Does telling a woman that a dress doesn’t make her butt look big or a man that the combover takes off 10 years even count as lies?
Usually yes, unless the actual dress is flattering or the combover is somehow youthfully playful and isn’t trying to cover a bowling ball-sized bald spot.
But they’re what’s called social lies, and even they have limits, readers told us for The Question, an exclusive Patch column on social etiquette and what to do in certain situations.
The broad consensus was that kindness may justify softening the truth, dodging a question or offering reassurance when nothing serious is at stake. But it doesn’t excuse lies that manipulate, smear, cover up wrongdoing or deprive someone of facts they need.
Lee, who lives in Ocala, Florida, and reads Bethel Patch and Danbury Patch, both in Connecticut, draws no distinctions.
“A lie is a lie. Never mind a little lie, or a white lie,” Lee said. “The truth can sometimes hurt, but you can always try to say something after to tell them it is what it is.”
Lee acknowledges that “it’s hard to always tell the truth.”
“We need to bring back integrity and doing what is right, even when no one is watching,” Lee said. “Sad to say, there are many people who do not live up to that.”
“I can’t think of an occasion when a real lie is necessary, when an evasion may suffice,” said Mary, a Hightstown (New Jersey) Patch AM reader.
Woodstock (New York) Patch AM reader Kassie had a different take. Assuring someone who has been in an accident to “hang on to hope and all is going to be OK” when you are not sure it will be is a kind mistruth, Kassie said.
Toms River (New Jersey) Patch reader TL thinks a small lie is acceptable “if someone, for example, a spouse, is already showing a lack of confidence regarding their capability of performing a task.”
But, TL said, “There’s a wide margin between telling a lie and avoiding ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’”
“Truth is not a cudgel to bludgeon someone with,” said Arlington (Virginia) Patch reader Melanie. She thinks it is OK to fib “to avoid causing unnecessary emotional pain to someone.”
Most white lies are harmless or even a matter of self-preservation, said Cathy L., who lives in New York City and reads Park Slope Patch, Brooklyn Patch and Upper East Side Patch.
That category includes “protecting the feelings of an earnest child or a terrible, novice cook — as long as it will not be served every day forward,” she said. It also includes “pleasing my much younger boss about his brand of coffee” or letting a harmless but biologically impossible food claim pass.
“No harm, no foul,” she said.
It’s unnecessary to bluntly call out another’s lie, but there are ways to move the conversation past it, said Fay, a Gaithersburg (Maryland) Patch reader.
“I don’t believe in ‘going along’ just to placate them,” Fay said. “A ‘hmmm’ or ‘that’s one way of looking at it’ is an out.
“If the issue is pressed, ask the person to talk about themselves,” Fay said, adding, “Narcissists will think you are the greatest person in the room!”
Concord (New Hampshire) Patch reader Claire said false claims in public forums can spread far beyond their original audience and become difficult to correct.
“It’s not OK for public officials to fabricate lies,” she said. “Lies travel fast, and when they are sensationalist, they become the record, and they color public perception and shape communities. Apart from anything else, these kinds of lies have serious human consequences.”
But what about telling kids Santa Claus leaves gifts under the Christmas tree for good little boys and girls?
“We decided before we had kids that we weren’t going to try to convince them that an obese man in a flying sleigh powered by reindeer would somehow, mouse-like, make himself small enough to slide down the chimney without covering himself in soot,” said Henry, a Pottstown (Pennsylvania) Patch reader.
“We both grew up with parents who found it easier to lie than tell the truth about important things, and we just never wanted to set any kind of precedent for lying, even about seemingly harmless things,” he said.
“We said Santa represents the spirit of Christmas and that they were fortunate enough to have parents who could afford to put gifts under the tree, reminding them not all children have those advantages,” Henry continued. “We told them it was a tradition in some places to pretend otherwise and that it would be cruel for them to bust the Santa myth.”
The Santa Claus story is one of the classic childhood white lies, and research suggests most children weather it just fine. A 2023 Developmental Psychology study found that children usually stop believing around age 8, and while some feel hurt or embarrassed when they learn the truth, most do not report a lasting loss of trust in their parents. The bigger risk appears to come when adults keep pressing the story after a child has started asking serious questions.
Patch readers’ responses were consistent with research that shows people don’t judge every lie the same way. A small lie meant to spare someone’s feelings may be seen as kinder than a blunt truth, especially when nothing important is at stake. But that tolerance fades when a lie misleads someone, protects the liar or causes real harm.
Most people don’t lie much, and only a small group accounts for a lot of lying, according to a widely cited Human Communication Research study that asked 1,000 U.S. adults how many lies they’d told in the previous 24 hours. Sixty percent reported telling no lies at all, and nearly half of all reported lies came from just 5 percent of participants.
Some people lie so often, and so elaborately, that experts describe it as compulsive or pathological lying. That is different from the everyday lies most people argue about — the white lie, the excuse, the dodge, the story told to avoid hurting someone’s feelings.
Experts also caution against casually calling someone a “pathological liar,” because it is not a formal stand-alone diagnosis. For most daily lies, the better question is simpler: Who was the lie meant to protect, and what harm did it do?
The Question is an exclusive Patch series posing a broad array of questions on etiquette and what to do in certain situations — and readers provide the answers. If you have a topic you’d like us to consider, email beth.dalbey@patch.com with “The Question” as the subject line.
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