If you always tell the truth you'll never
have to remember a lie- that's very sage advice and a good tip for living your life without
fear of being caught in embarrassing social situations. Yet everyone lies, even if it's just small
white lies in polite conversation. Could you go a full week without telling even
a single polite lie though? Today we're finding out as we once more turn
to your favorite guinea pig in this special Challenge episode: don't lie for a week! Day 1: What a strange challenge. I have to admit, this is another one of those
that seems really easy right off the bat, but with some more thought, the sinister truth
is revealed. I don't make a habit of lying, in fact I pride
myself in being honest, even when it is at a detriment to myself. I even go so far as to make sure that I don't
make any promises I doubt I can keep- which is something we routinely do as people. You don't have to be an underhanded liar to
make promises you're only halfway sure you can keep, and often we do this to make other
people feel good, but I've made it a point to ensure that what I say is what I do, no
matter what. That means that sometimes I can't make certain
promises, and it's been awkward and difficult in social situations at times. And that's when the truly sinister nature
of this challenge hit me: I can't lie at all for a week, even in the meaningless conversation
with people that fills our lives. See the reality is that we all lie all the
time. When you go to the store and the cashier or
clerk asks you, “Having a good day?”, how many of you have told the truth? How many times have you had a really horrible
day and just said the truth to a complete stranger? Of course you don't do that, because you want
to grease the wheels of polite social interaction, so everyone joins in the big fake theater
production that we call daily interaction and we tell giant lies to each other. Oh my day was wonderful thank you for asking. The clerk doesn't really care what your day
is like, and you are definitely not going to tell her that your day was absolute crap. Because then you'd be a weirdo- and yet somehow
it's less weird to be a huge liar and pretend your day is fine. Yet if you were to lie to this person about
something else, like the fact that you swapped price tags on an item, she'd be furious. It's strange when you think about it, the
way that you can be a total weirdo for not lying sometimes, and yet still be a bastard
if you do lie other times. So I guess I've realized that this challenge
is going to be harder than I thought. In a way though, I'm kind of excited about
it. I get to drop my mask for a full week and
just tell the honest truth. I get to be completely blunt- well more blunt
than I typically am- and that's kind of liberating. So at the same time that this challenge worries
me, I'm kind of eager to get it started. See you guys mid-week in two days. Day 3: I feel like I say this a lot, but this
challenge is harder than I expected, and as I predicted the real challenge comes from
the polite little white lies we constantly tell each other. I read some articles on lying out of curiosity
and it turns out that sixty percent of people tell at least one lie in a ten minute conversation. Men and women both tell the same amount of
lies, but the difference is in how they lie. Women are more likely to lie in order to make
someone feel better, while men lie to make themselves look better. This makes sense, I've watched my girlfriend
interacting with her friends before and definitely caught her telling some minor whoppers for
the sake of making a friend that feels bad feel better. “No, I don't think your boyfriend is cheating
on you, but I do think you guys should talk.” I've heard her say this one before to a friend
whom we both highly suspected had a boyfriend that was definitely cheating on her. But of course you can't just say to someone
with a breaking heart, “Yeah your boyfriend is a scum-bucket.” You have to be gentle, prod them towards the
truth with a tiny little lie. Give a tiny bit of hope that will move the
person in the right direction, towards discovering the truth on their own. Of course I have done the same thing. I clearly remember once in conversation with
another couple we had just met where I rounded up on the number of days one of my art shows
featuring my photo prints lasted. It wasn't a huge rounding error, I simply
went from about 13 days to quote- about half a month- end quote, for the sake of simplicity. But it was in fact a lie, and it did make
me look better in the eyes of the people I told it to. It's probably difficult to ascertain the veracity
of a study on lying when people can... well lie about the results, but this one seems
to be right on the money. Anyways, so the little white lies that I'm
not telling have been getting me in trouble, or at least into awkward social situations. I went to the store and decided that would
be the perfect place for my first stab at this challenge, since the cashiers at my local
grocery store constantly ask how my day is, and if I found everything ok. Truth be told, my day was going pretty ok,
but when I got to the register the little kid belonging to the woman behind me kept
acting up and running into me as he threw his little temper tantrum. So when the cashier asked me if everything
was ok, I told her that I wished they would throw bratty kids out of the store if parents
refused to discipline them. Bam, just like that everyone sort of froze. Then the woman behind me said, “Excuse me?” And that's when all hell broke loose. I slowly turned to face her and knowing I
couldn't lie, I said, “I think you are a terrible a parent because you can't discipline
your child as he repeatedly runs into random strangers as he's throwing a temper tantrum
in public.” I had my girlfriend with me because we were
doing our weekly shopping, and at this point her jaw slowly dropped open and she got this
really blank look on her face, then a flash of recognition struck her as she realized
that I couldn't tell a lie. The woman's mouth fell open too as if she
was going to say something but she sort of stood there sucking in air angrily like a
fish out of water. It gave me enough time to swipe my debit card
and pay for my groceries, then calmly walk away. My girlfriend still hadn't said anything,
and when we got in the car she just simply put her hand over mine and said, “Please
don't get us killed this week.” Next stop was Trader Joe's to pick up a few
things we prefer to buy there over a normal grocery store. For those of you who don't know, T.J.s is
a bit fancier grocery store whose quality seems on average a little better than a normal
store. But it's also pricier, and I have a love/hate
relationship with it. Some things are well worth the price, but
other things are just marked up nonsense meant to cater to the all-organic crowd who pays
extra money for buzzwords on the packaging that nutritionally and scientifically, mean
nothing. So this time our shopping went without incident,
and we got to the cashier who asked, “Did you find everything ok?”- and that's when
things went south again. As soon as he started asking his question
I think my girlfriend had a flash of recognition and remembered my opinions on Trader Joe's
prices, because she tried to cut him off. Too late though, he asked his question, and
I was obliged to answer truthfully. “Actually no, I found that you guys are
marking up prices on a lot of items for no other reason than that they are labeled “organic”,
and yet not only is organic food no different nutritionally than non-organic food, in a
lot of cases it is both more polluting for the environment and more dangerous to human
health than non-organic food because of the use of organic pesticides. Your trendiness is gouging people financially,
hurting them physically, and making the world a worse place.” I'd like our viewers to imagine going to a
Veteran's Day parade and then jumping over the railing and running out into the parade
butt naked while screaming, “I love Al-Qaeda!” That is in effect what saying anything negative
about organic food in trendy Los Angeles is like. Now imagine that it's not a Veteran's Day
parade that you're crashing as you scream that you love Al-Qaeda, but that it's the
Pentagon itself. That's what it's like to trash talk organic
inside a Trader Joes or a Whole Foods in Los Angeles. It's social suicide, if not actual suicide
as hordes of angry hipsters tar and feather you for fact-checking their organic gods. Someone might as well have died inside that
store after my answer given how quiet the checkout lanes got. My girlfriend just face palmed herself and
I could tell that she was already thinking how she could never return to this particular
Trader Joe's again. I guess it's a good thing there's one every
three miles in this town. You know, this challenge worried me at first,
but I'm finding it strangely liberating. Almost liking it. Day 7: I think nobody is more happy this challenge
is over than my girlfriend, who is probably right now carefully reconsidering what friends
she can and can't hang out with anymore, and which stores she is allowed to show her face
at anymore. After our shopping fiascos, the week went
on much as normal, and then the weekend got here. This weekend we had another social function
to go to, which is pretty much a must-do for every person who works in any capacity within
the entertainment industry here in LA, basically they are just get-togethers for actors, producers,
writers, and directors who all try to find someone with more power and influence- or
money- than them and then they suck up to them all night long trying to get them interested
in their project. It's a huge waste of time and I 100% hate
these things, but they are sadly a bit of a necessity for working professionals so they
can occasionally do some real networking. I typically haunt the open bar while the girlfriend
networks for the both of us, because I am not a people person. This event was different, because I had a
secret superpower up my sleeve to handle the evening with: I couldn't lie. Not even a tiny polite lie to make awkward
conversations a tiny bit better. I had to 100% tell the truth, and I was really,
really looking forward to it. Probably as much as the girlfriend was dreading
it. She warned me at least five times to “be
nice”, and I told her I was going to be so nice that I would be 100% honest with everyone. That did little to calm her down. At first the evening went ok, then inevitably
we both got cornered by someone we've met before who constantly tries to talk about
his projects, which always sound terrible and I have absolutely zero interest in. He's always been a nice enough guy, and I've
always found a polite way to excuse myself from the conversation. This time, I couldn't do that. So this time I simply said, “I'm sorry none
of this interests me at all and I don't see us ever collaborating on anything, so instead
I'm going to go get a drink.” Then I walked away. I don't know how he reacted because I wasn't
looking, but I did catch him glaring at me later in the night. See, told you- people get mad at you if you
tell the truth pretty much as often as if you lied to them and they found out. Needless to say, I will likely not be making
a re-appearance at any of these networking events anytime soon, and you know what- I
am totally ok with that. Truth be told, I was afraid of this challenge
at first, but by the end of this week I feel kind of liberated. I've no doubt burned a bunch of social bridges,
and I can probably never step foot in at least four different grocery stores now, but any
bridges I burned where with scumbags anyways, so I'm feeling pretty ok about this last week. The girlfriend on the other hand is a bundle
of nerves right about now because she's always been our social diplomat, smoothing the rough
waters I accidentally create, and this week she's been the League of Nations trying to
prevent World War I. She deserves a medal for all the social clean-up
work she's going to have to do over the next few weeks. I really felt like I owed her one, so just
before the clock ran out on the week-long challenge I reminded her I couldn't lie for
another five minutes, then looked at her as she lay in bed reading with no makeup on and
her hair a mess and told her she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever met. She got a big smile on her face, and I think
everything's going to be okay after all.
