When my roommate and I were hanging out with some of our girl friends the other night, we convinced the two of them that most men poop their pants while they sleep, regularly throughout the week. I know, right?
You might be wondering how we were able to get them to buy that story. It's something that I didn't fully understand the time either, so I looked back at this particular lie and some of the other lies I've told in my life, and looked for the common elements that make some lies work. This is what I found.
1. The Right Reputation. If all of your friends know that you're kind of an idiot, they're going to take everything you say with a grain of salt, because usually you lack the capacity to report even the most basic truths and obvious details with 100% accuracy.
However, if you're known as a purveyor of random knowledge, and you've already dazzled your friends with a couple of cool facts, then they're in prime condition to be lied to. They already accept you as an authority. This makes selling a lie so much easier.
2. The Right Context. You can't just walk up to someone and say "Hey, did you know that most men poop their pants every night?" They're not going to believe you unless they're really...trusting or something. That's a positive word. If someone's talking about pooping your pants though, or changing diapers, and then you say "Did you know that a good majority of men suffer from nocturnal spastic colon?" Bam. They'll believe it. Lying in the context of a conversation works so well because it makes it seem as if the lie you're telling is just something you thought of because it's related to the topic of discussion. Walking right up to someone and telling them a lie puts people on their guard, because its like you're selling something.
3. The Lie Must be More Awesome than the Truth. Remember when paleontologists told everyone in the world how dinosaurs were actually covered in feathers? Probably not. Most people took that truth and discarded it, because the idea of giant lizards of death is infinitely cooler than imagining a feathery stegosaurus. If a boring truth is hard to sell to people, then why would you even bother trying to tell a boring lie?
A good lie has to be something that's more exciting and interesting than the world they already know. People love to learn crazy, sensational information, and they will love you if you can give it to them. And then they get to tell their friends. This is probably how Greek mythology got started.
For instance, one time I told a buddy of mine that the JST of the Bible says that Jesus cleansed the temple while he wasn't wearing a shirt, and he believed me because the thing I told him was cooler than the truth. When my roommate and I told our friends that most men poop their pants every night, they believed it because that's a lot more interesting than the truth.
4. Numbers. Friends make any lie easy. When my roommate and I sold our friends on the idea of pooping the bed, it was a team effort. When they asked "How much poop usually comes out?" my roommate was right there to say, "Oh, like a cup, when it's bad." I quickly chimed in with "The other 3 or 4 nights out of the week it's usually just the Hershey squirts." How can you fight that? I almost believed it myself.
The problem with bringing more people into the circle of the lie is that there's a greater risk, since a lot of people suck at keeping a straight face. Make sure you have friends who know what they're doing, and you can get people to believe in Santa Claus again.
These things are the basic tenets of lying. There are other things, like acting naturally and not telling a lie that's too outrageous, but I feel like these other elements are often overlooked when people craft their fibs. Happy lying.
