Unnecessary and outrageous lies that make you wonder — why lie about that in the first place? Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Kasey, a woman who prides herself on her truthfulness, tries to help host Ira Glass figure out how to stop lying about one specific thing. (10 minutes)Act One: Producer Dana Chivvis talks to reporter Liz Flock about a strange experience she had in 2011. (21 minutes)Act Two: Host Ira Glass talks with M. Gessen about a lie they've been seeing out in the world a lot recently — the “bully lie.” (15 minutes)Act Three: We find someone brave enough to stand up and make a case FOR lying. That person is producer Ike Sriskandarajah. (8 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.
Chapter 1: Why do people tell unnecessary lies?
A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. Casey's autistic. She says it's puzzling, neurotypical people and how much they lie. She's not alone.
Yeah. In our support groups, that issue comes up a lot. For some people, it's very puzzling and they just don't understand the concept. And especially because so often, lies are just completely transparent.
She gave me this example. When she worked in HR, they caught this guy who was having an inappropriate relationship with his administrative assistant. A naked picture of her was on his work computer. And still, he denied it, kept lying.
It's just baffling to me. It's just, it's inexplicable. I don't understand the continuing in the lie. And I don't understand why they haven't learned at an earlier point that it's not productive, that this is not an effective tool for you.
Looking around on Reddit, we found a lot of autistic people writing about this exact thing. Here's somebody who posted saying, I recently realized that a lot of things I'd always categorized as lies are not seen that way by NT people, neurotypical people. Like, they say it knowing it isn't literally true, but they don't think of it as a lie because they don't expect others to believe it.
For example, here's some things that I always thought were weird, inexplicable lies. And then there's a list. It was great to see you. Let's do this again soon. I hope you have a great holiday. You are so funny. I love your hairdo. Where did you buy that dress? I need to get one too. Oh, wow. That's very interesting. See you later. They continue.
I've decided to start translating a lot of NT chatter from its literal meaning into a simple form of, hello, I want you to see me as friendly. So I am making friendly noises.
Yes. Do you relate? I do. You know, the white lies and the polite fictions and the pleasantries that go along with small talk, a lot of autistic people really do perceive that as lying. Yeah. For me, I recognize that it's a cultural structure rather than an intent to deceive.
And does that make it any better?
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Chapter 2: What challenges do autistic individuals face with social lies?
It's quite simply a lie, but it is a lie that is fully justified because it is information to which he is not entitled for the protection of life and limb of myself or another person.
That is obviously a very hard example to argue against. She told me another one where her dog pooped all over her car and she was late to a meeting. And when she got there, she did not tell the truth about why. She didn't want to gross anybody out. Also, none of their business. Otherwise, she almost always picks honesty.
When kids picked on their nieces about their weight, they came to her crying and asked, am I fat? And she says it was really hard not to say the kinds of lies that people said to her when she was their age. But she didn't. She said, let's talk about your body and being fat. Is there something wrong with being fat?
Honesty, she says, is the only way to vulnerability and intimacy, which, you know, of course. I was very curious how she does not lie at work. I definitely do most of my lying on the job. Not here on the air, of course, where everything I say is deeply, thoroughly fact-checked. but just around the office, just white lies.
I don't understand how you get by without a little pretending now and then in a workplace. I don't actually understand how you would get things done. Casey has none of that. Okay, let me ask you about a lie that I tell all the time at work. Okay?
At the end of pretty much any interview I ever do, I thank the person and I tell them how great they were, even if they were not great, even if they were not good talkers, even if they were not able to describe the thing that we'd hoped that they would describe. That is what I say because it seems to me to be such a vulnerable thing to ask people to, like –
come and talk in an interview and they don't know how it's going to go and it's just kind of a nerve-wracking thing that it seems just kind to say you did a good job.
I think that most of the time, if the person you're speaking to didn't do well, that they're going to know it. And so the polite fiction is not going to reassure them. So what is the honest thing you could say in that situation? The honest thing is, You know, coming to do this, to have these conversations and be open and vulnerable is a big thing.
And I really appreciate that you did it and that you made the effort. Thank you for that. That's honest.
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Chapter 3: How can honesty be balanced with social expectations?
It was like Boy Who Cried Wolf situation, which is like who's going to trust Syrian activists posting about this after this situation?
By the time Tom's little lie had rolled all the way downhill, it was a pretty sizable lie with real world consequences. The Syrian government used it to suggest that everyone in the West was lying about the Assad regime's murderous tactics against activists and bloggers. They used it to suggest that gay people in Syria were really just agents of the West.
In retrospect, Amina's writing, it's so bad. Like when her father supposedly says to the secret police, you know where we stood when Mohammed, peace be upon him, went to Medina. It's like the 1950s Hollywood version of how a Syrian man would talk. But what was good about Amina's writing, Tom's writing, is that it played for emotion.
It confirmed what we were all feeling here in the West, what excited us about the Arab Spring. Democracy was ascendant, the bad guys were going down, the lesbians were taking over, or whatever. Amina was the lie we all wanted. I reached out to Tom, Bill, and Britta for this story. Tom and Bill definitely did not want to talk to me. Britta didn't respond.
But the day after he was outed, Tom did some press. He said he had wanted to wind Amina down for a while, and he was going on vacation. So having her abducted was kind of his out-of-office message. Yeah, man, the internet, huh?
The internet. I mean, it's, oh, God, I know. And it was, like, so fun for just a short period of time where everyone was just like, is this thing on? Can I tell you about what I ate? Yeah.
A lot's changed since then. The Washington Post, where Liz worked, is now owned by Jeff Bezos. Twitter is owned by Elon Musk. Instagram is owned by Facebook. Facebook has done away with fact-checking. And the president has his own social media platform, called Truth Social, where he regularly posts falsehoods and conspiracy theories.
Kind of makes you long for the good old days, when the internet wasn't dominated by the most powerful, and people still cared what was true and what wasn't. The truth. So retro. It's a whole new world now. Except over here on the dusty old radio, where I still can't say shit or piss or fuck or cunt or cocksucker or motherfucker or tits. Not even tits.
Because, of course, think of the chaos that would ensue if I did.
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