h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sure everyone knows at least one person who no matter what you say you've done they, their spouse, son, daughter, mother, father, or some other relation, friend or their dog, has not already done it, but done it better.

Do these people, who must feel so inadequate that they have to make up stories all the time, assume that everybody else is lying to them?

Emmily

Yes we do.

I didn't notice that trait in you when I spoke to you Roy

Emmily

just not as well...

What lies? I *did* go to the

RF

Back when i was in the Army we had one chap who was like this, we shall call him Mack, he had done it all, if you had done it he had done it better.

we came up with the saying "if you had a black dog he had one blacker"

and every now and then i would just drop in to the conversation "Mack, i used to have a black dog, you wouldn't believe how black this dog was"

unfortuatly he never bit and didn't come back with i had one blacker, but he had done everything else


Taff
agent of kaos

I dont think they do... Well, in the main. i think they just feel inadequate. Some might assume that everyone exaggerates a little i guess, and then over-egg the pudding through ineptness...

I don't think she'd fall for any going to the stories RF, but Taff has given me an idea. Although I had given up telling her anything.

I used to have a black dog, Sally, well, she was the family . Anyhow Sally loved carrying things in her mouth, one day when I took her shopping I trusted her to carry my purse. She walked a few feet in front of me, she was hardly ever on a lead as she was a very good dog, head held high, tail wagging, proudly carrying my purse. She disappeared round a corner, I called back and she re-appeared minus the purse. I searched for my purse, but didn't find it. So I went to local Police station to report my purse missing, and had to tell them it was last seen in my dog's mouth. I got my purse back, complete with money, a couple of hours later after a phone call from police station. What happened between Sally dropping it, me searching and not finding it, and it being handed in to police station is a mystery.


Emmily

In my experience, compulsive liars (of which I'm sure I've known at least two, if not more) are highly suspicious people, which is understandable. We all expect people around us to behave the same as we do, after all.

If you always lie and have no consideration of others, you're naturally going to assume that everyone else is that way, too.

coincidentally, i have just added a journal entry on the subject of being lied to.

to answer the question from the other direction: if people think others are lying then they are more likely to engage in it themselves in order to maintain parity. hence, what i believe is a modern plague of liars has emerged.

Just read your journal antigravitas

Just to clear up any possible confusion, I'm not talking about boasting, just normal light-hearted conversation that passes the time when the shop is quiet.

Just a triggered memory such as with Sally above would be ruined by her 'topping it' knowing that what she said was false. Hmmm I don't think I'll be sharing that memory with her.

Emmily

Hmm perhaps I should have said I'm not talking about boasting, at least not on my part.

Emmily

I think the trick here is to tell an absolutely true story in a manner that suggests that it is a lie. See Edgar Allen Poe's "The Death's Head" or Tom Smith's "The Thing in the Crib" for examples.

:D

"Ah, God, it mewled so!"

Its just like the saying keeping up with the jones next door if you got a 40 inch tv they would have to get a 50 it is silly .

Correction: The Poe story is entitled "The Sphinx." My apologies.

i think all lies, apart from obvious jokes, spring from the same well. specifically to gain something (respect, reward, approval etc) to which you would not otherwise be entitled, or to avoid punishment for something you deserve.

whether the lie is a whopper or relatively inconsequential, it seems to me they are really the same sort of animal.

its one better than the next bottom line is most people could live with less than half of what the have .

I don't think I've got it in me to be that devious BlackWolfe, which could possibly be letting the whole female gender down

It's rarely a material thing with her oldrusty, more of a 'my life is more interesting than yours' type of thing.

Though with others it may well be the Jones's syndrome.

Emmily

we should be happy what we have .

'we should be happy what we have.'

I'll to that oldrusty

My favourite childhood book is Pollyanna and her 'glad game'.

Emmily