IS LIFE WORTH A LIE? LIFE IS NEVER WORTH A LIE!

NOTHING IS TOTALLY BLACK AND WHITE
Lies in the virtual world and lies in the real world are a fact of life. The seriousness of such lies and how we react to them depends on our values and how serious we view the lie. Lying is never good and for some people totally undermines a budding friendship.

MISREPRESENATION
One of the things that people have to grapple with on the internet is approaches from people who may not be what they say they are. They have uploaded young, nubile, alluring pictures of what they say they look like and they try to become friends. Sooner or later they have to reveal their true age and their true looks. What do we do at that stage?

WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
You meet someone on the internet and you thought they were the same age as you. You enjoy the company but one day they suddenly disappear. They resurface again and now admit they are much older. You are devastated because the person has lied to you. You may also be disappointed because you had hoped they were that young, exciting thing you initially befriended. What would you do? Tell the person to get lost or understand that they did this to establish the relationship in the first place because we would not have been prepared to be friends if we had known the truth at that time.

MOTHERLY LESSON
My Mum taught me: If you want to lie make sure you have a good memory! This was after my Mum had caught me lying when I was a young child. It was a wake up call that my Mum was smarter than me and that lying really gets you no where or once you start lying you have to keep lying and lying. I realized that lying was so stressful and that anyway sooner or later you would be found out and that at the end of the day we are just fooling ourselves. People often know when we are lying but often are too polite to say so, for example.

LACK OF TRUST
The downside of lying is that people lose trust. They lose trust in the person and if the lies are told by a class of person such as politicians, we can lose trust in institutions. Lying is serious and can undermine our relations with others and society. It is that serious.

THE AGE-OLD QUESTION
So what is my reaction to people who have told me lies such as about their age on the internet. I feel sorry for them that they feel they need to do this to get friends. But I understand it because when I have told younger people my age that has been the last conversation and I am saddened at their intolerance. I do think age on the internet is irrelevant once a person is an adult.

WELCOME TO THE ADULT WORLD OF FRIENDSHIP
In most countries, we reach adulthood at 18 or 21. After the age of 21, we are all adults and it should not matter what age we are when it comes to friendship on the net. To me age is irrelevant and what matters more is interests and the enjoyment of interaction. So I would say to young adults and old codgers, do you like each other and do you click? If the answer is yes, there is no harm in such interaction. Young adults should be more tolerant and old codgers should be more confident.

LIFE IS NOT WORTH A LIE
Shakespeare penned: Be true to yourself. So I think if you have been lied to, you should register your objection to this. You are worth being told the truth, but I think we should try to understand why the person lied and whether you can accept the explanation.

STRENGTH OF CHARACTER
I would say to all people, lying is a bad habit and one should work hard to reduce the amount of lying we do. Sometimes a lie seems to be more convenient and the easy way out, but often it is character strengthening to be truthful. Also the result of the lie is the same as if you had told the truth. Yes if you had told your young friend your true age, they would not have wanted to be friends. But then when they find out the truth, they no longer trust you and so do not want to be friends. Either way the result is the same, so the lie was pointless.

SLAVES TO LIES
The downside of telling lies is that you become a slave to it. You have the burden of maintaining the lie. Often that means telling more lies and that compounds the burden. It is a house of cards and the house will fall soon or later.