From harmless fibs to elaborate cover-ups, the lies people tell follow eerily consistent patterns.
It started with a spectacularly bad Tinder date. "I'm actually a dolphin trainer," he'd said, straight-faced, in landlocked Denver. That night, I opened a spreadsheet and logged my first entry. Three years and 4,827 lies later, I've become an accidental expert on how people bend reality.
My rules were simple: document only lies I witnessed directly, never hunt for deception, never confront. Just observe and record. What emerged wasn't a parade of sociopaths but something more unsettling—a mirror showing how we all negotiate truth when reality gets inconvenient.
1. The preventive lie that creates the problem it's avoiding
"Traffic was insane" sent from their couch. "My phone died" typed while actively texting. These lies arrive before anything's actually wrong, elaborate pre-emptive excuses for things that haven't happened yet.
My roommate perfected this art. She'd text "Almost there!" from our living room, then panic-rush to make it partially true. The lie manufactured the exact crisis she wanted to avoid. Anticipatory anxiety research confirms this spiral—we lie to dodge consequences, then scramble to retrofit reality, doubling our stress.
2. The résumé inflation everyone expects
"Fluent in Spanish" (two years in high school). "Proficient in Excel" (can make columns wider). "Team leader" (organized one birthday card). My spreadsheet has 347 entries just from overheard coffee shop interviews.
Here's the bizarre part: everyone knows everyone does this. Hiring managers expect 30% inflation, candidates inflate accordingly, creating an arms race of exaggeration where truth would actually stand out as suspicious. We're performing an elaborate theater where everyone knows the script is fiction.
3. The relationship math that never quite computes
"You're the first person I've felt this way about"—third time this year. "I've only slept with five people"—actual count closer to fifteen. "I was the one who ended it"—they were ghosted. The arithmetic of romantic deception follows predictable patterns.
After cataloging hundreds, I noticed the numbers weren't the point. These lies construct narratives where the teller is always choosing rather than chosen, always exceptional rather than typical. Bad math in service of better stories.
4. The micro-lies that prevent social collapse
"Love your haircut!" (didn't notice). "Sorry, just saw this!" (ignored it for hours). "We should definitely hang out!" (will actively avoid this). My spreadsheet overflows with these—1,500 and counting.
These aren't malicious; they're structural. I tried a week of radical honesty and it was socially catastrophic. Turns out prosocial deception is the WD-40 of human interaction. Without these tiny lies, the whole machine starts squeaking.
5. The time distortions we all decode
"Five minutes away" (fifteen minimum). "This'll just take a second" (pack a lunch). "Meeting at 7ish" (arrive at 7:35). Time lies are so standard they have their own conversion rates.
What's wild is we all know the formula. When someone says "five minutes," we automatically calculate fifteen. We've built an entire shadow timezone where stated time and actual time run on parallel tracks. Nobody's deceived because everyone's translating.
6. The health fiction that protects identity
"I barely drink" (four nights a week). "I usually eat pretty healthy" (DoorDashed McDonald's twice yesterday). "I'm definitely getting back to the gym" (hasn't been in six months).
The cognitive dissonance serves a purpose. These lies preserve the self who's always just about to improve. The person who "rarely drinks" doesn't have a problem. The one who admits to nightly wine might have to examine something uncomfortable.
7. The money lies that maintain the social contract
"Things are tight right now" (posted from newest iPhone). "Got it on sale" (paid full price plus rush shipping). "Can't afford it" (translation: don't want to spend money on YOUR thing).
Money lies dominated weekends in my spreadsheet. We perform this elaborate dance because financial truth would destabilize everything. Imagine actually saying "I can afford this but don't value it enough to buy it." Social catastrophe. So we all pretend money is the only variable in every equation.
8. The instant expertise nobody challenges
"I've been into this for years" (discovered it last week). "I actually know a lot about that" (skimmed one article). "Oh totally, I know exactly what you mean" (completely lost).
The internet has democratized expertise claims. My spreadsheet shows entire conversations between people clearly bluffing through topics neither understands, both too invested in seeming knowledgeable to admit confusion. We're all so busy performing competence that actual knowledge becomes irrelevant.
Final thoughts
After three years of cataloging deception, I've stopped seeing lies as character flaws and started seeing them as social technology. We're constantly bridging gaps between who we are and who we need to be, what's true and what needs to be true for the world to function.
The most uncomfortable discovery? Once I started documenting others' lies, my own decreased dramatically. Not from superiority—from exhaustion. When you see the energy required to maintain parallel realities, truth starts looking efficient.
The spreadsheet's retired now, but I still catch myself cataloging, noticing patterns, watching reality bend in real time. We're all unreliable narrators. Maybe that's not a bug—maybe it's the feature that makes society possible.
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