It all started with a friend of mine lying to her boyfriend about her tea breaks with her “harmless” male colleague.

I’ve been a pathetic liar throughout. Even as a child, I’d lie only to be caught easily. So eventually, I gave up on it and embraced good old honesty as my best policy. But recently, my friend convinced me that learning how to lie could be beneficial.

“My boyfriend gets suspicious about any male friend I hang out with. I prefer not letting him know,” she said.

Habit
Well, the problem clearly was a possessive boyfriend. And I felt lying to a possessive boyfriend doesn’t make him less possessive. If anything, it might make him nosier.

“I have become good at this. In the beginning I got caught a couple of times. But now, I am a master. You should try it. You only get better at it. It’s a habit,” she said.

But that’s escaping the real problem. Shouldn’t she rather tell him straight how his behaviour was disturbing her?

Needy
She laughed at me. “You think I haven’t tried that? It’s been a while since we’re together. But he’s just jealous of any of my male friends. I’ve given up on all the talk-through-your-problems psychobabble. I can’t do this all my life.”

Poor thing, I sympathised. It sucks to have an insecure boyfriend. It’s like having a needy puppy. No matter how much you love it, you get sick of its neediness at one point.

“Exactly! And how am I doing any harm to him? I’m not having a fling with anyone. I’m only making friends. There’s nothing wrong with what I am doing. So if knowing that is only going to cause tension, I’d rather keep it from him,” my friend said firmly.

Freedom
I was getting more and more curious. I wanted to know the scale of her lies. “Oh, well, it began with me taking tea breaks with a male colleague during work. Then I started meeting some other friends over beer. I even caught up with my ex-boyfriend. It felt great to have all this freedom,” she asserted.

Now isn’t that a bit cheeky? Her boyfriend would definitely find this to be important information. Why would she still keep it from him? “Think about it this way, why would I give this life up for a more tense, conflicting, confrontational one? Moreover, I love him and don’t want to lose him,” she said.

She was definitely convincing me that lying was making her life better. But, naturally, I kept wondering if that was a lie as well.

By Gayatri Parameswaran
Photo: Gayatri Parameswaran, © Love Matters/RNW

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