tend to hold to the premise that the more outrageous the story, the more likely it is to be true! After all, if a loose alligator in the state of Ohio showed up on their lawn, then traveled around the property snapping phone and power lines with its’ mighty jaws, and then coming to rest on the front porch blocking the only exit route, how on earth could they have called you when they said they would? They were trapped in their own home for God’s sake!!! Didn’t you see it on the local news??
Righteous Silence
OOOOOOH, this one is hard to spot, you must be very careful just in case it is a “righteous silence”, typically this is used early on in a relationship before any lies have been “caught”. When you question your subject, they take the stance of “I’m not even going to qualify that with a response”. Righteous silence lies are very difficult to root out, as, perhaps the subject truly was honest, but if the hints above preceded the righteous silence, well, then, you know that it is an act to manipulate you into believing their story. You usually find out that righteous silence lies were fabricated long after the lie is told because of the high risk of negative confrontation if the subject is actually being truthful. Keep your eyes open for this behavior, if it happens every single time you have an innocent question, the person who is being this self-defensive could well be telling you fibs.