"Women lie more and better than men!" tut-tutted a recent CBS News headline. The story emerged off the back of the surprising results of a survey of 500 women carried out by well-known US commentator Susan Shapiro Barash, author of the new book Little White Lies, Deep Dark Secrets: The Truth About Women and Deception. Her findings? The fairer sex do indeed fib more - about everything from love, to money, to the amount of botox they get inject into their foreheads. Yikes.
But before you choke on your cornflakes over the fact that your significant other might be lying about the amount of money she spent on her new pair of high heels, there's another lie doing the relationship rounds that might scare you into making every future girlfriend take a lie-detector test before you bonk her.
According to a 2004 survey, almost half of all women would lie to their partners to keep their relationships going if they became pregnant by another man ...
This according to The National Scruples and Lies Survey carried out in the UK which questioned 5000 women and found that 45 per cent of women tell white lies "most days".
While all malicious tactics and tricks in the form of lies are enough to send any man running for the hills, when it comes to innocent white lies (if there are such a thing) many women believe they have a legitimate reason to fib.
Why? Women are emotional creatures by nature. And so when it comes to what gets said, women tend to think of the potential emotional consequences their words might have on the other person. Hence they rationalise that, instead of telling the truth, a little lie might avoid a slag-fest and avoid the risk of hurting someone's feelings.
As actress Nancy Giles told CBS during the show about Barash's book, "[Lying] is part of our DNA! ... If you told the truth all the time, you'd be exhausted."
Indeed. Yet all this info on fibbing made me wonder: do men know women lie? What do they think we lie about? Can they see through our lies? And most importantly, do they lie themselves?
In an effort to gauge some male insight and answers to my questions, I flipped over to my favourite online male portal, Ask Men, in search of the male's point of view on the topic and was a little surprised to find that they think there are five key lies we all tell.
Now, while I'm the first to admit that a little peacekeeping in the form of a fib never hurt anyone, I think the gents might be mistaken as to what exactly we lie about ... and what we don't.
Lie #1: "I'm not mad at you."
I'm not sure what type of women Ask Men polled, but in my experience the first thing a woman does when she's mad at a bloke is she explodes ... vocally. He'll know exactly why she's mad, and she'll do it in about 10,000 more words than she needs to use in order to explain the problem, which could probably be broken down into three syllables. Yep, women like to talk, talk, talk through our problems and trust me when I say that, when a woman is mad, you - and her entire office / yoga session / dog walking crew - are going to know all about it. What is kind of true though, is that, while we're gabbering on about all the things we're angry about, we're not actually after a solution. We get it: you want to solve the problem. But you don't get it: we just want to vent about it. But lie about it? Hell no. Where would the fun be in that?
Lie #2: "I don't mind if you go to strip clubs with the boys."
Ladies, is this really a lie? Do we really give a toss if our boyfriend hits a strip club with his boozed-up mates? It's going to happen anyway, so we know that we might as well ask him if he had a great time instead of berating him over it, which in turn will make him lose the thrill of it all anyway. This may come as a mighty big surprise but the fact is that we are OK with you going to see naked booty on display. And we are also secure in the knowledge that, after a couple of hours, you'll be running home to us faster than your beige loafers can carry you.
Lie #3: "I'm just not ready for a boyfriend right now"
True, a man may peddle this line to placate a woman he's not too interested in. (Specifically used after he's slept with her.) But as for women? It all depends on timing. Take my friend Amber. She dumps her boyfriend and, two days later, a man who she's been secretly lusting after, puts the pressure on her to enter into a relationship with him. Two days after she's ended things with guy number one! She tells guy number two that she's just "not ready for a boyfriend right now". Which is a perfectly normal response for someone in her situation. And yet, when she gets home from a date with boy number two, she tells me she's thinking about boy number two as potential marriage material! True story.
Which leads me to my point: when women say that they are "not ready for a boyfriend right now", they could indeed be lying. Because sadly, it's become the norm for women to go on one or two dates with a man and then to pin all her hopes on him for a serious relationship. Why? Because she is of the belief that there might not be another man around the corner ... for at least another decade.
Which, sadly, leads to the conclusion that women are always "ready for a boyfriend right now", whether they admit it or not. (Feel free to beat me up over that one ... but I would gladly be proven wrong if you can show me a woman who feels otherwise.)
Lie #4: "I don't mind picking up the tab tonight; you always pay anyway."
Contrary to popular male opinion not all women are gold-diggers who view their boyfriends as ATM machines with muscles. True, most women (even the feminists among us) like a man to pay on the first date (and the second and the third), but when it comes to the fourth, we do like to contribute a little something. Of course we'll secretly think you're cheap if you don't reciprocate, or if you make us go Dutch one too many times, but sometimes it's actually acceptable for you to let a woman pay for something ... even if it's just a piece of sushi.
Lie #5: That was f---ing great!"
According to AskMen, after sex, when women gush too much about how well a man has just performed, then she's generally lying through her teeth. In fact, the site says, anything women say after sex is a lie ... so you shouldn't bother listening to her gabble on and instead do what you really want to do, which is roll over and get some shut-eye. But let me just set the record straight here and fill you in on a little female secret: everything we say after sex is the truth; it's the stuff we say before we hop into bed with you that's the lie.
"I've never done this before" tops the list as the No.1 lie women tell men when they sleep with them after the first date; "I've only slept with X amount of men," comes in as lie No.2 (no matter what number she tells you, it's always going to be a lie), and "Wow! You're the biggest I've ever seen!" comes in as the third most told lie. Sorry gents to burst your bubble, although I'm sure when she told you, it was indeed the truth ...
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