Jeremy C Kester

This was a difficult habit to shake. What am I talking about? Those little white lies we make when chatting with people. Those attempts to sound cool, interesting, or to stay in a conversation. It’s simple things, like saying you like a show you never watched. Or it’s that you know about an obscure comic. Even agreeing about a topic you really don’t in order to keep the person engaged. While they mean well, I have been quickly losing interest in keeping up these facades.

Why am I lying? Does it really matter if I admit that I didn’t watch show X or Y? Am I not interesting enough without putting up a fake display?

Others I know have admitted to me similar ideas. They admit to pretending to like something they either don’t know about, or even just flatly don’t like to begin with. All of it done just to stay friends with someone. Worse still is that it was to stay friends with someone who they weren’t even sure they really wanted to be friends with in the first place. Why go through the trouble?

People like what they like. Some things we enjoy can be embarrassing. For example, I love musicals. I love Disney movies… like the princess ones. I cried watching Tangled. Who cares? If someone laughs at me or doesn’t like me because of it, will it harm my enjoyment of those things? No. I’ve tried to suppress that at one time in my life for those reasons and it didn’t work. It didn’t change a thing.

And lying is difficult anyway. Keeping up with it. Even with one simple little lie, you have to make note of it. Remember it. Stress about whether you are found out. I have enough stress in my life that I do not need to add to it just to get people to like me. Even in sports, in baseball, a sport I love and can speak well to, I admit that these last few years I haven’t watched much and can’t speak well to what’s going on. It just makes conversations easier!

People will find you. And friends will come as long as you are open to it. Being honest and true will do that for you. And those people you need to lie to just to like you, are they worth it? I mean, if you have nothing in common with them, why even try?