I’m Like The Dating FBI—Guys Can Never Get Away With Lying To Me

I can be sweet and kind and I always give people the benefit of the doubt. However, I won’t tolerate a guy lying to me and if he’s doing it, believe me, I’ll find out about it.

  1. I listen to my gut. My gut sometimes roars at me to GTFO of a situation and I’ve learned that it’s best to surrender to it because I know it won’t go away. If I get a whiff of a lie from a guy, I’m going to be on guard and check for more lies.
  2. I’ve been known to go into investigative mode. I once dated a guy who was cheating on me and I just knew he was even though everyone around me was saying that I was being paranoid. I wasn’t going to let him get away with it so I started paying more attention to his behavior and social media accounts. I even called one of his friends he was supposed to be out with one night, pretending that I couldn’t get hold of my boyfriend and it was an emergency. My suspicions were confirmed when he said he hadn’t seen my BF.
  3. It might sound extreme but it works. Yeah, maybe I have been a little OTT when trying to catch guys out in their lies but I don’t regret it. In fact, I’d do it again. What’s more extreme is staying with a guy who’s pulling the wool over my eyes while I’m just sitting back and allowing it. Like hell will I let that happen to me.
  4. It’s about self-respect. Everyone needs to respect themselves in relationships. I’m not a doormat or a naive idiot. I don’t let people treat me with less respect than I deserve. There’s nothing more disrespectful than lying to someone. I can’t stand it and I want to know when someone’s doing it to me. Catching him in a lie isn’t just satisfying, but it also makes me feel that I’m being proactive.
  5. I’m not totally unreasonable. Just because I might test guys to be sure that my gut’s right about them, it doesn’t mean that I’m sneaky. I actually prefer to confront the guy right away about my concerns and then take things from there. I expect him to be honest with me about what’s going on. For example, if he’s cheating on me, I expect that he’ll tell me so I can leave the relationship. Is honesty so much to ask for?
  6. I know the relationship won’t always survive this. Sometimes I’ve anguished over a guy who was lying to me and I knew that by playing the role of FBI in our relationship, I’d probably tank it sooner or later. I mean, how can we trust each other if he’s lying to me and I’m pretending to believe his lies while doing undercover work? There’s no way.
  7. I know it’s often useless. In my last relationship, I knew the guy was lying to me about loads of things. I was tempted to analyze his words and I was even tempted to snoop through his phone when we were on vacation and he kept taking texts and calls outside. But I stopped myself. I realized that I had to stop trying to be a policeman in our relationship and just GTFO of it already! The mere fact that I wanted to snoop showed that I didn’t trust him at all. I didn’t want to be in a relationship like that.
  8. Sometimes can backfire. My attempts to be Nancy Drew can really screw with potentially good relationships, I admit. With one guy that I dated, I was suspicious of him from the start of our relationship because I’d just come out of a soul-crushing relationship with someone else who’d practically lied to me from day one. We had a huge fight after I confronted him about two stories he’d told me that didn’t make sense and he said I was being really paranoid. Damn, he was right. I was so used to trying to catch out BFs who’d lied to me that I assumed every guy I met was going to do the same thing. Yikes.
  9. It stresses me out. It’s not easy being the dating FBI. It’s exhausting, it causes anxiety, and it makes me depressed. As much as I want to trust my gut and be right about guys, it really sucks when I’m proven right, especially if I really liked the dude. Most importantly, I don’t want to be an investigator, which is why the minute I see that I’m falling into that role, I know I’m with the wrong guy.
  10. I can do better. I want to be in a relationship where I don’t have to feel like I need to watch or feel suspicious of my boyfriend all the time. What kind of life is that? When I notice that I’m doing investigative work, I know that I don’t trust him and I suspect him of lying. If the feeling continues, I know I need to get out. Time to move on and find someone with whom I can be relaxed and happy.
Giulia Simolo is a writer from Johannesburg, South Africa with a degree in English Language and Literature. She has been working as a journalist for more than a decade, writing for sites including AskMen, Native Interiors, and Live Eco. You can find out more about her on Facebook and LinkedIn, or follow her on Twitter @GiuliaSimolo.
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