Why Should I Believe Anything You Say?

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Today marks a Very Special Episode of Trying! No, it’s not because this is Election Day, when the fate of the planet will be determined. (Kidding! It’s already doomed.) This email is speshul because There Is An Advertiser™! Don’t ask me how these things work: All I know is that when I logged in to write a new post, the system promised me TWO WHOLE DOLLARS for each of you who clicks on the ad. So go on, click it! Make me rich! TBH, it’s a very pretty photo of Waikiki—why wouldn’t you click it? OK, now then, on with the email:

I am very good at lying.

See, you already believe me? That’s because it’s true. I am not lying.

I discovered this talent for lying back in my teenage years, when my friends and I developed what today you’d call a “hack” for getting free eats from fast-food restaurants. We’d drive up, and I’d go in alone and tell the cashier something like, “Hi! I came through the drive-thru about 45 minutes ago, and ordered a bunch of stuff, but you guys accidentally left out _____.” Sometimes it was a large fries, other times it was a cheeseburger, a chicken soft taco, or a six-piece Chicken McNuggets.

If the cashier was a newbie, maybe they’d call over an assistant manager, and I’d repeat my tale, wondering whether I’d need to follow up with the full legend: I was in the back seat of someone else’s car, so that’s why the drive-thru workers didn’t see me, and also why I don’t have a receipt. And anyway, who pays attention to who’s sitting in the back seat?

But it never came to that, because my request was so meager, my delivery so earnest, and the employees so disinclined to give a fuck. (Probably helped that I was a white guy, too.) They’d ask me to wait a minute, then hand me the food. I’d thank them, then I’d drive my gang to the Arby’s or Wendy’s in the next strip mall down the highway and do the same thing, over and over again, until we all had enough to eat.

Over the next several years, I deployed this newfound talent irregularly, but with increasing confidence. I wouldn’t say I ever lied about anything significant, or for serious personal gain, but when inspiration struck the lies flowed. I grew up on Prince Edward Island. My mother was Vietnamese but never taught me Vietnamese. (This after I dyed my eyebrows black.) The trick was to say something just on the far side of plausibility—unlikely but not impossible—so that a listener would, because they were a good person and figured me for a good person, too, lean toward belief. Often, I corrected the record immediately (“Kidding!”). At least, I think I did.

The ease with which I could make people believe me began to bother me, though. These fibs were, to me, so obvious, so silly, that everyone should have laughed at my audacity: No way! But when, time and again, they were accepted, I was dismayed. I lost respect for those who believed me. When the believer was a stranger, that was one thing. But if it was a friend, or a co-worker, or someone I liked or looked up to, well, that was a blow. I didn’t want to diminish them.

And so I decided to dedicate myself to the truth. That sounds noble, doesn’t it? I don’t think I ever thought of it that way—I just wanted to chart a path for my life where I could continue to like and respect all the people I encountered, and not feel ashamed to have taken advantage of their good-natured gullibility. Because I wanted to live in a world where we could all believe one another, where we didn’t have to mistrust the simplest statements.

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What Does It Mean to Live Honestly?

To dedicate oneself to the truth isn’t a simple or easy thing. I’m not a fan of Radical Honesty, the philosophy of total openness that encourages you to speak your mind directly at all times—“to report out loud to another what you notice in front of you, in your body, and in your mind in the present moment,” says their website. Maybe this is good for some people, but to me it sounds utterly tactless.

It is not dishonest to have secrets. It is not dishonest to withhold criticism. Indeed, if you want to preserve and improve your relationships, a little diplomacy will go a long way. The present moment is not always the best time to report something out loud.

But the present moment is usually the problem: Situations arise that seem to require lies. When I was a travel writer, I had to deal with this all the time, since I couldn’t reveal, to a restaurateur or tour guide or even the person I met at the bar, that I was there working for the New York Times—that would spoil my mission, my attempt to travel as a normal schmo. Most of the time, I would try to present a form of truth: I had a small, regular income that allowed me to travel frequently, if not extravagantly. Or: After every 500 diaper changes for our baby daughter, my wife would let me go on a trip. Or I’d make up something so ridiculous that everyone would laugh and get distracted and we’d move on to another topic. I’m Jeff Bezos in disguise! I’m your long-lost cousin! I’m a ghoooooooost!

As much as possible now, I try to avoid those situations. Or, more accurately, I try to avoid allowing myself to be put in those situations. Because, if I want to be honest, that’s where the hard work of truth-telling begins: How can I make my words live up to reality without hurting anyone? What is necessary to say, and what can be edited out? This takes work, and focus, and the willingness to gather and re-gather facts, to game out scenarios. It’s not easy.

And that’s perhaps why I have had it with liars. To lie is easy. Lies are an implicit insult, a sign not just of disrespect but of contempt. They’re lazy—so goddamn lazy—and those who deploy them assume we are also lazy, too gullible or unconcerned to bother checking the facts. (Sometimes, sadly, we are.) Aesthetically, they’re lazy, too: As fictions, lies are simple, one-dimensional, uninspired—or garish and melodramatic. The truth, no matter how messy, contradictory, and challenging it may be, is always, always a better story. And it’s the story all human beings deserve to be told.

And yes, even the liars deserve our honesty, which is this: We see through your lies, we won’t put up with them any longer, and we will make you pay.

Read Yesterday’s Attempt