Liar, Liar: 7 Ways To Tell If He’s Being Dishonest

It’s nice to assume that people are always being truthful and on their best behavior, but unfortunately, that’s not the case – I mean, we all fib from time to time, don’t we? But there’s a difference between little white lies to spare someone’s feeling and full-blown dishonesty about major parts of your relationship. If you’ve started suspecting that your man is seriously lying to you, here are some ways to practice your sleuth and find out.

He leaves out “I” in his texts. If you ask your man what he ended up doing last night and responds with something like “hit the bar”, he might be really big on abbreviating or he might just be lying. People who lie over text tend to do so without the “I” because it feels like less of a lie that way.

He keeps you separate from parts of his life. If you hear a lot of stories from your man but have never really had anything about them confirmed, or if you’ve never met any of his travel buddies, he might be keeping you at a distance for a reason. People find it easier in relationships to lie when they don’t have overlaps between other people who might communicate and call them out.

He offers up too much or too little info. When most people mention the restaurant they ate at, they might throw in a descriptive detail like what they ate or if the booth was weirdly dark. But if he doesn’t have one mention or goes off on elaborate description that could rival the best of Yelpers, he might be lying. Too many details can feel not genuine because it’s almost like they’re trying to prove to you without a reasonable doubt that they were really there. And of course, neglecting to say anything can raise flags, as well.

He takes longer than normal to respond to you. So maybe he just doesn’t have his phone in his hands at all times. (Who we are kidding – who doesn’t have their phone in hand at all times?) If your guy is generally pretty good at quick responses but seems to lag when it comes to answering certain questions, you’d be right to suspect that something might be up. When people are crafting the “right” response, they generally think it over first.

He gets weird about eye contact. When you’ve put him on the spot and he’s either avoiding eye contact completely or making an unnatural amount of it, he might be a bit uncomfortable. It might not be enough to confirm that he’s spitting an outright lie, but if he’s significantly changing his level of eye contact, you can be confident that you’ve tapped into something.

He changes the details of his stories. If your man told you one thing and then you overheard him telling a friend a slightly different story, it might mean he’s either lying to one of you or big on exaggerating. It might seem like nothing if the detail in question is something like what section he sat in at the baseball game, but on the other hand, that’s not really the sort of thing you forget if you knew it to begin with.

Your intuition says so. You could be wrong, but intuition is a very strong thing. If you have no other reason to suspect that he’s lying to you other than that you feel something’s a bit off, you might be onto something. Researchers at the University of California Berkeley found that people were better at unconsciously spotting liars than by using direct methods to evaluate them. They also found that women were better at this than men, so pay attention to those vibes even when they seem to come out of left field.

Kate Ferguson is a Los Angeles local and freelance writer for a variety of blog and magazine genres. When she's not writing, the UC Davis graduate is focused on pursuits of the entertainment industry, spin class, and hot sauce. Look for article links, updates, (and the occasional joke) on Twitter @KateFerg or @WriterKateFerg, or check out her personal blog ThatsRandomKate.blogspot.com
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