Being a Doctor of Psychology I can make academic sense of how successfully and without conscience many people lie. The best of them can go into a little mental compartment where they even believe their own lies as they flow out of their mouth.
I have seen Joran van der Sloot the suspect in the Natalee Holloway murder tell three separate stories about what happened in Aruba five years ago. In my opinion the only word of sordid truth he ever uttered was in Dutch when he referred to sweet Natalee as a “bitch.” The truth is that this young man has extreme anger toward women.
Lying to authorities to save your hide is one kind of deceit but what about the average person who lies to their closest intimates? Just last night, while sipping at a neighborhood wine bar, I heard three stories about men who lie to obtain sex, ego stroking, or even a woman’s trust. And as a woman (not a doctor, now) I have to say, what’s up with that?
In one story, my best friend’s longtime, on-again-off-again boyfriend was found to have fathered three children during the same years they whispered secrets between the sheets. Except he forgot to tell her that one secret — that his sperm, his time and his resources were going another direction.
In another story, a neighbor of mine was reeling from heartbreak after a broken engagement to an NFL football player (Read: He can afford bobbles.) In her loss and misery she thought she might console herself with a little recession era recycling so she marched her three carrot diamond ring to a jeweler, only to discover that a man she had once deeply trusted had given her a three carrot cubic zirconia.
While we continued to muse in disgust about how some men can feign intimacy and trustworthiness so well, the name of one of my old paramours came up. He’s been used as an example of a bad-boy in both my books (The Boyfriend Test and The Girlfriend Test) because this guy is the ultimate player. Over the course of our seventeen year “friendship” he has uttered the “L” word to me but he has also used my heart, my body and my money for his personal gain. He’s good, trust me. I have been out of his mesmerizing clutches for a few years now. Whew! But just a few weeks back I say him hiking with yet another beauty and shook my head to see that he’s still lying and juggling even at the age of, my God, could he be 53 by now? Anyway, my wine partners informed me that he had recently married his assistant. I laughed out loud, saying there is no way his marriage would have slowed down his appetite for frequent new sexual conquests. They assured me he is behaving as a loyal married man.
So I texted him a little “hello.”
And he quickly texted back. What he wrote were words that no married man should ever write to an old flame. My heart broke for his wife.
In the book, “101 Lies Men Tell Women, and Why Women Believe Them,” Dr. Dory Hollander claims that the root of all romantic lying is that women seek emotional connection and men mostly seek sex. The number one lie she sites? “I Love You.”
The saddest thing about my three stories of betrayal and the hundreds of stories in Dr. Hollander’s books is that so often we blame women for believing the lies. I was shocked to see the firestorm of criticism of Rielle Hunter, the mother of former presidential candidate John Edwards‘ fifth child. Somehow the media saw fit to place the bulk of the blame on her as a home wrecker. As the target of many, many lies issued from a male mouth, I can promise you that Mr. Edwards lied through his teeth to poor Miss. Hunter. First of all this slick rick wasn’t even playing in his own intellectual sandbox so getting her to believe his fabrications was probably a cake walk. I can just imagine his best promise to her, “Honey, you’re the one I love. My marriage is a sham to get me through this presidential campaign. Once I am president we can raise our baby in the White House.” Trust me. His story ran along those lines.
The blame should never be on the recipient of a lie. Gullible people are innocent. Yes, I’ve removed the gender now, because some women lie as well as most men. But the culprit is the liar and his/her the lack of moral reasoning and inability to have compassion for others. The blame lies only with the deceitful person, not the one who trusted. What do you think?
