Lee Suckling: Five lies we tell to get our way

Sometimes, lying is necessarily for the everyman, writes Lee Suckling. Photo / 123RF

We're not supposed to lie. Mum and Dad taught us so. In being authentic to ourselves and respectful of others around us, lying is supposed to be intrinsically abominable; something left to bad politicians, scheming hacks, and long-nosed children's book characters.

But sometimes, lying is necessarily for the everyman. We lie to protect ourselves, to excuse ourselves, and to advance ourselves. We also lie for others, for the same reasons. If the intention is good, are they still "white" lies? You be the judge, for there are several lies, white and not-so-white, that many of us tell to get our way.

"I'm gluten intolerant"

Pundits believe food intolerances are a new fad; something that never affected our ancestors who ate everything. This is total bollocks. The only thing that has changed is our attitudes: the modern generation is more attune to its health than ever before, and doesn't accept being uncomfortable if all it takes is switching to soy.

Through trial-and-error elimination diets, many of us have figured out there are ingredients in food we are notably sensitive to, and we spend considerable effort avoiding. Unfortunately, when we ask wait staff at a restaurant if a meal has gluten/lactose/sugar/animal products in it, we're often met with the reply, "Are you actually allergic or....?"

So we lie to get our way, because it's not the business of any hospitality staffer to gauge how careful they should be with our order. So what if we're not diagnosed allergic or intolerant? Would you rather we say, "No, but if I eat it, I'll be sitting on the loo for three hours tomorrow?"

"I have plans this weekend"

Modern life is tiring. We're up at the crack of dawn to get to the gym. We eat our lunches at our desks we're so determined to finish work on time. We have house chores to do, animals to care for, networking functions to attend, and out-of-towners wanting to get drunk on a Tuesday night because they only have two days in the city and "it's been AGES since we caught up!".

So when the weekend rolls around, and the text messages flow in to organise get-togethers with friends, sometimes we have to lie and say we're busy.

It's not because we don't want to see them. Often it's not even because we know we'll want alone time this weekend. It's because the thought of having back-to-back Saturday coffee bookings already organised on a Wednesday is daunting. Maybe the weekend will roll around and we'll feel bright and breezy and ready to be social. But often, it's nice for weekend agendas to be organised only as far as a kitchen espresso machine and a Netflix queue.

"It's the first thing on my priority list"

It's not easy being a younger staff member in a professional job, because often you have several superiors above you, all of whom need to think they are the most important. Particularly relevant to Generation Y workers with Gen X (or older) bosses, we must lie at work to ensure we stay on everybody's good side.

We tell each manager their task is our first priority because they have forgotten about the 4000 other tasks we're already working on. We also know they don't care about everything else that landed on our desks just minutes beforehand. So we manage expectations, play the game, and ensure everyone gets what they want, when they want it. But not a moment earlier.

"I didn't get that e-mail"

In the same vein as managing managers' priorities is managing your own inbox. Here's the reality of the modern world: e-mails rarely go missing. We see all of them, but only reply to some of them. Why? Because "Inbox Zero" is a beautiful place to be, and if something doesn't require immediate action, for time and sanity reasons we have to let things fall by the wayside.

When that follow-up call eventually comes, we lie and say we never received the original message because we knew it wasn't that important anyway. And we knew you'd eventually phone with a reminder.

"She was feeling ill, so I put her in a cab"

Sometimes our lies aren't our own, and most of us will lie for the ones we love. Boyfriends, girlfriends, best friends... often comes around that moment at a work do or party when they just want to be home in bed.

We lie for them because it's easier to tell a lie that's not your own. We lie because they appreciate it, as often the last thing they want at midnight on a rainy Friday is to be pulled onto a dancefloor with someone else's co-workers.

And perhaps most importantly, we lie because we'll one day want a similar lie reciprocated. Nothing says love like somebody faking a sickie for you.