Sunday, December 17, 2017

Catfishing much?

So catfishing is a relatively newer term that mainly refers to lying about oneself online to "lure" others into relationships.  Mainly these lies are those that you see in online dating profiles, but also on Facebook, Twitter or other social media platforms.  I have one friend on my FB that has literally hundreds of men that she has never met and probably never will.  I don't see the appeal at all.  I know everyone on my FB, even if I don't know them in person.  I might know them through work or something else.  But complete strangers?  No, I find this a bit odd.  Sure I've been online dating, and they estimate that 90%, seriously 90% of all profiles are basically lies in online dating.  In fact, MTV even has made a show about this called, you probably can guess, "Catfish".  I watched a couple episodes and in some cases, I started to feel sorry for some of the "catfish".  I mean some of them are so afraid of rejection they are just trying to make a connection.  You can tell they know it's wrong, but they didn't exactly mean for it to get as far as it did.  Others are just trying to pretend to be someone else--either because they want to be who they want to be but feel like they can't be in real life or because they don't want to be who they want to be but there's no way they're going to be who they actually want to be.  So I was going to focus on the dating aspect, but then as I started to do some background research, holy crap Batman!  Do you realize 60% of people lie regularly?  Doesn't matter whether they are single, married, "good" or "bad" people, whatever.  In fact, the average adult lies 2 to 3 times a day.  In fact, when completing a comparison of truth versus online social accounts, 75% of the people are lying.  Wow.  Just wow.  And that's not just the millennials.  Nope.  While the millennials may be verbally lying more, that average is based on the entire population.  We all know the younger some people are, the more insecure, the more inexperienced, the more likely to lie.  But what this all tells us?  People lie.

So, what about the truth?  There are 18% of people who have no lies on their social media.  Now, they didn't quantify "lie".  I have a sister who is closer than blood to me, but not actually blood related.  The fact I call her my sister might be considered a "lie" by some, but others might not.  If you've had a great family, then calling anyone other than blood might seem misleading.  On the other hand, anyone that has gotten married is now family with their spouse and most certainly not blood--unless total inbred trash.  We won't go there.  Other than that I picked apart my own social media.  I don't really have anything else that's a "lie" on there.  So depending upon that family definition, which I personally don't call a "lie", I basically would be the 18% or perhaps the group between 18-25% that is still being honest on their profiles.  Of course, again, highly dependent upon your definition of "truth".  Many of us view "truth" as full disclosure.  I don't think some things are anyone's business, so I sure as hell won't put it out on the internet.  Most of us have various layers to ourselves, and many of us won't put the deepest layers of ourselves out there in person, so it stands to reason that a lot of us don't put much more than the outer layers online.  That's not really a lie to me.  It may not be the whole truth, but it's still truth.  The only other place I see a lot of "lying" is in pictures.  People often have much older pictures of themselves.  Not really a lie.  Not really the whole truth either.  A lot of people take the most flattering picture of themselves for use online.  While using filters and other photo adjustments has become common place, arguably those "touched up" photos aren't honest.  So arguably, 18% at that point might easily be those that you find no discrepancies.  The article that had this percentage didn't specify what level of "truth" was used.

Of course, no matter what then 82% of people mislead others online, but how many people are "catfishing" in person?  I mean come on.  During the research for this blog, it became painfully obvious that the reason there is a show about "catfishing" is lying has become so common place that people are seeking out how to discern fact from bullshit.  A simple Google search had all kinds of articles from legitimate news sources to legitimate science pages to social media style blogs and discussions--even a couple websites dedicated to helping us learn how to discern a liar.  In fact, one scientific study conducted with 13,000 participants, found that most people are only able to pick out lies 56% of the time.  It identified less than 0.02% of the people out of the study that could regularly pick out the lies.  It even gave them a name "wizards"--31 out of 13K.  No kidding.  Definitely "wizards".  Of the 31 "wizards" it was unclear what the common factor was.  They came from different walks of life, different education levels and different parts of the country.  One profession was more common--attorneys--albeit it did not specify what type of law or even how many of the 31 were lawyers.  Certainly, one thing the study pointed out is that practice seemed to improve the ability.  While there was no improved ability in law enforcement to the overall populace, one group of law enforcement did score significantly better than the average score.  Secret Service personnel seemed to have a much better ability in picking out lies.  Of course, the study hypothesized this difference is because they have to be better at reading non-verbal cues since that is a large percentage of protecting some of the people they protect in crowds. 

In an effort to understand the "biggest liars", there has long been links to "childhood trauma" .  On one side is a link to the "human lie detector".  The above study though would seem to negate that possible link.   Of the 31 "wizards", the percentage that suffered early trauma was equal to the average percentage of the overall populace that experiences early trauma.  Considering the size of the sample for this study, it would stand to reason that most likely "childhood trauma" is not linked to being able to tell lies from truth.   However, "childhood trauma" is directly related consistently with the opposite.  In studies dating back as early as the 1930s, severe childhood traumas have been linked to sociopathic disorders.  Sociopaths are people who have no remorse for their own "wrong-doing".  Over the last century, studies consistently support that some childhood traumas can be linked to various sociopathic issues.  While sociopaths and narcissists have similar issues, sociopaths are more disturbing in the fact they realize that their behavior isn't considered the norm or appropriate and develop ways to manipulate and lie to others consistent with hiding their own self serving behaviors. While it is still unclear what these are because there doesn't seem to be a straight path from childhood trauma to sociopathic liar, there are certain categories of "childhood trauma" that are more likely to produce a sociopath.  In fact, 81% of sociopaths report severe childhood trauma linked to severe physical and/or sexual abuse.  Of course, it's hard to know how true this is, because part of the pathology of sociopaths is that they create lies to cover their own lack of sympathy and empathy.  The only thing that has become apparent is that not all severely abused children become sociopaths (thus unclear all the factors that go into making a sociopath).  No studies can explain why some do and others don't.  There is some evidence that the younger a child at the time is the more likely they can overcome it while pre-teen and teenagers are more likely to develop lying to a fine art form.  Honestly, it's more likely from observations over the years that it is dependent on so many factors that while we can generalize the responses, a certain percentage will be sociopaths while another percentage will be "normal" and yet another will be shrieking violets.  Pick one.  Just know that trauma has the potential to create liars. 

Of course, nowadays, it's almost become the "popular" thing to be the drama and trauma.  Look at how ridiculously popular reality television has become.  We know most of these people are liars.  We even get to watch it as it plays itself out.  Lying has become the norm.  As the old adage goes, "if you can't tell the truth about yourself, you can't tell it about others."  People, 82% of people lie regularly.  A couple times a day.  Think about the last lie you told.  Now, let's quantify that.  Not an omission of truth.  A flat out lie.  Was it a white lie?  A lie to your boss or co-worker why you were late?  Because of traffic instead of sex with your new girlfriend.  A lie to your friend why you didn't feel like meeting her out?  You were busy instead of saying you didn't feel like taking a shower.  Or was it something pretty heinous?  Like telling your husband that you didn't answer his call because you were calling VISA while in reality you were having sex with his brother.  I mean you know.  Massive lie.  It seems that we allow for certain lies.  I can't stand lies, but even I tell "white" ones.  What exactly is a "white" lie.  One that has absolutely "zero" harm or covering up harm.  It's no one's business if you're single and you've started dating someone new that you were running late because you wanted to spend 5 more minutes with the person than you really had.  I used to tell people it was none of their business.  Lots of people don't like this answer even when the truth is it's none of their business.  Eventually, I got to the point that if I didn't want to tell them I wouldn't outright lie, but I'd try to tell the truth while omitting the truth that I felt wasn't their business.  Where were you?  I was watching a movie.  I left out that I was a theater seeing a movie because this particular friend eats popcorn with her mouth open.  Plus she doesn't like action flicks and she'll talk through the movie.  And I know if I had told her I was at a theater, the only way she wasn't going to want to know who with (no one) and why I didn't ask her to come along would be if I left out a detail.  She assumed I was watching a movie at home, and dropped the inquiry from there.  Was it a lie?  No.  But it wasn't totally true either. 

The problem is that so many people lie about almost everything anymore it's nauseating.  I have a buddy who is a pretty smart guy.  The thing I find most annoying about him is that he pretends to be an utter dumbass.  I enjoy talking with him, but since most of the people that know him think of him as an idiot most of my friends don't really get why I bother to talk to him at all.  It all seems to be part of his act.  He likes to think of himself as a player for the most part, and it draws in the nature of many women to "help".  I think it's laughable.  But he lives in this "persona" in front of most of the people that he knows.  At what point is the persona "real" or "fake"?  Not really my problem.  He's not really harming anyone but himself.  I'm sure a couple of people would argue he "hurts" some of the women he's used with this act, and that's a perfectly valid argument.  I have to admit that I find the act nauseating, so most of the time I don't interact with him other than superficially.  I'm not going to pretend to be in favor of his deceptions, but unless I'm directly impacted I try to stay out of it.  One thing most of us all learn is that someone who wants to believe the lies will defend the liar. 

Of course, a good friend of mine once told me "even a liar doesn't want to be with a liar".  We knew two people that lie more than a thousands rugs on a floor.  Yet, when the guy found out the chick was this massive liar, he somehow seemed bewildered and pissed that the woman he was with was a bigger liar than he dreamt of being.  Ironic, right?  Of course, on the other side of the coin, often people that are honest have a hard time because it's almost become where lies are accepted as truths and truth is automatically ignored as lies.  I am very factual.  Facts and honesty should go hand in hand, but many of us are starting to realize that honesty has almost become a relative aspect.  Honesty is supposed to be presenting the truth, but with so many lying, truth has become less facts and more opinion.  Honest opinions aren't even important anymore.  A lie has started to sound more appetizing.  Still "a lie will hurt over and over while the truth will only hurt once".  The lie needs to be compounded with more lies to help prop it up, so there is the fact that lie upon lie upon lie will hurt over and over.  But there is also the point that a lie may not hurt in the moment it was told, but eventually all truths come out.  The lie will hurt then as will the truth, and on top of that the deception.  Is it worth it? 

I've been told that I'm overly honest.  Well, I've already admitted that I am, but I am not.  I don't always tell the whole truth.  It's not deceit, but it's not full disclosure.  However, I deal in facts and facts are truth.  My opinion of the facts or truth are not always as forgiving, but I try to always deal with the facts first and my thoughts on them second.  What the "wizards" in that study all have in common, a high intellect (regardless of education) and a strong desire and motivation to get it "right".  I'm honest and factual for those reasons.  I desire to have it "right".  What most of these studies might be missing is that most people don't want it "right".  Don't get me wrong; they aren't wanting it full of lies either.  But the desire to have it the way they would like it to be rather than the way it actually is...well, this seems to make sense why so many people lie about even little things.  It's like filters on pictures to make oneself look "prettier" and "younger" than someone actually is.  It's a lie.  A little white lie depending on how much of the filter is used and how much deception is actually intended by the filter.  People are okay with the lies and can only detect them 56% of the time because they basically want to be lied to.  I mean think about how many people meet someone online and still send money to basically some complete stranger after only talking to them online for a short time.  Even though everyone knows there are these scam artists out there lying and telling them exactly what they want to hear, there are still people that believe it.  Is it really because they are that gullible?  Yes and no.  They really want to believe the lies rather than face the facts, the truth.  Most people have a hard time being honest with themselves in some way.  Although I have very few things that I don't like to think about, even I would prefer in those few things to a prettier picture than the difficult unpleasantness of the facts and truth.  So I can empathize why some of us want so desperately to believe others' lies. 

Yet, in believing others' lies it's not just us that are the ones being "catfished" but many of us become the "catfish" also.  I'm happy with who I am, so I don't have to "lie" about who I am to anyone--but more importantly I don't lie to myself.  I know my limitations and although I would love to tell you that I work on those imperfections every day, that would be a lie.  I don't and honestly I don't think my imperfections are necessarily bad compared to someone who lies about who they are to others and in most of those cases to themselves.  Are you going to be able to pick them out?  No.  I have become pretty good over the years at picking them out, but you have to actually give them enough time for you to figure out who is and who isn't lying.  And, no matter how hard psychologists try to tie liars to some type of trauma or defect, the truth is that if 90% of us lie almost daily it has absolutely nothing to do with trauma.  There are a slew of reasons each of us do, and yes, sociopaths do it because they literally are trying to deceive others as do con artists.  But "catfishing" is a way of life for them.  And whatever excuse they have for being deceptive doesn't give the rest of us a pass to be equally heinous.  But all those filters that we try to smoke screen ourselves into being who others want us to be, well, that is the problem isn't it?  None of us can pretend to be something we are not forever.  It's a lot of work, lies upon lies upon more lies.  Just typing it is exhausting me.  Adolf Hitler said "if you tell a big enough lie often enough, it will be believed".  Of course, while he ruled for more than a decade, we know the destruction his lies created.  All lies eventually are overcome by the truth, as history tells us over and over.  We all reap what we sow, and no lie should be worth being considered a bottom feeder. 

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