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> I've been on the side of that girlfriend and you just can't have a full understand of what's going on in the head of the other person, everything is just walk

> I've been on the side of that girlfriend and you just can't have a full understand of what's going on in the head of the other person, everything is just walking on eggs, except the eggs are actually landmines. The problem here in my opinion is rather that most people are used to lie, manipulate and betray (in society this behaviour is actually euphemized via the term "white lies"). In this particular case, such a behaviour does have consequences. See the example of this thread where the girlfriend claims she will be there in 15 minutes, despite being 100 km away. Since most people are not used to being honest (or, I assume, actually never were), they give similar descriptions of their difficulties when their lies do have consequences like your "everything is just walking on eggs, except the eggs are actually landmines".

seszett 2y ago
It's a bit more complicated than just "not being used being honest". Being 100% honest and not hiding anything doesn't work either, so it's a constant balancing act between telling them the truth, reassuring them and sometimes indeed shielding from the harsh truth by avoiding from mentioning something, which I do believe is different from lying. Lying is out of question though and I think the people who resort to that do it out of laziness more than anything, or maybe well-intentioned wishful thinking in the case of the aforementioned girlfriend. But this is always harmful, not just with psychotic persons.
- tdeck 2y ago
  It's interesting how OP conflates telling white lies with "betraying" - kinda feels like there are some issues to work through there.
  - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
    > It's interesting how OP conflates telling white lies with "betraying" This statement exactly proves my point concerning how dishonest and betraying most people are.
    - genrilz 2y ago
      I think what GP is saying is that white lies are not necessarily betrayal. Betrayal is when someone violates your trust somehow. [0] You can see some examples of lying in the wiktionary definition I linked. (see the last two definitions) However, both these definitions involve the lie causing some negative consequence. A white lie is specifically a lie done to spare someones feelings. It's possible that the white lie can cause negative consequences, but that is not always the case. To take a concrete example, consider the classic white lie "no, that dress doesn't make you look fat". It is possible that this could cause someone to wear an ugly dress, but the person probably looked at themselves in the mirror too, so they probably will end up choosing a dress that doesn't look awful. In this case there is no negative consequence associated with the white lie unless person wearing the dress is unable to accurately self assess. (which is something the speaker hopefully would know about the dress wearer) You could define being lied to as a violation of your trust. In particular, I think autistic people often can't pick up on social cues, and so rely more on people speaking the truth to them. However, that doesn't mean white lies are betrayal for everyone. If you in particular feel like white lies are betrayal, you might want to tell people in your life that so they know it's important to you. They won't automatically know and it isn't automatically important to them. [0]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/betray#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/betray#English
      - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
        > Betrayal is when someone violates your trust somehow. Which white lies do.
        genrilz 2y ago
        I believe you when you say that white lies violate your trust. I'm saying that that experience isn't universal though. Different people define violations of their trust differently. Thus my suggestion at the end to make sure that the people around you know that this is part of your definition. (Though you might have already done this)
      - salawat 2y ago
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > Lying is out of question though In the particular example, the girlfriend did lie to him by telling him she'll be there in 15 minutes despite being 100 km away. This exactly lead to the strange chain of thoughts.
- salawat 2y ago
  >sometimes indeed shielding from the harsh truth by avoiding from mentioning something, which I do believe is different from lying. You mean lying by omission? A.k.a. not speaking the quiet part? It's still received and noted by the other person you know. Likely by the part of the psyche they haven't got consciously integrated, or are experiencing a connectivity problem with. Remember, that part of them is still a very big chunk of human neural processor. It isn't stupid. It's also not terribly capable of straightforwardly communicating. What it is scarily good at is navigating the external world, which includes seeing the void of what one doesn't say. If it's already running amok, pouring more fuel in the form of duplicity on the fire is probably not the greatest idea.
throw4950sh06 2y ago
In this particular case, it was sort of the opposite. I'm used to her always being honest, so when she told me it's 15 minutes I trusted her 100%. She was getting a friend to rescue me, and she was counting on me trusting her and waiting at home, but unfortunately that was of no use as I went off to the city before they could even pack their things after that call.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > I'm used to her always being honest, so when she told me it's 15 minutes I trusted her 100%. But she lied to you - and this lead to your dangerous chain of thoughts.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- DiggyJohnson 2y ago
  Should she have been more honest and said "X will be their shortly. I'm really worried about you, please stay put."? Just trying to follow this chain of reasoning.
  - throw4950sh06 2y ago
    Yes, that would work. I was really looking for confirmation, so if she said something like this the issue could be avoided. But who knows what I'd come up with 10 minutes later...

seszett 2y ago

It's a bit more complicated than just "not being used being honest". Being 100% honest and not hiding anything doesn't work either, so it's a constant balancing act between telling them the truth, reassuring them and sometimes indeed shielding from the harsh truth by avoiding from mentioning something, which I do believe is different from lying. Lying is out of question though and I think the people who resort to that do it out of laziness more than anything, or maybe well-intentioned wishful thinking in the case of the aforementioned girlfriend. But this is always harmful, not just with psychotic persons.

tdeck 2y ago
It's interesting how OP conflates telling white lies with "betraying" - kinda feels like there are some issues to work through there.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > It's interesting how OP conflates telling white lies with "betraying" This statement exactly proves my point concerning how dishonest and betraying most people are.
  - genrilz 2y ago
    I think what GP is saying is that white lies are not necessarily betrayal. Betrayal is when someone violates your trust somehow. [0] You can see some examples of lying in the wiktionary definition I linked. (see the last two definitions) However, both these definitions involve the lie causing some negative consequence. A white lie is specifically a lie done to spare someones feelings. It's possible that the white lie can cause negative consequences, but that is not always the case. To take a concrete example, consider the classic white lie "no, that dress doesn't make you look fat". It is possible that this could cause someone to wear an ugly dress, but the person probably looked at themselves in the mirror too, so they probably will end up choosing a dress that doesn't look awful. In this case there is no negative consequence associated with the white lie unless person wearing the dress is unable to accurately self assess. (which is something the speaker hopefully would know about the dress wearer) You could define being lied to as a violation of your trust. In particular, I think autistic people often can't pick up on social cues, and so rely more on people speaking the truth to them. However, that doesn't mean white lies are betrayal for everyone. If you in particular feel like white lies are betrayal, you might want to tell people in your life that so they know it's important to you. They won't automatically know and it isn't automatically important to them. [0]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/betray#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/betray#English
    - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
      > Betrayal is when someone violates your trust somehow. Which white lies do.
      - genrilz 2y ago
        I believe you when you say that white lies violate your trust. I'm saying that that experience isn't universal though. Different people define violations of their trust differently. Thus my suggestion at the end to make sure that the people around you know that this is part of your definition. (Though you might have already done this)
    - salawat 2y ago
aleph_minus_one 2y ago
> Lying is out of question though In the particular example, the girlfriend did lie to him by telling him she'll be there in 15 minutes despite being 100 km away. This exactly lead to the strange chain of thoughts.
salawat 2y ago
>sometimes indeed shielding from the harsh truth by avoiding from mentioning something, which I do believe is different from lying. You mean lying by omission? A.k.a. not speaking the quiet part? It's still received and noted by the other person you know. Likely by the part of the psyche they haven't got consciously integrated, or are experiencing a connectivity problem with. Remember, that part of them is still a very big chunk of human neural processor. It isn't stupid. It's also not terribly capable of straightforwardly communicating. What it is scarily good at is navigating the external world, which includes seeing the void of what one doesn't say. If it's already running amok, pouring more fuel in the form of duplicity on the fire is probably not the greatest idea.

throw4950sh06 2y ago

In this particular case, it was sort of the opposite. I'm used to her always being honest, so when she told me it's 15 minutes I trusted her 100%. She was getting a friend to rescue me, and she was counting on me trusting her and waiting at home, but unfortunately that was of no use as I went off to the city before they could even pack their things after that call.

aleph_minus_one 2y ago
> I'm used to her always being honest, so when she told me it's 15 minutes I trusted her 100%. But she lied to you - and this lead to your dangerous chain of thoughts.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
DiggyJohnson 2y ago
Should she have been more honest and said "X will be their shortly. I'm really worried about you, please stay put."? Just trying to follow this chain of reasoning.
- throw4950sh06 2y ago
  Yes, that would work. I was really looking for confirmation, so if she said something like this the issue could be avoided. But who knows what I'd come up with 10 minutes later...