I'm being LIED TO!!! WHAT can I DO?!

We've all experienced situations like the following at some point in our lives:

Situation 1, Theft:

You find yourself in a panic because one of your possessions is suddenly "missing" from its customary spot...

In a crystal-clear moment of recollection, you suddenly remember that, the last time you saw this particular item, it was within the same limited geographical area as a person that you're not well acquainted with, someone you don't feel completely confident of or, possibly, even someone that you feel you know fairly well.

At some point after that, further realizations hit you:: 1) The person and the missing item departed from a common area at virtually the same moment, 2) No one else entered or left the area during that same time period and, 3) It is highly unlikely that this grouping of events is purely serendipitous ...

You question this person and s/he flatly denies any involvement.

Situation 2, Family members/friends conducting themselves badly and then lying about it:

Your teenage son's or daughter's grades have been steadily deteriorating over some period of months and s/he is becoming withdrawn and uncommunicative. You suspect that s/he has been cutting classes while you are at work, indulging in alcohol or drugs with his/her friends and/or perhaps engaging in unprotected sex.

You confront him/her and divulge your suspicions only to have the allegations flatly denied.

Situation 2A, Family members/friends conducting themselves badly and then lying about it:

Three different friends have informed you that they have seen your spouse in the company of another man/woman during periods of time when you were told they had to "work late". You have also found other small pieces of evidence (motel receipts, make-up stains on clothing, etc.) which all point to him/her having an affair.

You confront your spouse and demand the truth. They flatly deny it.

The Sad Truth:

People will lie. It's a sad fact. People lie to protect their own interests, regardless of the validity of the threat or reward involved. Some people are motivated by greed to lie. Some people lie to avoid (real or imagined) physical, financial or psychological reactions/retributions. Some people lie because they feel guilty and ashamed of their own conduct ("I never had sex with that woman...") and, very rarely, people lie because they are simply compulsive liars.

The fact, however, is that most people are not accomplished actors or pathological liars... True, diagnosed pathological liars are very few and far between. 

Most people are "situational liars" and actually have deeply entrenched moral training that has instilled into them a real aversion to lying.  As a result, through their body language (and, in most cases, their carefully chosen words and phrasing), people unwittingly provide the observant person with "clues" that can expose their lies.

The immediate, unhesitant and emphatic denial of the Truthful:

When falsely accused of acts that are in complete conflict with their moral standards and/or highly contradictory to their established systems of values, most truly innocent people react swiftly and vociferously to counteract the accusation. This highly-charged emotional reaction to being wrongfully accused is aptly labeled "righteous indignation".

Righteous indignation contains all of the outward expressions of shock and disbelief (how could I be so misjudged?) and anger (how could you misjudge me so?) accompanied by verbal protests proclaiming their innocence that are generally emphatic, stark, resolute and leave no doubt as to their exact meaning and, most times, their veracity (i.e., "I have never, in my life, even contemplated ________!", "I could never, ever do such a thing!", "That is an absolute lie!", etc.)

In contrast, often, when a person who is consciously aware of their guilt (or who believes themselves to be guilty because they suffer from a guilt complex based, not upon any actual immoral acts they have performed but, rather, upon a kind of all-inclusive general sense of imperfection and unworthiness they have carried with them, usually since childhood -- note, however, that this psychological condition is comparatively rare) is accused of a misdeed (that they have committed but wish to hide from others), you will find that their reaction is much more subdued.

By way of illustration, I offer the following:

I witnessed a court case once wherein a young man was accused of the theft of an item of personal electronics. Consequently, he had filed written pleadings with the Court in which he denied the charges and advocated his innocence.

During his court appearance, in his narrative of the day that the theft took place, the accused mentioned -- almost off-handedly -- that, suspecting him of being the thief, the owner of the stolen electronics had dispatched two police officers to his house. The officers entered his home and communicated to him, on no uncertain terms, their belief that he had committed the act and should pay for it. In fact, the accused even admitted telling these officers that he would agree to make payments to the owner of the item that were equal to some part of the item's value.

The dispassionate demeanor of the defendant as he recounted this incident seemed far too calm and complacent for a supposedly innocent man who had been subjected to this kind of "quasi-Stormtrooper" type of tactic of being "verbally strong armed" by the police! Had someone falsely accused me of stealing an item of their personal property, I would have been enraged over having been treated in such a manner by public servants sworn to uphold the law and I would NEVER have allowed them to bully me into even entertaining the notion of making payments to someone to whom I firmly believed I owed nothing!

There was a very good reason why the accused was so subdued in his reaction to the treatment handed out to him by the officers: He knew they were right! He HAD taken the item and was guilty of the theft!

At one point in the proceedings the accused was asked by the magistrate -- point blank -- if he did, indeed, take the item in question. His answer didn't contain ANY of the elements mine would have, such as: "I did not", "Absolutely not", "I did not take it" or even an emphatic "No!".

This was his response: "He [the owner of the item] can't prove that I took it."

WHAT?!? Say AGAIN?!?  He can't "PROVE it"?!?!

If there was any doubt as to the guilt of the accused before that last statement, there was certainly none after it!

Where was the accused's "righteous indignation"? Where were his vociferous protests of innocence? His denial was based, not upon his own actions or standards of morality but, rather, upon his accuser's ability (or lack of it) to provide evidence as is narrowly defined by statute!

While, in many cases, the technicalities of the "Rules of Evidence" may exonerate a truly guiltless party when all else has failed, the main defense against a false accusation of wrongdoing SHOULD be "I would not, could not, do such a thing because it's morally wrong!" and NOT "My accuser cannot provide sufficient evidence to prove my guilt"!

Moreover, if you examine, word for word, the defendant's answer to the judge's simple question "Did you do it?", you will find his confession to the crime intact at the end of his response: "...I took it."

You don't have to "trap" liars in their lies; they usually do that all by themselves...

Almost immediately, one encounters two major drawbacks in attempting to pull-off a successful lie:
 
1. Lies have a way of multiplying themselves because, often, it becomes necessary to tell a second, third (or more) lies in order to support the first lie.

2. It is almost impossible -- day after day, week after week and year after year -- to keep track of multiple lies and remember exactly which lies were told to whom.

Therefore, when scrutinizing any suspicious narrative, it is beneficial to keep the following in mind:

Techniques for the truth-seeker:
 
1. Exact wording: Listen carefully to exactly what is being said. Pay extremely close attention to the exact words being used and the structure of the sentences.

Remember the young thief in the example above -- liars (who are not "accomplished liars") will very often use words that "skirt the issue" but usually are not forthcoming with a blatant and simple denial.

I cannot stress enough that this is the most reliable tool you have in determining when someone is telling a lie.

Try to anticipate what words you might use if you didn't exactly want to tell the truth but had a very strong moral aversion to telling an out and out lie.

When a girlfriend of mine's "significant other" -- who had seemed very happy and in love with her and with whom she had never had so much as a cross word -- just up and left one day while she was at work, leaving no note or other explanation, my friend contacted all of his acquaintances that she knew of and pleaded for a phone number --not so she could beg him to come back or hassle him in any way, but simply to get an explanation as to why he left like that (which she felt was the minimum she was owed) and they stonewalled her.

Finally, she came up with an old phone bill that listed her "other's" mother's phone number on the other side of the country and she called, asking for him. After being told by the mother that he wasn't there, my friend then said "But he's on his way there, he just hasn't arrived yet, right?"

The mother answered: "I don't know if he's coming here or not... The last time I heard from him, he was in [name of U.S. city]."

My friend figured out immediately that the city the woman had named was a major stop on the cross-country bus route from California to the state where the mother lived. She was then able to calculate the timing of his arrival at his mother's house and, when she called back, the two spoke. (I have to say that this story has a happy ending. The "other" came back and reunited with my friend... They've been married more than a dozen years now... :^D ) 

The important point of the above story is how the mother tried to skirt around the truth, the way my friend recognized that's what she was doing and the logical process my friend put into play to figure out exactly what was really going on.

Fill in the blanks!

2. Compare specifics: Try to keep track of the details of each "story" you were told.

Did the potential liar tell you they skipped lunch on the day in question only to mention in some later recounting of the same events that they grabbed a burger at the drive-thru? Were you first told three people were at some particular scene and then told later there was only one?

These small, apparently inconsequential, differences in the narrative are good indicators that the events being recounted didn't happen or at least didn't happen in quite the same way that you were told. This is why law enforcement personnel are trained to ask a suspect to repeat their "story" several different times during the course of an interrogation. They are checking for discrepancies.

The key to the above tactic is: When you have enough discrepancies/contradictions in the person's story, you can then confront him/her and point them out. If you have several contradictions (or one very glaring and important one), confront the suspect liar, face to face, with minimal emotion and a demeanor of calm assertion in a place and at a time that is free from distractions.

Deliver the bombshell (or keep lobbing them one at a time) and watch carefully for their reaction. Your goal is for the liar to crack under close scrutiny and pressure. If orchestrated and performed correctly, the truth should then come spilling out.

3. "Gilding the lily": Many liars (and would-be liars) have a habit of introducing extemporaneous and non-essential details into the narratives of their lies. I believe that the reason they do this is related to the old adage that says: "If you can't impress ‘em with intelligence, baffle ‘em with B.S." and the liar believes that if s/he embroiders the basic lie with enough superfluous detail, it will sound more believable.

So, be listening for the elements of the story that appear to have no bearing whatsoever upon the essence of the matter -- nine times out of ten, "more detail = less truth".

4. "Parroting" as a stall tactic: When she was about 7 or so, my daughter was an expert at this. Here is an example of a typical exchange between she and I:

Me: "Karma, did you clean up your room like I asked you to?"

My Daughter: (Blinking her big, baby blue eyes at me) "Clean? My room?"

Me: "Yes, Karma, that's what I said. Did you get your room cleaned up like I asked you    to this morning?"

My Daughter: "This morning?"

Me: "Yes, Karma, this morning when I asked you to clean up your room. Did you do it?"

My Daughter: "Do it?"

Of course she hadn't cleaned her room... That's why she was repeating the last parts of my questions back to me. She did this in order to give herself time to think up some fabricated excuse that she thought would keep her from getting into trouble.

My daughter was an expert at it but it's a very common tactic that liars and would-be liars (young AND old) use when they weren't expecting to be questioned about their activities at that particular moment and when they haven't had time to come up with a good story yet. (Next is what they do when they ARE expecting to be questioned.)

5. The story "down pat": Even while still engaged in the activity they know they will be lying to someone about later, liars' minds are already busy formulating likely scenarios for the lie they will be telling and then eliminating the ones they feel are less likely to be believed.

Next, they will choose the scenario they consider the most likely to be believed and then they will practice it over and over in their minds until they feel confident that they can "remember their lines".

Be aware of a suspicious recounting of events that is too "well-rehearsed". One of the tell-tale signs of a rehearsed lie is that it "plays" exactly like what it is: A story.

A rehearsed lie is usually delivered with a calm, deliberate tone, has a logical, organized sequence of events that take you from "point A" to "point Z" neatly and succinctly and then "it all wraps up with a bow" at the end.
 
The best counter measure to use in the case of a rehearsed lie is to throw in several small "distractions" at odd intervals. This will make it necessary for the would-be liar to stop and start their "speech" several times which (any actor can tell you) creates difficulties in "timing".

After providing the "distraction", look for facial expressions that indicate the story-teller is trying to remember just where they left off in their practiced narrative and which part follows next.

Don't expect that the "look into my eyes when you say that" tactic is going to work with the "practiced lie", the liar has anticipated it... (Which brings us to:)

6. "Look into my eyes": The only time this tactic actually works very well is if you know someone is about to lie to you, they're pretty young (children) and you preface it with a little moral lecture, e.g.: 

"Now, Johnny, you know that telling a lie is a very, very bad thing to do and that people who lie are punished for it... I know that you would never, never lie about anything because you are very intelligent and perceptive kid who is above that kind of thing."

7. Look for "the tell": Many (but certainly not ALL) liars have a "tell"...

A "tell" is what professional poker players call a small physical movement or gesture (a "nervous tick", if you will) that lots of people display when they're "bluffing". Since "bluffing" and "lying" are pretty much the same thing, you can sometimes use your intimate knowledge of how someone you know well reacts under pressure to gauge whether what they're saying is a lie or not.

Typical "tells" are:

1) Sighing
2) Touching hair, nose, cheek, ear or other part of the body
3) Perspiring upper lip, nose or forehead
4) Tapping foot
5) Sitting back/sitting forward in chair
6) Whistling
7) Stretching
8) Eyes rolling toward ceiling or floor/glancing side to side.
9) Scratching chin, arm, etc.
10) Taking drink/bite
11) Cracking knuckles/other body parts

There are many, many others, of course...

It doesn't hurt to make note of the "tells" of the people around you -- just be very aware that almost no two people have the same "tell" and don't try to apply one person's "tell" to someone else.

Even if you practice all of these techniques faithfully, there will be those occasions when you still won't be able to determine whether or not someone is telling you a lie... At those times, remain patient and observant so that you can be there when the liar trips him or herself up...

They pretty much all do, eventually...