Duplicity

Something that really bothers me - and something I'm quite paranoid about - is duplicity. Strictly speaking, duplicity refers to deception or deliberate misrepresentation but, even though this is stretching the word's literal meaning, I consider duplicity to refer to the act of not meaning what you say or even not saying what you mean, even if you've got the best of intentions while doing so. Basically, regardless of why someone might feel the need to distort the truth, it's lying.

Yes, they're often what people regard as 'white lies', told to protect people's feelings when it's thought that the truth would be too painful. You know the ones: 'you don't look fat in that dress', 'I really like your cooking', 'you've got a really nice singing voice', and so on. These sorts of things are, to a large degree, quite understandable. When a friend asks you to evaluate their appearance or their cooking or their singing ability or whatever else, there's a lot to be said for being tactful in your response. Well, being tactful or distorting the truth a little bit so as not to hurt their feelings if your opinion is likely to do so. I will concede that it can sometimes be justified. Still, you've only got to look at some of the tone-deaf people who audition for Australian (or, insert-home-country-here) Idol to see how telling someone they've got a nice singing voice when that's not exactly true can lead to them being humiliated.

But I'm not talking so much about that. What concerns me more is the way people patronise someone with a phony compliment and then turn right around to someone else and say what they really think. I've seen it so often; a lot of people do it. If you haven't experienced it for yourself, all you have to do is listen to people at parties, at school, in the workplace, or anywhere else you happen to be in the course of your daily life and you'll see what I mean. I can't see how this is justified because, if your intention was to protect someone's feelings, why then go and laugh at them behind their back?

I'm occasionally guilty of the first infraction, distorting the truth so as not to offend people. As much as possible I avoid doing it but sometimes it's unavoidable. What I try never to do is tell somebody one thing and then make it known to everyone else I don't feel that way. And yet a lot of people have no problem doing this on a regular basis. I'm not talking about big stuff here, I'm talking more about situations like when someone leads someone else to believe they're friends and then, as soon as they're gone, talks about how much they can't stand them. When people behave in that way, how are you supposed to know if they're talking about you in the same way when you're not around?

You can't know, it's just a matter of being secure in who you are and trusting people. I wouldn't say I have a problem trusting people but I often wonder about people's motives for doing things. It's not much of a stretch for me to assume that someone is only paying me a compliment because they don't want to hurt my feelings by telling me what they're really thinking. I'm not good at taking compliments and most of the ones I do get are thought of in that regard. But that's got much more to do with my own insecurities than my ability to trust people.

What got me thinking about all this (in terms of writing blog post about it) was a conversation I had with a friend a few weeks ago. We were talking about a mutual friend, one who neither of us have seen in quite a few years. The three of us used to spend a lot of time together, going to movies and just hanging out. I drifted apart from the mutual friend but my other friend continued to see her quite regularly until a few years ago they too, due to their lives heading in different directions, went their separate ways. My friend and I were talking about her the other day, wondering what she was up to. We got to talking about her mother, who we had come to know quite well over the years, and my friend told me that she had once told him that her daughter, our friend, thought I was a creep. I didn't care what she thought about me (I wasn't particularly upset that we'd drifted apart years earlier...) but it did get me thinking.

About five or six years ago I went on a date with a friend of a friend. We really hit it off and I felt comfortable enough around her to lose some of my ever-present nerves and relax. We talked about a lot of different stuff and I even made a few jokes (my sense of humour only emerges when I'm not plagued by anxiety) and, at the end of the date, it was clear that I wasn't the only one who had had a good time. I asked her if she'd see me again and she didn't hesitate to say yes. In my mind, the day couldn't have gone much better than it did. I re-evaluated that when a few days later she wouldn't take my phone calls. I later learned that going out with me had given her the confidence to approach the guy she was really interested in. I was more or less instantly forgotten. I didn't even get the "you're a really nice guy, but..." speech, code for 'I don't like you'. The whole experience bothered my for a while, and even now it makes me question whether I can read how someone is really feeling. Do they mean it when they say they like me or is it just lip service? I still find it hard to open up to people, just in case the same thing happens again.

As I said before, all this has mainly got to do with the fact that I am deeply insecure. I don't like myself and I want other people to like me. It's not so bad that I'd betray my own values in order to get someone to like me but I still want to be liked. I don't like that about myself, that I'm always looking for approval from others. What makes it more complicated for me is that, because of my insecurity, even when I get that approval I often don't believe it to be genuine.

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On another note, still on the subject of not telling the truth: if you lie once, for how long are you subsequently regarded as a liar? I've often wondered about this. If you commit murder, you are forever and always labeled a murderer, and I don't disagree with that label in that case. But what about other situations? What's the statute of limitations on being regarded as a liar?