Lying--the Absolutely Best Way to Destroy a Friendship

From time to time I post about my two cents worth, and this is one of those posts.  This week I was forced to end a friendship with someone whom I once thought I could really trust.  In fact, she and I were such close friends that we sometimes used to refer to one another as, "my sister from a past life."  What ended such a close friendship so abruptly?  Lying.

There are two kinds of lies--the most obvious one being fabricating information that you know to be untrue.  The second kind is a little more subtle, and that's lying by omission.  Simply put, it means you are intentionally withholding information that the other party has a right to know, and you are also aware that by holding out your actions could, potentially, cause the other person harm.  The latter can go from bad to worse when the person withholding the information gets caught, (as will usually happen), and then tries making up some story to try to cover his or her tracks.

I won't go into the details because it's a long, boring, and now irrelevant story, but my so-called friend did the lie by omission thing, and then followed it up with a deliberate lie to try to cover her fanny.  Call me narrow-minded if you want, but I don't put up with that kind of dishonesty from anyone, and I don't care who they are.  So that friendship is now over.  Permanently.  Even if she were to apologize, she can never be trusted again.  Lying, like smoking, is a bad habit that many people simply find too hard to break.

There is a scene in my book, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, in which the Swamper tells Luke and Jenny, "You know, trust is a funny thing. It can take a long time to build, and it can be so easily broken."  This is a fact of life. Whether it's a romance, a marriage, a friendship, or a business relationship, it has to be based on mutual trust in order to succeed.  Lying undermines that trust and it will significantly weaken, if not destroy, the relationship.  If we want to succeed in life we have to be trustworthy.  Period.

Why is it that politicians, regardless of their political party or affiliation, are so universally hated?  It's because they're known liars.  Nothing good can ever be based on a lie.  The truth always comes out eventually.  That is just as certain as death and taxes.

My thought for the day.

GM