Lying and its Discontents

I don't quite understand lying. But I do break it into two categories at the very least: lying to strangers and lying to friends. (lying to people you know and aren't friends with doesn't count because you necessarily don't care about them)

I can wrap my head around lying to strangers, they aren't people you know, you probably want something from them if you are talking to them at all and lying usually greases the wheels toward whatever it is that you want. It happens so often that people often subconsciously expect people they don't know very well to lie to them. Even to the point where they distrust someone who doesn't lie to them when they first meet them. Odd flip, but it does follow logic.

Lying to friends, however, I don't quite understand. Friends are necessarily close to us and we care about them. We always want something from them, but it would make sense that we want to give something of ourselves to them as well. It also stands to reason that if we are friends with them, they like us and have spent enough time to know who we are to a certain point. So what is the reason for lying to them?

My guess is fear. Fear of losing that friend, fear of losing companionship, fear of offending them, who knows? Fear of being alone is a strong one too.

As a case study, it was about six months ago when I heard a story (corroborated by two independent parties and partly my own eyes) in which a guy slept with a friend of his that he had known for a couple years. The issue being that she had a boyfriend at the time. The other issue was that he was only in the area for a month or two. So she cheated on him; but it happens and it's terrible. The more confounding thing to me is that she is still with him 6 months after the fact.

Obviously the relationship wasn't strong enough to stop her from cheating in the first place and in all honesty, I don't know her that well (we only hung out a couple times and always through a mutual friend) so I can't exactly comment on her psychological state or the likelihood of it happening again. I just can't understand how a relationship could withstand that and not erode the foundation of what they had. There are only 2 options, she told him and he's okay with it (not very likely without serious repercussions) or she did not tell him. Lying by omission, especially to friends, is arguably worse than lying to them directly.

How do you see someone so close to you without thinking about the elephant in the room? And what is the point of being with that person if you had a big enough reason to cheat on them? That is, other than the fear of being alone; the fear of someone close to you leaving; the fear of losing their companionship; the fear of incurring the wrath of someone you like, but don't like enough to tell them the truth...