I remember my first lie. The first lie I remember telling, anyway. I got away with it.

         I’m not sure how old I was exactly, but I had to stand on a kitchen chair to get up to the counter, where food was spread out and ready for assembly into a family picnic lunch. Right in front of me was a stack of white bread awaiting sandwichhood. Nobody was around, so of course I had to push my finger right through the middle of the stack.

         Satisfied, I got down and pushed the chair back and went to my room. Later, my mother appeared and asked a remarkable question. “Honey, do you know what happened to the bread?”

         “Bread?” I mused. It dawned on me that my actions might be subject to criticism. Disturbing news from where I sat, which was smack dab at the center of the universe.

         I remembered doing it. But I could also vividly imagine not doing it. “Reality” at that age is a weird mix of memory and imagination, and so it seemed I had a choice of two realities to choose from. I picked the one where I didn’t touch the bread. Case closed. I looked up at Mom and shook my head no.

         Mom seemed to give me the benefit of the doubt. “Well then, who do you think poked a hole through all the bread?”

         I thought, okay. About time somebody valued my opinion around here. Gives me a chance to exercise my deductive reasoning muscles. If it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Mom, then it could only be one person.

         “Dad.”

         Before you pity my parents too much for having a deceitful child, remember that by that age the truth had already been distorted on my behalf many times. The Santa Conspiracy, for instance. I totally fell for that one. There were more: the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, pets gone off to a “better place,” and even food quality. “Come on Svennie, eat the peas. Daddy likes them, see? Num num num.”

         Numb is right. Numb from all the cruel lies and deceit that scarred my childhood. Or so I would have to believe if I took the adage that “it’s always best to tell the truth” too far. But I would argue that the world really works like this: Start off with the truth, and see how it goes from there, because the truth won’t always set you free.

         Telling the whole truth is the best and easiest course of action. It takes the least energy, too. Lies, on the other hand, are a total drain. You have to invent the things in the first place, tell them convincingly, and remember them. Your memory becomes encumbered with retaining both the real story and the one you just concocted. It’s just like how crooked corporations keep two sets of books- the real ones and the ones for the feds.

         Since most of us come equipped with egos that can be easily bruised by “truths” as inconsequential as somebody saying that your haircut is unflattering, we find that the world runs smoother when we allow ourselves and others to take liberties with the truth.

         If you dislike falsehood and lies in any form, consider that deceit is at the heart of so many values we hold dear in friends. We want them to be sensitive (pretend to be interested in hearing the story of my breakup AGAIN), supportive (tell me I’m 100 percent right), and tactful (tell me that my recent paintings of black houses on dead grass are “bold” will probably “be over the heads of most art critics and collectors”). We want loyalty and kindness and flattery and charm and compassion and patience and graciousness. We’re only going to get it if we lighten up on absolutes.

         In negotiating the gray areas of truth vs. fiction, the cost of a lie is generally measured by how much harm is done. Granting compliments for bad food at a dinner party is one thing, but telling somebody something that robs them of the ability to make good decisions for themselves is quite another. In relationships, the most famous lies are of the cheating kind, and can elevate somebody from the status of “prone to exaggeration” to “lying sack of shit,” a label that nobody fully recovers from. To avoid it, you have to quit lying or learn not to get caught. 

         There are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to lying well. At my tender picnic-ruining age, I had one of them down: Believe what you’re saying. I was a natural then, but now I’d have to rehearse. If you tell a lie enough times, even to yourself in the car, it starts to feel true. The more it’s true to you, the more it sounds true to them.

         Before I go further, I give you these tips not so that you can lie, which is a sin [note to fact-checker: please verify]. I tell you so that you can defend yourself against those who might use lies against you.

         One way to detect a lie is to note a change in behavior. If somebody rarely looks you in the eye when they speak to you and now they’re staring you down as they swear they didn’t take your last beer, be suspicious. If they normally fidget and now they’re stock-still, beware. This is why it’s always easier to lie to strangers. They don’t know how you normally act so they have no basis of comparison. This is also why it’s preferable to tell lies over the phone. Nobody can see your eyes or your hands. Lying in writing is good for the same reasons, but then it’s in writing and harder to deny, and liars hate that. Ask the Enron folks.

         Use a lot of details. Many liars keep the details down because telling a complex lie pricks the conscience more than a vague one. “I was working late” has less credibility than “My jerk boss made me work half the night with Dan, who kept sneaking off for nips from the bottle in his desk until he knocked over the bookcase onto me, resulting in these odd scratches on my back.”

         Be careful about getting cocky and calling somebody a liar without evidence. There is no sure fire way to detect a lie, and calling somebody a liar in error is almost as bad as being a liar. Polygraph machines, A.K.A. lie detectors, measure various indicators of physical stress, and lying is generally stressful. But so are a lot of other things, and in the end the machines don’t appear to be much more reliable than holding somebody down and tickling them until they give it up.

         I think some lies are okay. How else can we pull off surprise parties? And I think it’s good to lie to pollsters who call before an election, because lying in the polls makes the data unreliable. Maybe more people would vote if they didn’t think they already knew who’d win. Besides, I want politicians to speak their mind, not parrot whatever the polls say we want to hear.

         I think it’s fun to lie about your name when someone has to call it out when your burrito is ready. Why be Mike or Linda when you can be “Maddog” or “Wahini?” And if you apply for one of those Safeway cards that make them say “Thank you, Mr. (peek at receipt) Smith” why not fill out an application that makes you Mr. Bubble, or Miss Demeanor? It’s not like corporate America never lies to us. Ever check out that fast food burger in the ad? Does it look like that when you buy it?

         Tell the truth.