How can you tell if a man/boy is lying to you?

Once you get to know him, you will know when he’s lying.

But how would you be able to tell he could be puting on a front?

It is impossible to tell with many people. Some are very good at it.

Learn how to read body language and watch the eyes. My girlfriend knows instantly when I’m trying to fib. The only time I can remotely pull it off is as a joke.

@Adirondackwannabe Well she is good at it

I couldn’t tell with my boyfriend at the beginning, I thought he was a good liar. But, after testing him a little, so I knew his lying moves, then now I know.

His lips are moving.

There are all sorts of cues, the problem is, none of them apply to all people all the time. Plus, once a person is aware of them they can be used to manipulate the situation. Additionally, at times many people are inclined to find what we’re looking for in such situations even when it’s not there.

Bottom line, ask them clearly and pointedly. It’s up to you whether you accept their answer or don’t.

@Sophief oh I have to talk to my friend one of these days and I want him to tell me the truth about a problem we had…. Hope I can see if he is lying….

@Love_or_Like Why don’t you test him first, see if he can tell the truth about simple things?

The same way you tell if anyone is lying….....

You have to learn the person better.
For gods sake dont go through the nonsense of putting him through tests to gauge his loyalty.

@Sophief true I well try that….

when he opens his mouth and things called words come out

@Snarp Damn, you beat me to it!

Eye contact, or the lack of it. a person that is lying to you cannot look you in the face and tell you a lie.. also, physical signs are a dead giveaway. nervousness, a shaking foot or leg, hands together and overall a figity appearance with their nerves.

I think once you know a person well, you would instantly notice something is amiss or he is reacting unusually when he gives an answer. I, for example, can’t help “tightening my cheek muscles” (its the closest thing I can think of) and I never do that with anything else.

okay I will see

@john65pennington yeah thats what I will look for…..

I guess somewhere along the line yo have to trust this fellow, and your own instincts.

yeah the bad thing is that I all ways feel he is lying to me…

Then he prob. is.

I hope not….... but I just feel like it

Well i hope not as well, for your sake :)

@Love_or_Like Unfortunately that is life. Hurts like hell I know.

I think it also comes down to a respect issue. I respect my g/f too much to try and lie. It cuts into my self respect if I try to tell her anything other than the truth.

@Adirondackwannabe Very good to read, we need more men like you.

@slick44 thanks
@Sophief yeah i know thats how we learn from it….
@Adirondackwannabe thats very good

If there is only one lesson I’ve learned in life, it’s to play it straight. Applies to every single level or aspect of life. Love life, business life, social life, play it straight. You can play games if you want to, lie to people, lovers, business partners, but it’s only going to come back and bite you in the ass.

Often people add too much detail to a story when lying. Oh and your tongue also turns blue :D

lol, tongue turns blue? Well I have never seen that but usually I can tell when someone is lying because they cant keep eye contact and are always looking down or away, or seem distracted..There breathing pattern changes, like they tend to take in deep breaths in between pauses, or get there story tangled up at times.. However a good lier can hide all of thoes helpful manerisms..:( so sometimes its hard to read..

Avoid man/boy’s.

@Cat333 yeah thats true

They all lie.

@slick44 why you think that??

@Love_or_Like because they do….its unavoidable….it must be a habit for them LOL

@Love_or_Like .. Because they do. dont no why, they just do.

Is he breathing?

I guess it is a habit for them to lie.
And yes he is breathing….

@Love_or_Like My Mother hates cats. She says the only good cat is a dead cat.
You could apply this to Men, I suppose ;P

you could

That’s pretty cold. lol

they be getting all nevious and stuff

yeah my exboyfriend got very nevious

@Love_or_Like Hes your ex? Forget him.

I don’t think you can tell because some people find telling lies all too easy…especially with practice.

In some cases you can pick it up in body language or avoidance of eye contact.

Somebody once lied to me and I asked them to look me in the eye and tell me that they weren’t lying and they didn’t bat an eyelid but continued with the lie. At the time I thought they were telling me the truth as there was no evidence that they were lying in their body language either.

It’s only at a later date that the ‘niggle’ I had was founded and the lie was told in my best interests because apparently it didn’t serve a purpose telling me the truth as it would cause me further upset.

Tha “niggle” @definitive spoke of is the best way to tell if someone is lying. It’s very hard to use it properly, too, because it has to be an objective niggle, not one colored by your desires and prejudices.

I think the data show that there are no standard rules about lying. Some people lie staring in your eyes and some people tell the truth dodging your gaze. You can’t trust these tells, unless you’ve got a lot of experience with someone—the way a gambler does in studying his opponents for signs they are bluffing. Over time, you come to know, but there is a different tell for every person. You can’t assume it’s always the same.

In absence of surefire tells, you need your niggle detector. What’s that? That’s your idea of how the world and people work and what they are likely to do in various situations. We call this a model of life. It’s your current understanding of human relationships and natural relationships.

Obviously, a good model of this kind takes decades to build. Young people, because their models are less sophisticated because they have less data to build the model on, will have a harder time detecting lies. However, your niggle detector can still help. You try to match up the potential liars behavior with the behavior you would expect if they weren’t lying. If there’s a discrepancy, then you start to think they could be lying. Some people also call this the “smell test.”

When your world model is unsophisticated, you will detect lies where they don’t exist and miss lies that do exist much more often than a person with a sophisticated model. It can’t be helped. You do the best you can. However, if you’ve got a niggling about a lie, you should at least gather more information to see if you can find evidence that something is wrong. I would act as if I believed the person if I had no other evidence other than my niggle.

The tricky part is that your niggle detector can be confused by your own bias. You want to believe what you think, and that can lead you astray. You’ve got to do your best to look at the situation as if you were some external, neutral person. It’s the best you can do until you find the person’s “tell.”

@wundayatta…I found your response really interesting.

The person who I refer to in my response is still part of my life and as a result of ‘lies’ and founded ‘niggles’ it has led to obvious trust issues.

Subseqently ‘niggles’ are now sometimes created which could be interpreted as paranoia which like you say I want to believe what I think.

Lol as a consequence I’m not so confident about believing my ‘niggles’ :)

@definitive That’s an interesting conundrum. It’s hard to be able to pull back enough to be objective. I think we can only do the best we can, and always wait for confirmatory evidence before trusting our suspicions. That doesn’t mean you have to go looking for evidence. You just should be on your guard, and get everything proved twice over before you believe it.

Even then, I wouldn’t rely on his word for anything important or anything that could hurt me. In addition, I’d plan as if he is lying, or misinformed. So, if he says he’s faithful, but you think he isn’t, then I’d treat him as if he isn’t faithful, but I wouldn’t say anything about it while I was seeking confirmation. I’d just hold him at arms length until you can prove anything one way or another.

Not really. My gut usually grumbles but then I get all trusty and wanting to be positive and give the benefit of a doubt and then find out later I was right in my initial grumblings. I get very tired after awhile of having my chain yanked and then I turn downright evil.

@wundayatta thanks for your response….

Mmmhh the difficulty is proving anything one way or another if I did have a ‘niggle’, ...beyond turning into a paranoid detective… which really if I stand back objectively and as I’m beginning to conclude is really not worth the effort and losing my self worth over.

@definitive That’s very wise. Don’t let it make you lose your self-worth. Don’t spend too much time on something with little return. I wish I could do that.