While most human beings will engage in making some excuses in
their lives, the common Ben Franklin saying “He that is good for making
excuses is seldom good for anything else,” may be more of a
self-fulfilling prophesy for excuse-makers than simply avoidance or
laziness. Whether excuses are used to shift blame or improve what other
people think, it may be easier for excuse-makers to live with excuses
than think about living with having tried at something and failed.
We
know that nonverbal communication is more trusted than verbal
communication. Share with us a time when someone has given you an excuse
that you know was a lie based on their nonverbal communication. How did
you know that it wasn't the truth? What verbal/nonverbal cues were
there? How did it affect your perception of that person?
This one time the neighbor asked me to let him borrow my craftsman tool set of mine I have in my garage. I told him yes since he was always first to ask me for help and I did most of time help him out. Also did favors for him in the past such as: lending him my lawn tools and helping his with his car troubles as well. But sometimes this particular person tends to always be in hurry when I would ask about a certain thing I needed help on. Like for example, one time I saw him mess up one of my mother’s plants she paid good money for and spent hours planting buy taking out his garbage bend and ran over it completely with the wheels of it. I saw the whole thing and I got angry but I quickly calmed myself down and went outside to fix the problem myself by replanting it. Well later in the week I was working on fitness equipment I have in the garage and I couldn’t find my tools. I searched everywhere and then I remembered I let my neighbor borrow them. So I went on over to his house around the time I knew he’d be home from work. I asked him when he approached the door for my tools and at first he was like umm…. And then just I guess focused and was like oh yeah I have them right here just a second. He took a brief moment to come back out, making me feel as is something happened. Like if he had lent them out, or lost them. He came out and handed them to me like a rush to go back inside. So I went on, to my house to finish the task I had started on. And when I opened the tool box I noticed fast that one of my wrenches was stripped of the grip ridges. As if he forced using them on something sharp or that didn’t fit with that particular size for that tool. I was super angry!! I went back over to his house and he came out. I told him he’s buying me a brand new tool of that size. He looked at me speechless because he has never seen me act that way anger at him or at all. An also his eyes were large and legs moving back in forth, head down, and trying not to let me see his face. His only response what that it was like that when he borrowed the tools the week before. This was a HUGE LIE because I am very caring for my things. I know how everything is and where it goes. Plus his face was red and he couldn’t act right in front of me. Total lie obviously from him. After this incident I NEVER let him borrow a thing! Not even some sugar or nothing!! Still don’t, and it even made me look at him as non-trusting so I still keep my distance from him.
ReplyDeleteHave trust in someone is not an easy thing to just have for ta person. i was dating this person for over 2 years and well he was becoming distant and i suspected he was moving on from us maybe even cheating. He started telling me he had to stay late for practice and put in etra time quiet often. when i questioned him one day when he got home "where are you going all the time? and why do you have to practice so much? is anyone else practicing wiht ou? he started looking away from me and would not loook me in the eye. he stuttered with his speech and was starting to turn red he mumbled out "...well i um...just need to owrk hard to be good you know that...and um... yeah some of the guys have been helping me out." with all his pausing and lookin upward as if he was thinking of what he was going to say to me as he was speaking. i had a gut feeling i should have trustd at th get go. another time just a few days laer i aasked to borrow his phone to call my mom after my phone had died. he said um.. i guess so.. do you have to? he handedd me the phone and i start to type in the number and an incoming call comes in with the name of his best friend. i answered it and it was not his best friend who answred it was some girl and she responded with "hey babe i just waas calling to tell you i love you." i said " well this isnt who you think it is. i hung up in shock. i think he knew he jst looked at me. i wquestioned of course and he denied it. but i knew he waslying. we broke up he was my best friend too. and well he still tries to act concerned and talk to me like friends and i just dont trust him ever again because hes a lair and he didnt even the decency to telll me the truth when he had the chance he lied. he could have maybe perserved at least the value of his word but he was more concerned with well lying.
ReplyDeleteBack in the day when myspace was popular I was talking to this person who I had some mutual friends with, but hadn’t met in person since we went to different schools. I knew he had a rather obnoxious personality but since I found him physically attractive, I ended up liking him and had this romanticized idea of him in my mind. I knew deep down we probably didn’t have much in common but I still had this naïve little hope that we would meet and have a sort of connection or whatnot. I saw that he was going through a hard time with a girl so I took it as an opportunity to talk to him and let him know I’d be there to give advice. We started talking more often over the course of the next few months and he ended up liking me in return. I was really nervous about the idea of finally meeting him because I didn’t know how it would go, but one day we decided to hang out. The minute we met in person I immediately had a feeling that it wasn’t going to go very well. Even for somebody as outgoing as he was, our attempts at making conversation were awkward and we did not have one fluid moment. He kept checking the time and looking around restlessly, and said he had to leave and do homework. Obviously I knew he was lying not only because of the nonverbal cues I got, but also because he was this stoner who’d mentioned to me before that he didn’t care for school and was failing half his classes. Needless to say I was pretty bummed out but I still couldn’t get over him because I’d grown so attached to him, or rather, the idea of him. Of course we don’t talk anymore but in retrospect I find this situation kind of funny in a way, even though it caused me a lot of grief at the time.
ReplyDeleteYesterday after I had left school, I went to meet up for lunch with a close girlfriend of mine to catch up on how she’s been doing, the usual. She usually takes a while in deciding what to eat, so I suggested going to an Indian buffet not that far from were she lived. She agreed on trying out the food since it was new to her, which was surprising because she likes simple, no-exotic food. I knew already that this could go one of two ways, she loves the food, or it’s just not for her, which would be completely understandable because Indian food is an acquired taste. So we get there, and she cautiously roamed around the buffet plating a bit of each dish while I loaded up my plate with some of my favorite dishes. We sat down, and I watched her reaction as she ate each dish, she would occasionally nod, or make an intrigued face. I knew that some dishes were a hit and miss with her, but when I asked her how she liked the food, she glanced down not looking me in the eye and said it was interesting and had a unique flavor. Obviously, Indian food is not her cup of tea, and she was telling somewhat of the truth, but also not stating how she truly felt. I thought her reaction was hilarious because in class we had just finished talking about how women tend to speak tentatively always hinting at things without forthright saying what they mean out loud. I knew that she didn’t want to hurt my feelings, but I honestly didn’t care; I was just happy that she wanted to try something different and new. I offered to pay for her meal, so she could pick up something up later because I didn’t want her to be hungry. She ended up going back to the buffet and loading up on the dish that she liked the most and was okay for the rest of the day. All in all, I found it funny that she withheld from the truth, but I picked up on not only her tentative way of speaking but also her nonverbal cues knowing how she really felt.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't mind me asking... What is this Indian buffet called and located?
DeleteNo not at all. It's called India Palace, and it's located on Fredricksburg and Wurzbach near the Medical Center. It's about ten dollars for the buffet. :)
DeleteThat place is delicious.
DeleteSeems like I will always refer to my days in the military but I had so many trainees who would lie to me trying to get out of trouble for something they failed to do or with lies in order to be able to get out of training and sent back home. The most common of these lies was the whole “Sir, I am gay” lie. This was during the don’t ask don’t tell era so we couldn’t ask if they were and they didn’t have to tell us if they were unless they were caught in the act or if they disclosed it on their own free will. It was a matter of time before the slackers realized how easy it would be to get out of training and I remember one kid in particular coming into my office and centering himself at my desk and telling me, “Sir, I have to inform you of something.” The whole time he is looking at my forehead and not into my eyes. I tell him, to tell me what he had to tell me and says while looking at the picture behind me, “Sir, I am gay.” I looked at him and told him, “Look at me and tell me you’re gay.” He looked at me and every time he tried telling me he was gay he started off well until the part where he had to say “gay” he would move his eyesight and look somewhere else. Now, since he had to stand at the position of attention while addressing me he also had a difficult time doing this because he kept moving his hands when he tried lying to me. I told him, “I know you’re lying to me…you cannot even look at me and you keep fidgeting when you tell me you’re gay.” He broke into tears and told me he just couldn’t handle training anymore and he thought he was going to break. I had a good talk with him and told him that even if he was gay...why would that stop him from training? Long story short, he is now a ten year veteran and doing great in the USAF.
ReplyDeleteThis is so common being in the military and what alot of them fail to relieze is how much of a mind game all of it really is... just as it was stated in the video we watched yesterday, you convince yourself that you can handle it, that you will make it through it and that you will not let any drill sgt. break you... And dear baby jesus that is exactly what happens... So Kudos to you! and the attention you payed to your subordinates, leaders like yourself are always needed!
DeleteDefinitely...it was all a mind game. When I went through boot camp back in 1993...the first three days were hell for me but then I realized it was a game. After that it was a breeze. I told my trainees that after the third or fourth week of training too, that they had passed a mind game...it all had its purpose though.
DeleteI used to be really good friends with this girl back in the days of High school and after I finish saying this story some people may wonder, WHY?? When i first got to know her she seemed I guess like a normal person I could be friends with, but as any friendship progresses you pick up on things and habits that they do. She also had a bad "habit" of talking behind people's backs who she claimed were her friends and she would do this even in front of me about other people which I saw as a red flag & decided to slowly distance myself from this girl. One day I found out through somebody that she was talking bad about one of my cousins who i'm VERY close to and she knew her, hearing this caused me to get extremely offended. I'm not one to quickly assume without knowing the actual truth and her having that reputation to talk behind people's backs fueled me even more. I decided to confront her about the situation and asked her that why she would do such a thing when this person didn't even do anything to her. She at first looked shocked, looked away like she didn’t know what to say and looked back at me angrily and started getting very defensive. This was already a sign that I knew she was lying. She kept going on about how she liked my cousin and she liked me as a friend how she would NEVER do that but she was talking way too much as though her explanation was so long it wasn't making any sense! During this moment she was trying to make eye contact with me but would look away at the same time. She was just all over the place at that moment but I decided to end the friendship because I didn't want somebody in my life like that. It changed my perception of her because I knew the way she was but I didn't think she'd actually be like that with me and lie to me for the silliest reasons but her doing that was the final straw for me. It just shows you that people should be careful with who they become friends with, especially "close" friends.
ReplyDeleteThis past year, I was an RA in the on campus apartment complex I lived in. My university has less than 1200 students, so everyone pretty much knows everyone. Early fall semester some of my residents decided to throw a huge party in their apartment on a random Tuesday night. Their neighbors called me complaining about the noise so I had to go over and break it up. None of my residents are legally allowed to drink, so you can imagine my surprise when a few of them handed me their fake IDs and tried to convince me that they were over 21. Although their behavior was probably partially due to the alcohol they'd consumed, their voices were raised and they were sweating and appeared generally nervous and fidgety. Our campus police are very lenient and don't usually give out MIPs, but I did have to write them up for noise and policy violations. Needless to say I got a good laugh out of the whole situation and they spent the rest of the semester avoiding me.
ReplyDeleteBack when I was in high school, we were working on a worksheet one day in one of my classes. Afterwards, a friend of mine, who sat a couple of desks behind me, said she had seen one of our good guy friends, who happened to be sitting next to me, look at my assignment a couple times and copy down what I put as answers. After school in the band hall, we were talking and just hanging out like we normally did, so decided to ask him if he had been looking at my paper during class. He told me that no, he hadn’t cheated, but he couldn’t maintain eye contact with me after that. Once I told him someone saw him doing it, he got really defensive and tried to tell me again that he didn’t look at my worksheet and our conversation ended shortly after that. While I wasn’t mad at him for cheating in the first place, I was kind of hurt at the fact he lied to me about something as petty as that when he knew I would’ve just helped him if he asked.
ReplyDeleteThis previous semester, the teacher assigned a group project as the largest percentage of our grade. A classmate and I decided the topic to research and began dividing the workload equally. Two weeks after the project was assigned, and with only one week left for completion, the teacher decided to add one more person to our group. We did not mind accepting the person into our group; we divided the remaining work into thirds and the new member had only one obligation out of the entire project as much of the project was already completed. After class she said she would work on it over the weekend. The following Monday I asked her if she had worked on the project and she got nervous and began to check her phone for messages and missed calls in order to evade eye contact. She was also brushing her hair back behind her ear as if she was nervous. She stuttered that she did not have time to work on the project because her car broke down. I hesitated to believe it but decided to give her the benefit of the doubt because she still had 3 days to work on it. I tried getting a hold of her the following day but got no response. The day after that she assured me that she only had “a couple of things” to add to her portion of the project, but I never received her submission and she never answered my calls or texts, even though her Twitter feed was active throughout that time. Presentation day came and I called her before going to class to see if she was coming so that we could add her slide to our presentation. We were the last group to present because we waited for her to show up as long as we could to give her time to show up but she never did. My friend and I presented our incomplete project and received a 100 because the teacher understood it wasn’t our fault that it was incomplete. I received a text 10 minutes after class had ended saying that she was sorry she didn’t show up because she overslept, but my trust had already been broken.
ReplyDeleteI pride myself on being a genuine person. Therefore I do not understand what someone gets out of pretending to be your fried?... I ask this because a few years ago when I first moved back to San Antonio I met a female through an old friend we hit it off and we became best of frnds almost instantly. Sometime after I began to date a guy & soon there after we began havin issues with him turstin me. He started to accuse me of cheating, going out and meeting guys, and lying to him. He knew specific details of times she and I went out but the story he told me was always blown out of proportion, for example; we would go out and a guy would try to dance with me like any female with a boyfriend I was polite and said no thank you. I would take a step back and kept dancing with my girlfriends but the version he got was... she was dancing with this one guy the whole night and they exchanged numbers. So at first I didn't want to believe that someone I considered such a great friend would make up such horrendous lies and accusations but when I began to relieze a pattern I confronted her about it. She automatically bursted into tears, got completely hysterical and swore up and down that she would never and it wasn't her telling him these things. She became nervous and started to come up with plausible stories of what could have happened and who could of told him such things. I was completely calm and just watched her reaction when I was telling her how I didn't believe all the coinscidences and that I wasn't sure that I could trust her. She started to apoligize, lower her head, slouch, and shrug her shoulders which were all tell-tell signs of her omissions. Then after that she turned around and told the mutal friend we had met through all this mess about me through text so I didn't say anything or snitch out our mutal friend I just stopped talking to her. I randomly still get text from her inviting me out or to lunch but I'm not a fake person so I just decline. As I mentioned previously I don't understand why someone would want to pretend to be your friend.
ReplyDeleteWhile I was in high school, I was on the dance team. Being a part of this team required 15+ hours of practice a week. You would constantly be going over the routines and steps, making sure that you had them all perfect. I’m not going to lie, it was tough. Dancing requires a lot from your body. Injuries were not uncommon on this team. At all. But, unless you had a doctor’s note, you would dance. It didn’t matter how much pain you were in, you would dance it out and ice it after. So, one week, right before a performance, the entire team was just sitting down in the studio after a long practice. All of a sudden, one of the girls started yelling and holding her ankle, saying that she did something to hurt it. Everyone’s response was the same: how the hell did you hurt yourself sitting down? We all shrugged it off, especially since this particular girl was known for her theatrics. The next day though, she showed up on crutches. No one could believe it.. Maybe she actually did hurt herself. So, we redid the entire dance, taking her out of it (this required even more practices to attend. Practices that she didn’t have to show up to.). With her being injured two days before the performance, we were struggling to get things perfect. The next day, after another practice, a friend and I drove to sonic to get a drink and cool off for a little bit. Our relaxation was interrupted by someone talking very loudly and laughing obnoxiously. Naturally, we looked over and saw the girl who was supposedly “injured” running around and jumping- all without her crutches. We were in disbelief. Had she been making this up the entire time? The friend that was with, being very blunt, called the girl’s name. As soon as she saw us, her face went red and she stared at the ground as she walked over. She tried explaining that she really did hurt herself and that it just started feeling better, but the fact that she couldn’t look us in the eye told us that she was lying. Word got around to the team and everyone was appalled. The girl tried apologizing countless times, but the damage had been done. She let the entire team down, and no one ever believed another one of her “injuries” again.
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time I was a tanager. It’s true that when you are a teen you lie a lot to your parents basically because you would like to do something they don’t want. Like to go to a movie that starts late, or to date when they think you have to study.
ReplyDeleteMy first lies were not very successful, but because my parents were not ready it was accepted. Couple times I was caught. Then, with my “6 feeling” known as subconscious, I realized a few things.
When you add a lot of details (Where, who, facial expressions, light, who says what and so on) and a little push or aggressiveness you can say whatever you want. It worked for a while, but my parents were older, meaning, they’ve been 16 once☺. Moreover I wasn’t a “professional” at that time and I assume something in my body gave me up. They caught me when they tried to get dipper in to my store. Then they caught me again. This time they just called my friend. They’ve never done it before, so I wasn’t even thinking about it. All proses of lie and catch took about 2 years. I was getting better and better. Finally I realized. For the big lie everything must be set up in advance and you have to live your lie. Then it’s like a truth even for you.
A time i can say i experienced someone lying to me was when I found out that a group of my friends, back when I was in high school went on a trip to Corpus Christi without me. I can honestly say that i was upset because we were all very close and we were ALWAYS together and i couldn't understand why they would go without me or didn't even mention it to me. Days later I was at my friends house among who had gone to Corpus. We were talking and she got silent for a bit and tells me "I'm going to tell you something because I believe friends shouldn't keep anything from each other." That's when she told me that our other friend was the one who suggested that I not go along with them or invite me and that she had also said some rude, mean things about me. At first I was hurt because how is it that a person you're believing is your best friend would talk about you behind your back but then again I was glad to know that this friend was a true friend for mentioning and not keeping that from me. I later asked my other friend about it and told her that I saw the pictures from them going to corpus and asked why didn't they invite me. She told me that it was a last minute thing and didn't think I would want to go and kept making excuses, when in reality I knew that she was lying because of what my other friend mentioned to me, so I basically found out that one of my "best friends" wasn't really a best friend but a deceitful friend for doing that and i guess she didn't really like me. I was upset about it but then again it's better to know these things because i would have never known that or known the type of person she really was. Thinking what else could she be saying about me behind closed doors. I got over it and a couple years later we started talking again and mentioned to her that our other friend told me about the things she said about me but she just denied it. Going through that I don't think I can ever trust her again and our friendship will not ever be the same even if we are friends again.
ReplyDeleteI work at carmax and there is always this one coworker who tends to sneak off when there is work to be done. We all have radios and we always call him on the radio and he never answers. A couple of hours will go by and this coworker will finally show back up and we question him where he was at. And he will always say that he was helping a salesman in the front of the store, but there is no reason why he should be up there because we work in the back and they never need our help in the front. So i start asking him questions like what was he working on or who was he working with. After asking him these questions he would always look away and avoid eye contact, he would also try to change the subject by asking questions or just stating that he has been working at carmax longer than me, so i guess you can say he gets pretty defensive. After that i went up to the front and started asking the salesman if he was up there and they all said no. I have learned that i can not trust this coworker with any thing work related. and lets just say that he no longer works at carmax... He got fired this week.
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ReplyDeleteAs most people know friendship tend to not last after graduating from high school, everyone goes their separate ways perusing their own career. This happened to me with one of my very close friends. I had texted her to hang out after not seeing each other since we graduated high school, but she never texted back. At first i though she was just busy with school and work. I didn't think much of it until I saw her at school walking to class, I was so excited to see her so I catches up to her and said hi. She gave me a surprised looks,she didn't expect to see me their. So I asked her how she was and why she hadn't replied to my text messages, she avoided the question and made excuses to why she needed to be in class that moment. By her nonverbal cues like her small talk, her body language and her nervous way of responding to my question I could tell she was lying to me. After that day I never tried communicating with her due to rude way she handled the situation.
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ReplyDeleteI had just bought my car for a cheap price needless to say as soon as I got home it started having problems under the hood. I had called my uncle who is a mechanic to come take a look at it and he agreed. When he was looking at the engine I was out there with him just to hang out he then proceed to shut the hood and tell me that I needed my head lighter fluid changed, I know enough about cars to know that the notion of head lighter fluid is completely ridiculous. He looked me in the eye, used a reasonable tone of voice, and had his body fully facing me if I was clueless on the subject I would have believed him he was that convincing. I even told him “I know your just joking, there is no such thing” and he chuckled and said “okay don’t believe me but when you start driving and your headlights go out don’t blame me!” he told me variations of this through out the day by the end of the day in the back of my mind I was thinking well maybe there is head lighter fluid? So even though I knew he was lying his non-verbal cues were convincing me he was telling me the truth, but don’t worry I know there isn’t head lighter fluid.
ReplyDeleteOff the top of my head, I honestly can’t think of a specific incident. However, my grandfather has a tendency to exaggerate or just down-right lie very often. Whenever he is trying to convince someone about something, he always starts to nod his head a little bit, kind of like a parrot. It almost looks like he’s trying to convince himself, sometimes. He is old, so he forgets things often, but whenever someone tries to correct him, he immediately starts to lie. Sometimes, when I’m in the back seat in the car with my headphones on, all I have to do is lean forward a bit to see what he’s doing with his body and I can instantly tell. He’s the type of person who fidgets a lot, but it’s the kind of fidgeting where it doesn’t even look like he is; if you don’t know him well enough, you would believe everything he tells you because he looks completely natural. As for verbally, he starts to take on this patronizing tone, as well as use bigger words and says those words veeeery slowly. Honestly, if I don’t have an eye on him (like when I’m driving), and he actually controls his tone (which he can, sometimes!), he could probably convince me the sky is and always has been purple.
ReplyDeleteFor a gentle, 84 year old man, that’s a rather scary talent.
When I was pregnant with my youngest child my craving was a chewy pecan cookie with icing. I lived in Killeen Texas at the time and the cookie could only be purchased in the mall at Great American cookie. So I went to the mall one day purchased my cookie took it home took one bite of it to save it for later. I then decide to take a nap that evening before I started dinner. I took my nap woke up went to start dinner and eat my cookie while I cooked dinner and to my surprise I had a bite left of the cookie. I asked my kids to come here to see if they had eaten my cookie. Of course as all kids do they look at one another for conformation when they have teamed up to conspire against their mother before they say no. After they said no I asked my daughter why she had white crust all around her mouth and she proceeded to tell me it was tooth paste and being that I had just woke up and was not on my p and q’s I believed my daughter until I noticed my son laughing at my daughter about tooth paste being on her mouth. I asked him about what was on his mouth that looked like a mustache. He took forever to answer me with “I do not know” this was a dead giveaway the two of them ate my cookie together. The laughter and lack of ability to answer my questions were my nonverbal ques in this situation.
ReplyDeleteThere was an instance not too long ago where one of my friends that I had known for quite a while already lied to me about a significant issue. I found out through the grape vine but was still pretty hurt that she didn’t have enough trust in me to tell me the truth. It definitely altered my view on her because I felt I had exerted so much effort and trust in the friendship and it was only a one way streak now. She wasn’t aware that I had already known the truth, so when the issue got brought up again I asked her some questions about what she had told me. In response she began to shift her weight and posture while attempting to recall the first lie she had previously told me, she failed to establish eye contact with me for more than a second or so and also became defensive on the fact that I asked clarifying questions. I ended up telling her that I had already known the truth and first she was upset with me, but then realized she shouldn’t have lied about it from the beginning. Our friendship has since then been patched up but nonetheless, I now am more careful and cautious on what I choose to trust her with now.
ReplyDeleteWell I will say my roommate lied to me about not knowing how to do something while he was straight up lying to me I could see it in his eyes bouncing around, gasping for words, not looking at me. It was such a simple thing that he did not even need to lie about but he did and I called him on it a couple days after because it just was bothering me that I’m trying to get him on his feet and give him a straight path in life. When I we were talking about it he looked at me and told me with a man hug that he just could not tell me the truth because he new he was in a wrong and that he new that I new he was fibbing because of his on nervousness when he is not telling the fool truth. It does make second guess him at times but I do no when he is going to lie now and ill just call him out on it right then and their, this is what battle buddies are for.
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