One of my biggest pet peeves is dishonesty. No one wants to be friends with, date, or generally know a liar. Liars suck. Liars especially suck when you are 1000% sure that they are lying. When you have evidence of their dishonesty, the work of a liar becomes an example of the worst of humanity’s failings.
Liars: they suck.
Scenario #1:
You’ve been dating someone for about 2-and-a-half years. Yes, that’s a long time. It’s a long distance relationship, but one party is planning to move back to the location of the other party at the conclusion of college. The one that isn’t finishing college has promised to help you move 2,000 miles across the country. The only issue that arises is that this person bullies you on the phone one night until you can’t handle it anymore, and you hang up on them after yelling, “F*** You”. You figure that you’ll let your little outburst blow over and then call to apologize. However, the very next day you get a corporate email from AT&T stating that the other person wants you off of their account. Yes, this is how they’ve chosen to break up with you. They also rescind their promise to help you move. Truly scummy. A decent person would still help you if they have respect for you as a person. This person isn’t decent, and it’s a shock, since you’ve basically wasted 2.5 years of your precious earth time with them. You also find out that they’ve been eyeing another person for a while now. They contact/booty call this other person THE SAME DAY they break up with you. And then they lie about it every time you confront them about it.
Solution:
Look, if you want to date someone else, man up and tell me about it. It will hurt a lot less in the long run. Plus, you’ll look like less of an idiot. As one friend put it:
Even if nothing happened between them until after you two broke up, then he should have had the balls to tell you that one of the reasons he broke up with you was because he was interested in someone else.
Well said, friend. Well said.
Scenario #2:
You’ve been seeing a guy for a few weeks. However, he’s going away for a long time and you’re not sure whether you can handle keeping in touch for so long. (The long distance thing is quite tedious, and after Scenario #1, you probably will never do it again.) You would like to keep in touch on Skype and possibly send him home-baked cookies. He leaves and you give him a note with your email address. You find out ten days later that this person is engaged to be married to a completely different person in a completely different state. You’re clearly not the one who’s being played, but you are being used, even if it is in a minimal way. And your feelings have been hurt, because for whatever reason, you started having feelings for someone who turned out to be a liar. It happens to the best of us.
Solution:
Um, I don’t know. Maybe tell people that you’re ENGAGED. That shouldn’t be a big secret. And if it is, you shouldn’t be getting married to begin with. You’d make a terrible spouse anyway. You’re a liar, a cheater, and a little bit fat (in this specific case, the liar was slightly rotund). You fail. Thanks for playing.
There you have it. Two examples of why lying is such poor form. How do you avoid liars? You’d probably have to become a hermit. Liars are everywhere. You just have to learn how to spot them sooner.
Fixed Air 
First, those are horrible scenarios. Truly. I’m very sorry they happened to you.
We live in an era of no personal responsibility. If you want to break up with someone you don’t do it face to face. It’s voice mail, text message, MySpace and Facebook. I’d call kicking someone off the cell phone bill a variation on that theme. Sadly the facts as you’ve related them in Scenario #1 indicate things were already over before you even knew.
Scenario #2 personally rubs me the wrong way more. You oughta be able to press charges against someone who lies about their relationship status. Hopefully you took things nice and slow during those few weeks. I do think you overlooked one possible solution: Finding and informing the woman engaged to this cad about his behavior with you. She might find it illuminating. This is easier said than done. I’ve been in this boat myself. I didn’t know the other person but I felt they had a right to know what their spouse was up to, sleeping around with someone else. Truly a horrible, horrible scenario.
I don’t know how to spot liars. I think all you can do is give them some rope and see if they hang themselves. And be careful out there!
On the plus side, sounds like you might be back in the big city soon! 🙂
You’re right. It seems as though no one understands that face-to-face communication is most important. It’s cowardly to use technology to break up with someone.
In the case of scenario #2, I really don’t want to say anything to the other woman. I feel that they will find this stuff out on their own anyway. Hell, maybe they’re doing the same thing.
Liars suck. Period. And usually the best liars are those you care about the most because they know they can get away with it… It would be nice to find myself in a real relationship with true honesty involved. Scenarios involving liars happen to the best of us Heather. We have to learn from our past and move on.
, it's ibinedcrly emotionally draining. I don't think I've ever read a book that affected me in quite the same way as this one. I am recommending it to anyone, I think from so many angles it is an invaluable experience. I love how much Ilsa has taken this girl under her wing, letting herself be used, to some degree, because her inactivity, and then later her activity, is truly helping someone. I love that she cares so much, and so quietly. And it's gone both ways-I think Liesel has helped her out of her shell…we see it here with the great moment of wry humor-door or window? I also thought that Liesel was effectively finished with her book, and was basically in the editing/read through process. And I agree with several other commenters, in the language of The Book Thief and the way Liesel writes, and how she writes about words, I think we are seeing a lot of Zusak.
The man who loves you unconditionally will never lie to you as long as that love is flourishing. You found love in scenario #1 but the breakup was unfortunately messy. He lied because he wanted to spare your feelings. A commonplace and consistently poor excuse, but men do it all the time because they’re worthless at emotional transitions and change in general. Move on to greener pastures, because the love you once shared is broken.
As for scenario #2, this man is probably a compulsive liar. Don’t waste another minute thinking about his motives. He is a train-wreck…run in the opposite direction and don’t look back.
“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.”
~Henry Ellis