realllyyy related to this!! I didn’t realize how important frank truth-telling was to me until my first long-term relationship ended due to dishonesty. it wasn’t even the fact that he cheated that hurt my feelings, it was that he had repeatedly lied to me about it to my face. it was an insult to what he assumed to be my level of intelligence that he believed I would take his words at face value, not investigate it or think more deeply on the timelines he was presenting. it sucked big time!
I also have OCD and agree this does play a role… I used to struggle more with confessional OCD and have never been much of a liar in general (outside of childhood storytelling) so it boggles my mind that someone would do this to another person. it seems uniquely evil. even as I acknowledge it’s super commonplace and is something I myself have done on multiple occasions to save face or be polite, I have a hard time picturing what would make someone lie for personal gain. maybe that’s a lack of imagination, but idk. I agree it’s charming when the right person does it though, my current BF lied about having a massive morrissey poster on his wall when we first started dating but it was like… a bit. a funny bit that kept recurring until I found out it wasn’t real and then it was even funnier. maybe we just like to be lied to when it’s for our benefit (self-esteem, for a good laff). maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
oh god it seems i have never had a unique experience in my life because the same happened to me hahahahaha it is SHIT, so sorry you had to go through it too! but yes i think some of the best connections can be forged on the idea that lying to each other would be so ridiculous and so uncalled for that you just make a joke out of it because it's laughable
This was so well-written, and as someone with OCD, I related to a lot of what you were saying. I actually just posted about the "pervasive dishonesty" of Gen Z dating (I had no idea there was Twitter discourse on this, lol!). Casual dating brought out a lot of cruelty and self-deception in me, because I had some ~light trust issues~, too. My unsolicited hot take: I don't think it's a "crushing personal failure" if you don't detect cheating, or a lying - it's not your responsibility to ensure people won't hurt or deceive you. To stop myself from having "the rug pulled out from under me," I became completely hypervigilant and untrusting and cynical, but that also kept the good out. I'd rather be a "credulous idiot," as long as my trust comes from a place of """authenticity""" (rather than self-deception), than be someone afraid of openness and vulnerability. I don't think any one of us can ever really know if someone is lying, but that's the risk we take for connection. Thank you again for writing and sharing your thoughts!
thank you so much! i completely agree, i wrote in an earlier piece about how important i find it to keep your heart open and curious to the possibility of real love and trust but i think there's this really insidious idea coming from a lot of 'self-improvement' circles that it is almost your own fault if you allow yourself to be duped. i don't agree with it at all but it's so difficult not to internalise - i really do believe it is so much better to be open and vulnerable than closed off to the human intimacy that we all need! thank you so much for reading <3
100%, it's everywhere and it really affects me, too! There was a time when my Instagram explore page was only hyper-vigilant dating advice (if he wanted to he would, horror stories, red flags, etc etc) and it did notttt help my paranoia at all. I felt so horrible whenever I couldn't protect myself/see something coming! It just takes a lot of time and trial and error to find balanced boundaries and trust ourselves, especially with OCD. :/ But we'll figure it out!!!
realllyyy related to this!! I didn’t realize how important frank truth-telling was to me until my first long-term relationship ended due to dishonesty. it wasn’t even the fact that he cheated that hurt my feelings, it was that he had repeatedly lied to me about it to my face. it was an insult to what he assumed to be my level of intelligence that he believed I would take his words at face value, not investigate it or think more deeply on the timelines he was presenting. it sucked big time!
I also have OCD and agree this does play a role… I used to struggle more with confessional OCD and have never been much of a liar in general (outside of childhood storytelling) so it boggles my mind that someone would do this to another person. it seems uniquely evil. even as I acknowledge it’s super commonplace and is something I myself have done on multiple occasions to save face or be polite, I have a hard time picturing what would make someone lie for personal gain. maybe that’s a lack of imagination, but idk. I agree it’s charming when the right person does it though, my current BF lied about having a massive morrissey poster on his wall when we first started dating but it was like… a bit. a funny bit that kept recurring until I found out it wasn’t real and then it was even funnier. maybe we just like to be lied to when it’s for our benefit (self-esteem, for a good laff). maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
oh god it seems i have never had a unique experience in my life because the same happened to me hahahahaha it is SHIT, so sorry you had to go through it too! but yes i think some of the best connections can be forged on the idea that lying to each other would be so ridiculous and so uncalled for that you just make a joke out of it because it's laughable
This was so well-written, and as someone with OCD, I related to a lot of what you were saying. I actually just posted about the "pervasive dishonesty" of Gen Z dating (I had no idea there was Twitter discourse on this, lol!). Casual dating brought out a lot of cruelty and self-deception in me, because I had some ~light trust issues~, too. My unsolicited hot take: I don't think it's a "crushing personal failure" if you don't detect cheating, or a lying - it's not your responsibility to ensure people won't hurt or deceive you. To stop myself from having "the rug pulled out from under me," I became completely hypervigilant and untrusting and cynical, but that also kept the good out. I'd rather be a "credulous idiot," as long as my trust comes from a place of """authenticity""" (rather than self-deception), than be someone afraid of openness and vulnerability. I don't think any one of us can ever really know if someone is lying, but that's the risk we take for connection. Thank you again for writing and sharing your thoughts!
thank you so much! i completely agree, i wrote in an earlier piece about how important i find it to keep your heart open and curious to the possibility of real love and trust but i think there's this really insidious idea coming from a lot of 'self-improvement' circles that it is almost your own fault if you allow yourself to be duped. i don't agree with it at all but it's so difficult not to internalise - i really do believe it is so much better to be open and vulnerable than closed off to the human intimacy that we all need! thank you so much for reading <3
100%, it's everywhere and it really affects me, too! There was a time when my Instagram explore page was only hyper-vigilant dating advice (if he wanted to he would, horror stories, red flags, etc etc) and it did notttt help my paranoia at all. I felt so horrible whenever I couldn't protect myself/see something coming! It just takes a lot of time and trial and error to find balanced boundaries and trust ourselves, especially with OCD. :/ But we'll figure it out!!!