Do you ever get that sneaking suspicion that someone is lying to you even though you want to believe them?
Maybe it's a co-worker who tries to assure you she wasn't the one who furtively stole the stapler. Maybe it's a friend who calls you at the last minute to say they've come down with a stomach bug and cannot attend your birthday party.
The simplest way to tell if someone is lying to you is to assess whether their words match their actions.
For example, I was once involved with a woman who professed her love for me day and night.
I'd met her online and was always eager to meet up in person, but she never seemed to share in that enthusiasm. Everytime I proposed going to the mall or movies together, she came up with a new excuse for why she couldn't go.
After much cajoling, she agreed to meet face-to-face. I was smitten and always looked forward to our next encounter, but the feeling didn't seem mutual.
In the end, I saw her two or three times, and then things just fizzled out.
The moral of the story is that while this woman assured me she loved me, her actions didn't back up her words.
Maybe she was just in love with the idea of being in love, or perhaps she was irrepressibly commitmentphobic.
Or maybe, just maybe, she never really held the feelings she claimed to have for me. It's possible she was just stringing me along for the attention.
When someone's got it bad for you, they make excuses to be with you -- not to distance themselves further.
If he or she tells you one thing, but their actions communicate something entirely different, be sure to defer to the latter. It's much easier for a person to feign their words than it is to fake their actions.
Hopefully, they'll realize they weren't being true to their words, putting their relationship with you at risk, and it causes a change in their behavior.
But that's the best-case -- and often most far-fetched -- scenario.
Then there are those murky cases where people's actions may at times buttress their words, but you just never know when they'll pull through and when they'll hang you out to dry.
Not to seem cynical, but people are much better at talking the talk than they are at walking the walk. It stems from their inherently self-interested nature.
In sum, it may sound cliché at this point, but actions do really speak louder than words. That's why you should pay special attention to whether a person's deeds lend substance to their statements and promises.
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