I’ve realised that of all the people that I lie to (and, chances are, I have lied to you about something or other over the time we’ve known each other), I do it around my parents the most. Nothing huge, but it’s almost a defence mechanism - there are fundamental differences between the philosophies of my parents and my own, and because they’re my parents they just aren’t content to live and let live.
Example: yesterday, I was off sick. I had (and still have, hence why I have the time to write this) a stinking cold, and just didn’t feel like sitting in a stuffy office for eight hours serving - at times - the lowest dregs of the human food chain. But my Dad is a civil engineer whose career depends on him turning up to work every day without fail (except for extreme emergencies), and my Mum is a teacher - if she doesn’t turn up to work, she ultimately creates more work for herself because substitute teachers are awful. So - yes - I might be an office drone with no real responsibilities, but the ethos of “don’t call in sick unless you have typhoid” is something that I can’t escape. So I lied. I said I had gone into work, thrown up and been promptly sent home by my manager. Out of my hands. Nothing I could do. Can’t argue with the boss, guv.
There are a lot of little white lies like this. I had a summer of looking for jobs, but there were some days where I felt like the walls were closing in and I just needed to zone out to prevent the onset of anxiety. Of course, my parents were still told that I was hard at work, looking for whatever I could find. At university, I lied about my social life, saying that I was going out with friends at least once a week (I wasn’t). There is an idea of me that I give my parents, just because I don’t want to be put down by them.
This probably paints them as monsters, but I should back up: at least half these lies are probably pointless. They’re risk aversion rather than last resort - depending on their mood, there’s always a chance that they’ll launch into a tirade, but there’s at least an equal possibility that they’ll take it reasonably.
Alternatively, it makes me sound awful - in some eyes, the fact that I occasionally struggle at being a regular, functional human being is a character weakness that I should be ashamed of, and my parents have every right to be frustrated with me. I’ll take that. I find it all too easy to lie, or bend the truth, or omit crucial details. Over the course of my degree, according to the understanding of my tutors, my family were hospitalised around thirty times, and that’s why I couldn’t make it to their seminars. These are funny anecdotes, but as part of someone’s character it’s a little ugly. Lying should be difficult, but competent liars tend to avoid trouble, so long as they can do it convincingly and not obsess too much over their conscience. It’s a hard thing to unlearn, and I think I’ll be better at being honest once I’m around people who don’t provoke that instinct, but dishonesty is sometimes better than the alternative.