Why Do Friends Lie To You?

Why do friends lie to you?

Lying is one of the most complicated subjects. On one hand, they say that everyone lies at some point and that is definitely arguable. But on the other hand, can you really live a happy and carefree life if you always have to lie your way through life? I don’t believe so.

When it comes to friends, lying is a really big thing. If you lie to your friends and they find out, it can be really damaging to the friendship. How can they trust you if you aren’t telling the truth? In some cases, it can end the friendship, depending on what the lie was about.

But why do friends do this, knowing the harsh consequences of lying? That’s what I wanted to discover today!

In this post, I’ll go over the reasons why do friends lie to you and how to deal with it when it happens. You’ll see the motivations for why friends would do such a thing, and how to potentially resolve them. Being lied to is unpleasant, but you can deal with it in an effective manner.

Alright, let’s get started.

They’re too afraid to tell you the truth.

This is one of the most common reasons why friends lie to you. For many various reasons, they’re afraid to tell you the truth. Either they don’t want to hurt your feelings or risk having any tension on the friendship. Or they don’t want to confront you with a potential issue they have with you. Or they’re simply too shy to tell you.

Here are some examples of this:

• When you’re trying on some clothing at the fashion store and you ask for their opinion. If it looks bad on you, they’ll lie and say it looks good, because they want don’t want to hurt your feelings.

• If they’re running late to meet up with you. Instead of letting you know in advance that they’re going to be late, they will make up a lie and make up an excuse, in avoid to avoid you getting angry at them. More on this later.

• If they’re always bothered by you interrupting them while in conversation. But instead of telling you about it, they keep it to themselves out of frustration in order to “keep the peace” in the friendship.

I’m sure you’ve been in similar situations like this, so you know that when your friend lies to you like this, it never ends well. You end up looking bad with your new clothes due to some bad opinions. You get mad at your friend because you know they made up some lame excuse for being late, and you’d rather them tell the truth. And you feel like your friend is mad at you but you can’t pinpoint what it is, simply because they’re not being upfront with you.

They want something out of you.

Another common reason why friends lie to you is because they want something out of you. While good friends (click here to read what good friends are) are usually selfless, some of them may have their own self interests in mind.

Here are some examples:

• Your friends want you to come to their hangout that you’re not really interested in. So instead of being upfront, your friends will lie and tell you how great it will be, when it may not really suit you. They lie to you because they want you there.

• When they say they want to hangout, but really just want your resources. Let’s say you’re the only one in the friend group who has a car. Your friends pretend and say they want to see you. But in reality, they just want you to be there so you can give everyone a ride with your car. Or they invite you to dinner, but when the bill comes, they ask for you to pay for all of it.

When a friend just wants to use you or get something out of you by lying, it can really be heartbreaking. It makes you question the friendship, whether they like you for you, or only for what you have to offer materialistic.

Your friends have their own issues.

This one is probably out of your control. If your friends have their own internal issues, then lying might be part of what they do. Whether it’s insecurity, jealousy (click to read why friends get jealous), or personal struggles, not everyone is perfect and having friends who feel these things can end up lying to you, even if they don’t mean to hurt you.

One of example is that they’re afraid of losing you as a friend. So whenever you upset them, they’ll keep it to themselves. Note this is why blind loyalty is not a good thing in friends. Loyalty is great but not when they cannot stand up for themselves. When a friend is afraid of losing to you, they may resort to telling to you lies to keep you where you are (e.g. giving bad advice).  

Alright, so we covered some various reasons why friends lie to you? What should you do about it?

Set your boundaries.

This is the most important step in order to prevent your friends from lying to you (or at least try to). You want to make it clear that you won’t tolerate them being dishonest with you. After all, who wants to be lied to?

If your friend lies to you, you want to make it clear that you don’t want that to happen again.

Be open to honesty.

On the flip side, you want to be a person who will be accepting to honesty. Your friends won’t be honest with you if you react negatively to honesty. For example, if you get angry at your friends for being blunt with you, then how can you expect them to be honest with you?

You want to make it clear that you want honesty in your friendships. Be open to whatever they want to say or suggest.

Conclusion

I hope you found this post useful. If you have any questions or feedback, leave them in the comments below!