We’re All Liars: What’s Your Lying Style?
September 19, 2023
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome to, We Can Do Hard Things.
Abby Wambach:
I’m excited for this episode.
Glennon Doyle:
I feel curious-
Abby Wambach:
Nervous.
Glennon Doyle:
… About this episode. We’re going to talk today about lying and truth. Okay. We started thinking about this when we heard this voicemail from Janelle.
Janelle:
Hi Glennon, Abby and Amanda, I just love you guys so much. This is Janelle and I just had a question about when you’re setting a boundary, is it okay to tell a little white lie? Instead of just saying, “I don’t want to go,” or, “It doesn’t work for me,” I come up with these elaborate excuses why that maybe aren’t so true just to spare the other person’s feelings, but then I feel worse because I know that I’m lying. So instead of just saying like, “Hey, I’m exhausted, I can’t come.” I might say, “Hey, we can’t come. My kid has this friend in town and we’re not going to make it because the timing wouldn’t work out.”
Janelle:
And I make this elaborate story or I think about making up this elaborate story for days and then I even feel worse. But it’s really hard to set boundaries and that’s kind of one of the ways that I do it to make myself feel better. Anyway, it clearly doesn’t work. So I would love to know your thoughts on setting boundaries by telling the cold hard truth or telling a little story to make everyone feel a little bit better. Thank you.
Abby Wambach:
This is going to be juicy.
Glennon Doyle:
I mean I did this last week.
Abby Wambach:
Oh.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Everyone does this every day.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Okay. Janelle, everyone, I want everyone to know that I started researching this topic on lying, knowing that this was coming up, thinking that as a truth teller, this was going to be an episode about extolling the virtues of truth telling, and how we should all tell the truth and I would tell everyone why telling the truth is better. I have finished my research understanding that I am a complete liar.
Abby Wambach:
We all are.
Glennon Doyle:
We are all lying all the time and I no longer think is the question, do you tell the truth or do you lie? I think the question is what is your lying style?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
How do you lie? Why do you lie?
Abby Wambach:
Why?
Glennon Doyle:
And to whom do you lie?
Abby Wambach:
Why do you lie is good.
Glennon Doyle:
This is the question we are going to talk to you today pod squad, about what we now believe are our particular lying styles.
Abby Wambach:
Lie languages.
Glennon Doyle:
And by the way, we just made this shit up. There’s nobody saying that there’s lie languages.
Abby Wambach:
We’re saying it.
Amanda Doyle:
There probably are. There probably are, we haven’t come across them.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, I’m just saying Google it also. Don’t say that there are lie languages, we’re making it up. But hopefully you’ll be able to figure out what your lie language is and not to beat yourself up about it, by the way. I think that actually it can help you feel more compassionate about yourself and everybody else to figure out why we lie and how we lie. It tells us a lot about ourselves in each other. So does anybody have a response for sweet Janelle about her little white lie, which by the way, we should stop calling little white lies, because I feel like that’s just racist. It is. Everything we call white is like, “Oh, it’s no problem. It’s pure, it’s whatever.” There should be another word for these.
Amanda Doyle:
It reminds me of that MLK speech where he was talking about how there are 135 synonyms for whiteness that are all positive like you’re innocent. And 120 synonyms for blackness and half of them are offensive. It’s the whole idea that we teach in so many ways that to feel good about yourself or feel bad about yourself without teaching it.
Glennon Doyle:
But I would say that one of the things that the white lie does have in common with whiteness is that there is this idea of just being fake and polite and etiquette, which does tie to whiteness a little bit. It’s like etiquette thing about not being real and just, so are these lies that Janelle’s talking about often about pleasing or not rocking the boat or being part of etiquette?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. And one thing I want to say about Janelle is that it’s really amazing because she’s saying, “In order to set a boundary, I tell the lies.” And it’s like, that’s not setting a boundary, that’s something else. That is getting what you need out of the situation, which is not to go to the thing, but setting a boundary is actually stating your needs. I don’t think you get to tell the untruth and set a boundary at the same time. If you’re setting a boundary, you’re saying what you need, which is, “I am not going to be there tonight, it doesn’t work for me. This is where I can’t be.” So I don’t think we get to have it both ways. I think we can get what we need and if you’re going to have some element of deception involved in that, great. But I don’t think you can call that a boundary, because don’t you think by definition boundaries are like there is an exchange of actual authentic needs there?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And I think the purpose of setting a boundary is teaching someone else what you will and won’t do or what you do and do not need. So when you hold up something that’s real, it’s like, “Here’s a thing about me that will make our next interaction more true to me.” But when you’re telling a story, you’re just holding up a picture of a mirage you’re not teaching anyone anything about yourself.
Abby Wambach:
I also think that the explaining of the why you’re setting your boundary, I think that she could just say, “Hey, we can’t come. I’m just so sorry we can’t come.” And somebody might say, “Why?” It’s just like, “We just can’t. We can’t do it.” And that can be-
Amanda Doyle:
“It doesn’t work for us tonight.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, “It doesn’t work for us.” I just think that the explaining thing is what this boundary is mistaking. Because to set a boundaries like, “I can’t,” or, “I can.” Period.
Glennon Doyle:
Or, “I will,” or, “I won’t,” or, “I don’t want to.”
Amanda Doyle:
But to me the whole thing boils down to like you said when you were saying the big question it is, why we lie or I lie language. To me the big question is to whom do we owe the truth? Because it might be the same people to whom we owe the truth or people with whom we want to have a truthful relationship are the same people with whom we might wish to set boundaries. Because that’s all about an investment, which is totally distinct from it’s about investment and ongoing relationship or a modified relationship. And that all goes in the part of the pie chart of your relationships that is the deeper level of authenticity.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Amanda Doyle:
And then there’s this whole pie chart of your relationships that are about getting through the freaking day, and about being part of ecosystems. Lies are the social lubricant to get us through a lot of various people in various parts of our lives. And so we use that to grease the wheels and get us through. But then there’s this whole other set of people who we’d actually want to have deeper relationships with. And so entering the tiny lies and the big lies in those are actually detrimental to the relationship. Whereas this other side, they’re helpful to the relationship because we’re not trying to have a real relationship. We’re trying to just go to soccer practice.
Abby Wambach:
That’s good.
Amanda Doyle:
And go home.
Glennon Doyle:
So it’s like a flowchart. It’s like a flowchart. Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
I think so.
Glennon Doyle:
Somebody asks you a question and then it’s like, “Do you care about this person? Do you see building a relationship with this person?” If the answer is no, you go to the left and it’s a box that says, “Just lie your way out of it.” Nobody really wants to know how you are. Nobody really wants to know why you can’t. If it’s for the soccer team and your whatever, just say the shit that you need to say. But there’s another side of the flowchart and it’s like do you care about this person? Do you want this person to know you better so that you can develop a relationship with them? To me it’s not about, oh, it’s about want. Do you want this person? Then you consider revealing the truth because you’re creating an algorithm with them.
Glennon Doyle:
If you just say, “Oh, the reason I can’t come or I don’t want to come is because I have this thing.” Then they’re forgiven for thinking, “Oh, if she doesn’t have this parent in town or child in town, the next time she will want to go out with me at 8:00 PM until 11:00 PM.” Or whatever. But if you’re creating an algorithm with that person and you say, “Actually, I don’t want to go because I just don’t like things at night and I’m tired,” or, “I just have a lot going on,” or, “I’m the kind of person who needs six days in advance.” Whatever it is that’s true, then that person is learning how to be in relationship with you instead of trying to create a relationship on a mirage.
Amanda Doyle:
I think that’s right. And I also think that it is this whole cognitive dissonance we have around lying. First of all, we are like lying is bad and we teach our kid that lying is bad. You should not lie. And then we literally teach our kids to lie. We’re like, “Say that dinner was delicious.” And we tell them they are rude if they don’t do that. Everyone lies. There was these studies, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, “I don’t lie.” Then that would make you exceptional. You are an exceptionally rare human.
Glennon Doyle:
Probably terrible to be around.
Amanda Doyle:
Well yeah, I mean maybe you live in a lot of integrity, but you live very much alone. 25% of people lie more than twice a day. 90% of those lies are what the world calls little white lies. We will call them-
Glennon Doyle:
Social.
Amanda Doyle:
… What should we call them?
Glennon Doyle:
Social.
Amanda Doyle:
Minor deceptions.
Glennon Doyle:
Minor deceptions.
Amanda Doyle:
The irony is that we lie more to people close to us than to strangers. So 9% of people lie to strangers. 51% of people lie to friends. And what’s wild to me is that okay, listen to these. We deceive 30% of the people what we are in one-to-one interactions with. Men and women lie in one fifth of their social exchanges that last 10 minutes or more, we cannot be in 10 minute conversations without lying to people.
Abby Wambach:
Is there a difference between men and women?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. Men are more likely to lie about themselves. They lie more to impress. So the typical conversation between two guys contains eight times as many self-oriented lies as it does lies about others. Whereas women are more likely to tell altruistic lies which are lies to avoid hurting other people’s feelings.
Glennon Doyle:
This is my favorite line that I found in all the research. More men than women lie. Men are particularly good at deception or at least they say they are. They’re lying about they’re lying, about they’re lying. It’s lying inception.
Abby Wambach:
That’s so good.
Glennon Doyle:
Let’s talk for a second about what we mean by lies, because I think this is really important. Lies are they contain awareness and intention. So for example, if I’m saying that my last marriage lasted six years, I am not lying, because I do not understand years. Time is a very difficult concept for me, right? No I’m serious.
Amanda Doyle:
You do get a lot of numbers wrong.
Abby Wambach:
It’s astounding.
Glennon Doyle:
And it’s not when someone calls me for an article and they’re like, “Oh, we just have to fact check you.” I’m like, “Whoa, I can’t do that.”
Amanda Doyle:
Won’t be possible.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. That’s actually not possible. You have to call a sister. I cannot fact check myself. I can feelings check all day. Now the reason I say that is because intent and awareness. So a lie is a deliberate choice to mislead. In other words, if you’re saying something and you don’t know that you’re lying, you’re misremembering something or you’re just being wrong, that is not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about when you are saying something and at the same time you’re having this double consciousness of, “Oh, I know that’s not true. Here I go, I keep going. I’m intending to do this and I am aware that I’m doing this.” For example, if someone on the street says, “How are you?” And you’ve had the worst day of your life and your whatever, and you say “I’m fine.” That is a lie. It’s also probably necessary because it’s a stranger. So I’m not attaching good or bad to the lie, I’m just saying in order to be a lie, intent and awareness.
Abby Wambach:
Awareness.
Amanda Doyle:
I disagree with this whole idea.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, okay.
Amanda Doyle:
I believe that a lie is something when you are deceiving someone who wants to know the truth.
Glennon Doyle:
So if they really don’t even know the truth, but how-
Amanda Doyle:
People who you walk by in the farmer’s market and say, “How are you?” Don’t want the truth.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, but sissy that doesn’t matter. You cannot go around assessing other people’s intentions. You can only decide what’s coming out of your mouth is true or not.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, I think we assess people’s intentions all the time. That’s why we lie to people in the farmer’s market. That’s why we don’t lie to our partner when they say, “How are you?”
Glennon Doyle:
We need a different word for it. That’s like saying, “Either I did punch you or I didn’t punch you. But if you deserved it, if you were being an asshole, that’s not a punch.” It’s still what’s coming out of us is either true or not regardless of what we think the other person’s intention is.
Amanda Doyle:
Well, okay, this is why the cognitive dissonance, because we say we shouldn’t lie and then we develop an entire society that is built on the assumption that everyone will be lying.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Oh God, totally.
Amanda Doyle:
So we shouldn’t be calling that lying because that isn’t lying. When you read a room and what’s expected of you and you know that what someone is asking is not for the truth and you deliver in accordance with that expectation. That is not a lie, that is something different. That is part of a social contract, which is why we develop different social contracts with different relationships throughout our lives.
Glennon Doyle:
So if someone says to me, “How is your morning?” And I had a colonoscopy this morning. And I said, “It was fine, it was great”, but it really wasn’t great. That’s not, not a lie, it’s just a compulsory lie. It’s just required lie. It’s a social lubricant lie, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not a lie. If I say something out of my mouth that isn’t true, it might be a necessary lie, but it’s still a lie. When we’re deciding what a lie is.
Abby Wambach:
I think that this is the whole shebang here. So many people don’t know what, A, they’re doing is a lie and then everybody’s definition of what a lie is, is going to be different. And I think that that’s where we get a little bit stuck based on the families we were raised in. I grew up in a family that were just fucking liars, bullshitters. They were just like spewing bullshit all the day as long. And here I was interpreting that as some of it is fact. And then I was learning this behavior of like, “Oh, storytelling is what we do down here during this life.” So determining what a lie is, is going to be complicated for every person. Because for me, I’m in therapy right now about the bullshitting side of me and it’s triggering to try to figure out, “Wait, what is the definition of a lie to me?”
Amanda Doyle:
Which is why I feel like it is important to not call what we do 100 times a day a lie. Because the dilution of that, if something means everything, it means nothing. So if you are saying when someone asks me how I am and what I say back to them is a lie, and that is somehow the equivalent of a very serious breach of trust with my partner, that serves no one. Because we all agree that this side of the spectrum is totally fine and we do it 1400 times a day. Where in our mental reaction do we get to the other side of the spectrum? That’s why I just think none of those things on the other side should be called lies. You should save a lie for what it is, and the rest is just operating in a society.
Abby Wambach:
Yep. Not all lies are created equal. There needs to be a system in place. We need to have better language, we need to have numbers like, oh, this is a number one lie, which is the socially acceptable lie. And then there’s a number 10 lie that we don’t go to because they’re really bad lies. There needs to be more.
Amanda Doyle:
Because where it gets really complicated is at number five. Because the truth is that the studies have shown that when you have what they call a lie by omission or when you’re technically telling the truth, but you still have the impact of deceiving the person who is doing it. You think that it is fine because of that whole one through four where we all agree that that’s fine. But the impact on the person who is receiving that technical truth that operates in deceit is monumental.
Abby Wambach:
It’s a 6 through 10.
Amanda Doyle:
They feel it the same as a direct untruth.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
So this is where the rubber meets the road, which is why I’m so adamant that we don’t call 1 through 4 lies. That is just how we operate in a society where we’re interacting with a bunch of people who by the way are not worthy of our trust. To be truthful with someone, is to entrust someone else with something that is real and important to you. And a ton of people out there are not worthy of that trust or your relationship has not developed to the level of that trust.
Glennon Doyle:
So this would get at the idea that we should all be vulnerable all the time. Truth is vulnerability and it is not true that we should be vulnerable with every single person all along the day all the time. Vulnerability, Brene Brown teaches us is something that we give to people who have earned it. And so what you’re saying is the intent of a lie, in quote marks, to protect yourself, which is one of the reasons people lie is to protect themselves or protect another, is actually sometimes just wisdom. Because it’s not making yourself vulnerable to people who have not earned it or you don’t feel like investing in.
Amanda Doyle:
I think that’s exactly right. I think that you deepen a relationship. Say there’s someone in your life and maybe they’re even a close person, maybe they’re even a family member. And one of the reasons why you feel ill at ease around them is you feel like you don’t have the trust in them that they have the wisdom to be responsible with real information. But you’re supposed to trust them to be responsible with the real information that you don’t trust them?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, exactly. Or with someone else. If you’re not understanding this right now, pod squad, this feels weird to you, think about if somebody asks you a question about a vulnerable friend or a child that’s in your life. And you don’t trust that person with information and that person says, “How’s your kid?” Or, “How’s whatever?” You’re not going to tell them everything about that kid’s life, because you don’t trust them with that information. Not even necessarily because they’re a bad person, just because that’s sacred to you. So that sort of protection of self or others that sort of quote, lie, is often wisdom. I mean I was thinking about this and I was a wild liar as a kid. Wild. My kids and I laugh at this all the time. I once convinced my entire gymnastics class that Madonna was my aunt. Okay. I carried that lie on for so long. I had pictures I had cut out from magazines of Madonna in my book bag.
Abby Wambach:
I think it’s still haunts you a little bit.
Glennon Doyle:
I was committed to Madonna as my aunt. I told my friend Kristen that I had a bunk bed that had an elevator. That I used an elevator to get from my bottom to my top bunk bed. And that I had a tub of gummy worms that was the size of a refrigerator in my bedroom. I could not invite Kristen to my house for a year because of these big lies. I had a crush on this boy named Kyle and his birthday was March 17th. So I told my entire class and Kyle that my birthday was also March 17th and had to sneak into my teacher’s classroom during lunch when no one else was in there so I could cross out my birthday behind her desk.
Glennon Doyle:
She had a birthday chart behind her. Lies after lies, after lies. Okay. So I’ve been thinking about why I used to do that. I was so desperate to be special. I just wanted to be special. I wanted to be important, I wanted to be chosen. I didn’t feel like I had whatever natural currency of belonging that the other kids had. So I felt like I had to manufacture it. I had to make up cool currency. I was not wrong. I did have to do that. So that was one sort of lying that I’ve identified in myself when I was little. But as you know sister, I also was a big liar as a teenager.
Amanda Doyle:
You’re like, “In contrast, I also lied a shit ton as a teenager.”
Glennon Doyle:
But on the other hand, I was also a big liar later. But I remember, and this was a different kind of lying, it was lying to my parents about my life, always lying to them about where I was or what I was doing or my boyfriend or hiding my period. Just always hiding stuff. And I remember getting in a lot of trouble for that. I remember my parents saying, “Why do you always lie?” And I in this case have a lot of sympathy for myself, because I did not believe that there was room for my truth in my home in a lot of ways. In anything regarding being imperfect or wildly human or sexual.
Abby Wambach:
Makes sense.
Glennon Doyle:
Or appetite or when I-
Abby Wambach:
It was survival.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And so I think that is what sister is saying. And sometimes we look at a person, we say, “Why do they always lie?” Instead of looking at their environment and thinking, “Why do they have to lie so much?” And I also think when we talk about lying, it’s super important to think about there’s lots of groups that don’t get to tell the truth. Like well if there’s a man and a woman and the man is angry and the woman is angry, well why might the woman conceal her anger? Because there’s not room for her truth, because the world will react to her poorly. So she learns to hide, she learns to conceal, she learns to protect herself.
Glennon Doyle:
If there’s a white woman and a black woman and the black woman is messy and vulnerable, and a little bit pissed, and the white woman is messy, vulnerable and a little bit pissed. Well, why might the white woman get to share all of that and be loved and endeared for it? And why might the black woman never get to share any of that? There’s an element of truth being a privilege, being honest, being a privilege for some people. So when we explore lying languages and why people lie, I think privilege and freedom to be human without negative backlash is one reason.
Abby Wambach:
It’s a big one.
Amanda Doyle:
I don’t even think It’s relationship dependent. There are a bunch of relationships where I feel like the stated or unstated expectation is that we will continue to live in deception.
Glennon Doyle:
Absolutely.
Amanda Doyle:
And that is the lubricant for that relationship to make it work. And so that’s why to me, it’s like setting the terms of engagement. It is a privilege in society to be able to tell the truth. And It’s also a privilege that you earn through expectation among people. I don’t think anyone is owed the truth from me unless we have formed a bond of trust where that is the mutual expectation. I don’t think anyone is owed your truth. If you are grounded and have done work enough to know your own truth, hallelujah. And then you’re going to share it with other people. Great. But people need to know about you that you want the truth from someone and it’s a big ask.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
Asking someone to always be truthful to you is a potentially dangerous thing. It is like we are entering the arena with each other. That means when you’re pissed at me, I want you to tell me that. There’s only a handful of people that I want to know when they’re pissed at me.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right?
Glennon Doyle:
So true.
Amanda Doyle:
And that I want the truth from. So I just think it’s like we should get honest about truth and lying.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Even truth with self.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
I mean you think about, we have some people who are working out some major family stuff and the younger kids in the family are not seeing the toxic nature of the parents and it’s frustrating for the older person, but it’s like, we can see it. You think about no, no, no, they can’t yet. The younger kids are dependent on these people.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s developmentally inappropriate.
Glennon Doyle:
It is they’re protecting themselves. The lie of being rose colored glasses is protecting them until they can handle it. Because they can be on their own. I don’t know. I’m with you about this research just making me think very differently.
Abby Wambach:
Pro lying.
Glennon Doyle:
About lie being bad, truth being good. What does that mean?
Amanda Doyle:
It’s like a religion. If you’re always trying to be quote, unquote good so that you don’t violate the principle that you should never lie, then you might not be taking care of yourself. Because then you are disclosing the truth to people who can’t handle it, might not deserve it, and then you’re creating a relationship and deepening a relationship with people that the very reason you might want to lie to them to begin with is because a deepened relationship is not appropriate in that context.
Abby Wambach:
Right.
Glennon Doyle:
Perfect. Okay. So we are saying that there is a bucket of lying. I know we don’t like that word-
Amanda Doyle:
Which Doyle is not calling lying.
Glennon Doyle:
Right, which is an appropriate protection. Protection of self, protection of others, protection. There’s another side where you could say it’s protecting like this is gray also, because a person who’s hiding an affair could say, “Well, I was just protecting myself.”
Amanda Doyle:
I was protecting myself.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
What if she found out I was having an affair?
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
I would call it adaptive and maladaptive.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, okay. Adaptive and maladaptive. Okay.
Abby Wambach:
What do those mean?
Glennon Doyle:
So adaptive is using it for good, but maladaptive is using, it’s protecting thing and using it for not so nefarious purposes. So let’s move on though from that very helpful category to what Abby and I have been discussing on our walks this week, about our particular lying styles that don’t have to do with just this protection, I don’t think. Although maybe we will discover that they do, but we have made up words for these people.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, fun.
Glennon Doyle:
We have decided that Abby is a-
Abby Wambach:
Bullshitter.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. And that I am a puppeteer. And we have some other ideas that might be some people are hiders, some people are promoters. We can get to that. Abby love, can you tell me what your lying style is as a bullshitter?
Abby Wambach:
Okay, well I just have to level set this for myself. About 10 years ago, maybe even 15 now, I read the four agreements book.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh yes, you love that book.
Abby Wambach:
And I challenged myself to be impeccable with my word for one year. And I want to just say that it was the least amount of talking I ever did.
Amanda Doyle:
You’re like, “I’m going to be so impeccable with my word that I’m going to say three words this year.”
Abby Wambach:
It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. And I remember hitting the year mark and being like, “Fuck this shit. It’s too hard.” So this has been something that I feel like I’ve been dealing with for quite a long time. And like I said earlier, I come from a family where it’s just a lot of people around and there’s just mostly masculine energy. Four brothers, one of which who lies a lot. And you don’t know if it’s true. Sometimes it’s true, sometimes it’s not. And then I went into the sports world where there’s just lots of bullshitting. People talking shit.
Abby Wambach:
So I got into this kind of way of being that has hindered the kind of integrity and the character that I think of myself as. I don’t know a lot of things, but I pretend to know a lot of things. And I have the kind of male confidence in that pretending and it has backfired on me a lot. Sister, I don’t know if you remember this, but the first time I spoke to you ever, you said to me, “Just don’t ever lie to Glennon.” But I have tried really hard to not lie in our marriage ever. I don’t lie. That’s not my thing, but there’s this bullshitting component to the way that I am, my being, that I can talk shit.
Abby Wambach:
I’ll spew a fact that maybe I read on Twitter as Bible and then somebody will call me out and I’ll be like, “Google it.” Please don’t Google it, please don’t Google it and catch me out in this lie. But there is something deeper. The things that we’ve been talking about is like, “Well, why is it important to me to feel or present myself as somebody that knows things?” I think that I have a lot of insecurity around my intellect not having graduated from college, being this sporty kid, not the education, academic kid. And then I come into this family of the smartest fucking people I’ve ever met in my life.
Abby Wambach:
And so I do think that I have a lot of insecurity around how much you guys know. And so I want to be additive in some ways. And so I think that I make some stuff up or I pretend to know things that may or may not be true, truly may or may not be true, because I want to feel important. And I want belonging and I want to be a part of this family. That’s a real truthy truth. I’m literally in therapy about it, because trying to find my own self-worth and what I bring to the table. And then adding the whole parenting conversation to this lying conversation. Isn’t parenting a whole fucking trove of lies?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes.
Abby Wambach:
It’s just, you’re just trying to get through the day and get your kids to eat the vegetables-
Amanda Doyle:
When you’re like, “It’ll be okay.”
Abby Wambach:
Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Lies.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, I don’t know, but you got to pretend.
Amanda Doyle:
It gets better.
Abby Wambach:
You got to pretend.
Glennon Doyle:
It gets better. Lies.
Amanda Doyle:
You can do it.
Abby Wambach:
So long and the short of it, my core fear is that I’m not smart enough and that I want to belong into this really intellectual family and I do know that I am bringing something to the table in some ways.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh my God, Abby.
Glennon Doyle:
If you could see Abby sometimes when she’s working on this, we’ll be at the kitchen table and one of the kids will say something, I don’t know. “How many moons does Jupiter have or something?” I don’t know making it up. And Abby will look at me and she’ll go, “I don’t know.”
Abby Wambach:
Oh, it’s so hard for me.
Glennon Doyle:
And it’s like exorcism.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s your recovery work. You’re like twitching, you’re having withdrawal.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
I want to say 12, I want to say 12.
Abby Wambach:
I’m like that’s an interesting question. I don’t know. It’s really been something.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know.
Abby Wambach:
Oh God, it hurts me.
Glennon Doyle:
But then she’ll look up and she’s so proud of herself for saying, “I don’t know,” and I look at her and go, “Oh my God. Oh, baby.”
Abby Wambach:
Well, because I’m trying to establish a knowing that keeps people feeling like safe and comfortable and ironically what is happening in your body, when I am going into my bullshitter way.
Glennon Doyle:
It makes me feel so unsafe. I notice it right away and it always makes me feel so unsafe. I don’t know how to describe it other than a feeling of like…
Amanda Doyle:
I’m just wondering, okay, practically how does that work? Would someone just be like, “Hey, what happened in the war of 1812?” And Abby will just start riffing and just making stuff up as she goes?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, yes.
Abby Wambach:
Well, not necessarily.
Glennon Doyle:
It’ll have a kernel of truth.
Abby Wambach:
This is not ever about something like that I know. Okay, here’s something I just thought of.
Glennon Doyle:
We wouldn’t pretend to know there was a war in 1812.
Abby Wambach:
No, no, no, no.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s a bridge too far.
Abby Wambach:
I can instantly survey the crowd and know in some ways what they don’t know and I know this is going to sound so-
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. You’re like, “Read a room, here’s the thing I can say that they can neither confirm nor deny.”
Abby Wambach:
Well, And also I would never go down the history route because our kids are taking all of those classes right now, and they’ve read all the books. So anything that’s outside of their purview, I’m like, “Oh, this is maybe where I can assert some untruth.”
Glennon Doyle:
So that’s so great, you have a skillset.
Abby Wambach:
I know.
Glennon Doyle:
You can tell.
Abby Wambach:
And it’s so deep down. So underneath my consciousness. It’s so deep into my subconscious that I don’t know that it’s happening. But something happens in my belly that when I say something and nobody else knows it, especially in my family, my brain lights up. I’m like I feel really, even though I know that I have no fucking clue what I’m talking about.
Glennon Doyle:
So it doesn’t even have to be real?
Abby Wambach:
No.
Amanda Doyle:
You’re like, they-
Abby Wambach:
Believe me.
Amanda Doyle:
… Are looking at me as if I am an authority on this subject.
Abby Wambach:
Yes, they believe me. And I don’t know. I’m sure that there’s got to be some sort of chemical thing happening in my body. I actually feel something happening and then there’s this other side of it where I’m terrified to be found out.
Glennon Doyle:
Sure, but baby, I’m sure a lot of people can relate in being in a big family. I’ve been to your home, everyone turns towards the person Who’s talking the loudest. It doesn’t matter whether they’re telling the truth.
Abby Wambach:
Or what they’re saying, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s, just the performance.
Amanda Doyle:
Expectation of truth is nonexistent.
Abby Wambach:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
The social contract here is that we’re all just throwing stuff around, but nobody is actually expecting truth here.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right?
Glennon Doyle:
But I have had so much fun walking into the bullshitting family because I have learned how to do it. Abby has a person in her family who does just present stories, and I can tell in a second that this person doesn’t know what they’re talking about. So the thing that you do with a bullshitter-
Abby Wambach:
Oh, this is good.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, god. Okay. So at one point this person was talking in a way that I felt slightly uncomfortable with. And they were talking about cameras like cop cameras and how-
Abby Wambach:
Like body cameras?
Glennon Doyle:
Body cams and about why police officers shouldn’t have to wear them, because they don’t even work or something. They just don’t work in spouting off stats at the table or something. And I just interrupted and I said, “As a matter of fact, in 49 states, 87% of those body cams work, 48% of the time or more especially on the weekends.”
Abby Wambach:
She just made it up.
Glennon Doyle:
And I just stared at him.
Abby Wambach:
She just fucking made it up.
Glennon Doyle:
Knowing he was full of shit and knowing there was nothing that he could say back, knowing the thing I said, didn’t even make sense.
Abby Wambach:
Bullshit the bullshitter.
Glennon Doyle:
Ended the conversation. In the end my side won. So what you can do with bullshitters who you can tell don’t know is just make a bunch of back and say it louder.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Thank you for being so vulnerable with that.
Abby Wambach:
I know that we’ve been talking about all these different kinds of lying and I do remember feeling when I was doing that year of not lying. I do remember feeling really proud of myself for being really in truth and yes, it meant I didn’t talk as much, which I think is probably fine. But I also think that there’s something to be said about the way that lying can actually make you feel about yourself in terms of, for me at least being a bullshitter, I don’t want that to be who I am. I want you and my people to feel safe and knowing that what I’m saying is true and that more than anything I need to be comfortable with not knowing something that establishes my self-worth.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Because it’s about self-worth.
Abby Wambach:
That is the work that I’m doing right now is trying to disconnect any kind of knowledge that I have to me having any sort of self-worth. I should have self-worth regardless of what I know.
Glennon Doyle:
I love that. Just knowing that at a table your worth is just you existing, not having to make something up to be worthy.
Abby Wambach:
And just being able to say, “I don’t know.”
Glennon Doyle:
I love it.
Amanda Doyle:
Abby, you are so worthy and you bring so much every minute and we love you so much. And the least interesting thing about you is what you know, but you know a lot of shit.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. You do.
Abby Wambach:
That’s sweet.
Amanda Doyle:
That none of us will ever even have access to. And It’s also, all of us are insecure. All of us lie based on our insecurity and unworthiness. Yours is just in that particular area. But all of us do.
Abby Wambach:
I think one of the things that has been so interesting and beautiful is the way that you have been able to communicate this with me. Nobody in my life has ever been able to and it’s because I trust you, and I trust that what you say is your truth. And it’s a complication in our marriage because it’s not something that I’m healed from and perfect around. And so sometimes I’m still doing it. I do think that in a marriage this kind of conversation’s really important. What kind of a liar are you and when do you do it? And so she can hold me a little bit accountable privately, not necessarily in front of everybody.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. That’s important. But I do just get scared that our kids are going to have all the wrong facts about things.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, but so do we. Our dad did that all the time. Remember he told us, he would just say things so definitively. You’re like, “That’s got to be true.” What are they called? The electrical cords that are on the poles. What are those? Phone poles.
Abby Wambach:
Phone wires? Yeah, phone lines.
Amanda Doyle:
Where the cords go and they have those circular balls on them. He told us that the elves live near and cleaned the wires. We believed that until we were like 12.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, but those weren’t the worst lies. The worst lies were stuff that could be true until we were 40. That spam was called spam because they served it in the Spanish American war.
Amanda Doyle:
So many things.
Abby Wambach:
I mean, I also think that there is something to be said, this is in defense of myself here. It is good for kids to be critically thinking on whether things are true or not.
Glennon Doyle:
Listen to your parents with discernment. Like that sticker they used to put on my books in the Christian store, “Read with discernment.”
Abby Wambach:
I mean, think about all the shit that we were indoctrinated with.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
So it is important that our kids are capable and able to discern for themselves what their truth will be. So I’m helping them. They’re in training.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. You’re training them to know that adults seem full of shit.
Amanda Doyle:
Discernment training.
Abby Wambach:
They’re in truth training.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay, so that’s the bullshitter. If you relate to that, pod squad, that means you might be in a situation where you puff yourself up or act like more than you know. It might be tied to worthiness.
Amanda Doyle:
So Abby, when you were just saying about having the conversation with Glennon, that’s so big, because I feel like in this whole conversation it’s been like, “Well this is a lie and this is a lie. We’re calling all of this lies or we’re calling none of this lies.” And so it feels like a really important conversation to have with the most important people in your life about how you define a lie.
Abby Wambach:
Totally.
Amanda Doyle:
And what you actually want from someone else. Actually, when I ask you how I look, am I looking for you to tell me what you actually think or not? Does that count as a lie? Does that count as deception or do I not want you to think that? I decided very early that I was never going. I used to have boyfriends who’d be like, “What are you thinking about? What are you thinking about?” And I’m like, “So you’re asking me to lie to you?” Because I’m definitely not going to tell you what I’m thinking about.
Glennon Doyle:
Thinking about your best friend.
Amanda Doyle:
Exactly. I’m thinking about how quickly can I get the hell out of here? And so there are certain things that I actually don’t want that level of accountability to you, but what level of accountability do you want with the people in your life? What level of honesty do you want and what constitutes a lie to you? Are just really huge conversations that I don’t think we ever have with people. It’s the same, what constitutes cheating to you? Is it just sleeping with someone? These are big deals because if we are in this world where it’s so ill-defined, then we never know what it is. And same with our friendships. I want to actually know from you if you don’t like something, I want to hear that from you versus all these other people. I don’t want to hear that from them, because I don’t want that type of relationship with them.
Abby Wambach:
Same. I mean Glennon and I, we went on a couple of walks and we talked about this and it was such a beautiful thing, because we took the good and bad out of lying so it wasn’t bad or good. It was just like, “Hey, what kind of a liar do you think you are?” We just openly talked about it and it really helped me understand. And I’ve been in therapy, so we’ve actually been talking about this for many weeks now. And I don’t know. If you can just be super honest with your partner, let them provide you with what they think the lies are that they tell and so it can offer some sort of guidance into knowing each other better. And if you want help with that lie, because I don’t know. Do you want help with your lying?
Glennon Doyle:
I do. No. Okay. I think that we’re going to stop here and you all pod squad are going to think about what kind of liars you are and what your motivation is behind lying. And then we’re going to come back and then I’m going to tell you what kind of liar I am and sister will. And then we have some freaking hilarious stories about lying that make me so happy. We love you. We’re all big liars. We’ll see you next time. Bye. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you’d be willing to take 30 seconds to do each or all of these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to, We Can Do Hard Things?
Glennon Doyle:
Following the pod helps you because you’ll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you’ll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the, We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you’re there, if you’d be willing to give us a five star rating and review, and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence13 Studios.