Would I Lie to You?

So, our topic for the Demystifying Divas and the Marvy Men's Club this week is...{insert drumroll here}what lies do we tell our significant others?

For your education and entertainment, I present to you, Mr. Dave Stewart and Ms. Annie Lennox---yes, that's right kids. We're talking about the Eurythmics--- performing their smash hit Would I Lie To You?.

And, yes, kids. I was trying to sound like Dick Clark there.

Anyhoo...I've always thought the snarky alternative title to this song should be "Did I Stutter, A**hole?" Annie's packed her bags, she's cleaned the floor, and you're supposed to watch her walk out the door, (Although, one does wonder why, if the relationship is over, Annie would bother to clean the floor. Wouldn't a breakup negate the need for that sort of dreary housework?) and all the while the chorus is singing in the background, "Believe Me." So, when one actually bothers to listen to the lyrics of this song, one gets the impression that perhaps Annie wasn't as truthful as she might have been during the course of this relationship. Why else would she need plead with him to believe her otherwise?

Annie's been telling some little white lies, methinks.

And you know that happens, right? No one likes to cop to it, but it does happen, especially in the early stages of the relationship, when we're desperate to impress and perhaps the unexpurgated truth isn't the image we'd like to present. However, when you really dive into the deep end of a relationship, honesty is always a virtue, but not at the cost of being kind. So, instead of lying flat out, we perhaps tell little white lies, or tell lies of omission, where we just skip around the situation altogether. Because, sometimes, lying---and I really do hate to say it---is the right thing to do.

To prove my point, we shall examine all the options for one particular, universal, question that is asked everyday by women:

DOES MY ASS LOOK FAT IN THIS?

If a man doesn't want his bollocks to magically disappear, the smart answer to this question is...

...a noncomittal, "hmmmm" and a prompt change of topic. While this would count for a lie of omission, it would nonetheless be, technically speaking, the most correct way of answering this question. It dodges. It weaves. It avoids the killer right hook. Yet it's kind, and if the woman knows how to read between the lines, she will know that a. her man does not want to be dumped into a vat of hot water and b. he's trying not to hurt her feelings.

The seriously wrong answer to this question would be, "Yes, you are a lard ass. Change into a tent, would you? I don't want to be embarrassed." If you have a wish to be castrated, well, go right ahead and throw this one out there for the consumption of your beloved. It won't hurt...I promise.

Yet another incorrect answer would be if he chose to flat-out lie and said, "No, dear. It doesn't. You look great." If said woman then goes out to a party, where the main topic of whispered gossip happens to be "what the hell was she thinking when she put on that dress?" and she catches wind of it, well, he's a dead man. Because he's supposed to protect her from this sort of thing, he's supposed to be honest with her, and he failed. If only he'd told me the truth!

The problem here is that, at times, we want our significant others to lie to us. Sometimes we don't want the truth as they see it, but rather we want them to prop up the truth as we see it, which probably isn't the truth at all, but rather an illusion, or delusion as the case may be. Sometimes the kind thing to do, the thing that will ensure your vital bits don't magically disappear, is to fib. And by my usage of the term "fib," I mean it's all right, on occasion, to slightly lie to save someone hurt. "Fib" is not, in Kath's Thesaurus of Potentially Life Altering Language, the exact equivalent of "I'm not going to tell her that I slept with someone while I was at that dental convention in Acapulco." That would be an outright lie. And it's not kind to pull that sort of whopper on someone with whom you've pledged to spend the rest of your life. Because that kind of lie, while saving your bollocks temporarily, could come back to bite you...hard. Because that's a selfish kind of lie. A fib is a kind sort of lie. Get the difference? Good. Otherwise, you'll be just like Annie and you'll be pleading with her to "believe you" as she walks out the door. And I'll bet you anything she won't have cleaned the floor before she packed her bags.

And that's all she wrote. Quite literally. So, now go and see what the other Demystifying Divas have to say on the topic. One of our newest Divaesque Ladies, Sheila of The Sheila Variations, is stepping up this week and adding her two cents. Then, for the flip side, go and read what our Marvy Men's Club, which is comprised of Stiggy, The Wiz, Phin and our Maximum Leader, has offered up on this topic.

UPDATE: Divaesque Lady Twisty has also chimed in. Scoot along and read.

Posted by Kathy at June 21, 2005 09:11 AM