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Would I lie to you?
It depends. Are we married?
Because then I might. And you might lie to me, too.
Let's be clear: I'm not talking about the big, ugly, deal-breaking deceptions -- lies that, if exposed, could destroy a relationship.
I'm talking about the fibs and feints and little white lies that serve as a social salve and help a relationship run smoothly. You know what I mean.
And you know that even in the best marriages and romantic relationships, we sometimes fail to tell the truth. After all, we have plenty of reasons not to.
We fib to avoid conflict. To gain approval. To save face. Or just to be kind. (Show me a man who tells his wife she looks fat, and I'll show you a man headed for a night on the couch.)
Speaking of men, they didn't exactly line up to be interviewed for this column. I asked hundreds of them about the little fibs they tell their wives or significant others. And here's what I got: radio silence.
The women I queried yammered on and on. They giggled as they told of lying to -- or withholding the truth from -- their partners about their dress sizes, the cost of their hair highlights, whether they got Botox injections or how much reality TV they watch.
'You mean the old 'new clothes out of the Nordstrom shopping bag into the cleaner's plastic garment wrap before you come into the house' trick?' asked a human-resources executive in San Francisco, who has been married for 37 years. 'Well, obviously I plead guilty.'
One woman told of ordering take-out food as a newlywed, then dumping it all in pots on the stove before her husband came home from work. Another said she waited three years before telling her husband she had dropped one of the diamond earrings he'd given her down the sink. (Each time he asked why she wasn't wearing them, she claimed they hurt her to wear.) Yet another told of a friend who pockets the money her husband gives her for a housekeeper and does the cleaning herself.
Many women I spoke with seemed almost proud of the cleverness of their shams. So why wouldn't any men cop to stretching the truth from time to time? Intrigued, I asked them.
The answers poured in. (Promising anonymity helped.)
'What don't men lie about?' quipped one man I asked.
'For men, all lies are big,' explained another.
'I don't lie. I tell the truth . . . slowly,' said a third.
And there were others: 'Guys constantly feel like they are being called into the principal's office. That's why we lie.'
'Most of my buddies tell very large white lies, and in order to really keep the peace, those cannot be disclosed!'
'It's not a lie if you believe it ('Seinfeld's George Costanza).'
Pressed for specifics, my male sources finally owned up to fudging the truth about working late (to meet friends at a bar, sneak in a ballgame or take a walk alone). They also said they fibbed about how much they drank at a party, how fast they drive, whether they find their female friends attractive, how much they like their significant other's cooking or outfits -- 'After she's changed 10 times, you'll say yes to anything to get out the door' -- and yard work.
'I sometimes fib about trimming limbs off the trees in the yard,' says a small-business owner in Kentucky, who admits he's been known to go overboard with a handsaw. 'I tried to tie it to crop circles once, but I really don't think she bought it.'
Two weeks ago, he sawed off a limb, leaving a huge white stump. Desperate to hide the evidence, he climbed a ladder with a brown magic marker and colored the wood in. 'She never saw it!' he says proudly.
OK, just hold on a moment. Doesn't anyone remember Pinocchio? The Bible? Their mom? Lying is bad, especially when the recipient is your life partner. Do I really have to explain this?
So why is everyone so busy manipulating the truth -- even if they don't always consider it lying?
'It's a matter of survival,' says Ed Dunkelblau, a psychologist and director of the Institute for Emotionally Intelligent Learning in Northbrook, Ill. 'If you don't fib, you don't live.'
In other words, sometimes lies -- at least the little ones -- can help our relationships.
For starters, they allow us to avoid conflict. That's why James Carbonara told his then-girlfriend he had to take clients to dinner (he was playing poker with buddies), ate turkey sandwiches for lunch (he preferred burgers and pizza) and craved iced tea (he needed an excuse to get out of the house to sneak an occasional cigarette). 'The No. 1 reason guys lie is so that women don't get mad,' says Mr. Carbonara, a 28-year-old investor-relations officer in New York.
For Tanner Lenart, a little lying has prevented a lot of arguing during her five-year marriage. The problem? Her husband's favorite T-shirts, which have holes and no arms (he cut them off). 'I am sure they are very useful when you are working in the brush in Texas, but they have no place in our cute little neighborhood in Salt Lake City,' says Ms. Lenart, 30, a law student.
So she hides the T-shirts, including one from an asphalt company and a 'screaming green' one from a scuba shop in Oahu. When her husband asks if she's seen them, she says no.
Joshua Lenart takes the deception in stride. 'As long as she doesn't throw them away, it's OK,' says the 31-year-old university English teaching assistant. 'I'll look under the bed or behind the dresser, make sure they get washed, and put them back into rotation.'
Fibs can help us protect a loved one, as Sadie Alexander of Paris, Texas, can attest. She concocted a doozy to get her husband to see the doctor. He had a hernia in his testicle, but was too scared to get it checked. For two years, she says, he ignored it and it kept growing.
So one night after the kids went to bed, she sat him down on the deck and told him she'd had a checkup that day. 'If there's a little lump in my breast, it's probably nothing, right?' she asked him.
'He went ballistic,' says Ms. Alexander, 35. She says her husband bellowed about how he couldn't live without her and insisted she go to a doctor immediately. She let him rant for a while. Then she calmly told him, 'I didn't say I had a lump in my breast. I said, 'If I did, should I see a specialist?' You are the one with a lump. And the doctor says it could kill you.'
'It worked like a charm,' says Ms. Alexander. Her husband agreed to see a doctor and had surgery several weeks later to repair the hernia. (He declined to be interviewed.)
OK, that's a bit extreme. But, let's face it, there are some things we are always going to fib about to the people we love.
'We all want to be truthful, but there is such a thing as tact,' says Wayne Wilson, a retired financial executive in Seattle. When his wife asks how she looks, he always tells her she is beautiful. 'A bad hair day isn't going to change your life,' says Mr. Wilson, 64. 'What's to be gained by saying something negative to someone that is of such fleeting importance?'
His wife says she is just fine with his confession. 'After 15 years of marriage, we both realize that maybe we have exaggerated at times,' says Tamara Wilson, 48, who owns a public-relations agency.
Her standard lie? 'Oh, you're so strong.'
参考译文：
我会对你撒谎吗？
这要看情况了。我们结婚了吗？
因为，如果是这样，那么我可能会对你撒谎。而你也可能会对我撒谎。
我不妨说得明白些：我说的可不是那些天大的、丑陋的、毁灭性的欺骗──那些一旦被发现，就会让我们的关系毁于一旦的谎言。
我说的是那些虚幌一枪，无关痛痒的善意谎言，它们能时不时地充当社交药膏，使我们的关系更加顺畅。你肯定知道我是什么意思。
而你也清楚，即便是最美好的婚姻，最浪漫的两性关系，我们有时候也无法说实话。毕竟，我们总有很多理由不说实话。
我们扯谎是为了避免冲突。为了得到同意。为了面子。或者就是因为心软。（如果你能说出一个对老婆说她看上去很胖的男人，那么我就能给你找到一个被下放到沙发上过夜的男人。）
说到男人，他们可没有排队等着接受我为这个专栏所做的采访。我问过几百个男人有关他们向老婆或者热恋中的另一半扯过的谎。这就是我得到的答案：沉默。
我所采访的女性则是滔滔不绝。当说着如何向另一半就衣服尺寸有多大、挑染头发花了多少钱、是否注射了肉毒杆菌素(Botox)或者她们其实看了多少真人秀等说谎或者不说实话的时候，她们咯咯直笑。
“你是说这类居家把戏吗──进家门前把从高档百货公司Nordstrom新买的衣服装进洗衣店塑料袋子里？”旧金山一位已婚37年的人力资源主管问道。“嗯，我当然撒过这样的谎。”
一位女性说，刚结婚那会儿，她总是叫外卖食物，然后在老公下班之前把它们倒进锅里，装成自己做的一样。另一位女性说，她把老公送给自己的一对钻石耳环丢了一只，时隔三年之后才对老公坦白。（每次老公问她为什么不戴那对耳环的时候，她总是说耳环戴起来有点疼。）还有一位女性则说，她有一位朋友，总是把老公让她付给清洁工的钱纳入自己腰包，然后自己打扫卫生。
和我交谈过的许多女性似乎都对她们高明的扯谎技巧感到近乎沾沾自喜。那么，为什么男人不去时不时地追根究底，逼迫自己的另一半说出真话呢？出于好奇，我对他们进行了采访。
答案多极了。（答应他们这是匿名采访显然帮上了忙。）
我问的一位男性讽刺地说，“有什么男人不说谎的事吗？”
另一位男性解释道，“对于男人，所有的谎言都是弥天大谎。”
又一位男性说，“我不说谎。我说真话. . . . . .慢慢地说出来。”
还有其它版本。“男人总是感觉他们像是被叫进了校长办公室。那就是我们为什么老是说谎的原因。”
“我的大多数朋友说的都是没有恶意的大谎话，因为为了真正维持和睦相处，那些事情可不能说出来！”
“如果你相信的话，那就不是谎言了。”(出自《宋飞正传》(Seinfeld )里的乔治?克斯坦萨(George Costanza))
在我一再追问细节的情况下，我的这些男性消息来源终于支支吾吾地开了口，承认他们经常在加班这件事上说谎（名为加班，其实是为了跟朋友在酒吧见面，偷偷溜出去打球，或者独自散会儿步。）他们还说，关于在聚会上喝了多少酒，开车有多快，是否觉得自己的女性朋友很吸引人，有多喜欢自己另一半的厨艺或者着装等等，他们也都撒过谎。“在她换了10套衣服后，如果你还想出门的话，只能说好极了。”
肯塔基州一位小企业主表示，“我有时候会在修剪树枝的事情上撒点小谎。”他承认自己一拿起手锯就有些没完没了。“有一次，我跟她说那是神秘圆圈的一部分，但我觉得她没有买账。”
两周前，他把一根大树枝锯掉了，留下了很大的一个白色残段。为了掩盖证据，他爬上了梯子，用棕色的神奇标记笔给树枝上了色。“她压根儿就没发现！”他得意地说。
嗯，等一等。难道没有人记得起匹诺曹(Pinocchio)了吗？《圣经》(Bible)？还有妈妈的教诲？说谎是不好的，尤其是说谎的对象还是你的终生伴侣。我真的需要对此做出解释吗？
那么，为什么大家都在忙着操控真相呢──虽然他们并不总是认为这是撒谎？
伊利诺伊州诺思布鲁克的情商学习学院(Institute for Emotionally Intelligent Learning)的心理学家和主任爱德(Ed Dunkelblau)说，这是为了生存。如果你不说谎，你就无法活下去。
换言之，有时候撒谎──至少是无关痛痒的小谎──可以有助于两人的关系。
首先，谎言使我们避免冲突。这正是詹姆斯(James)为何要告诉他的女友他必须和客户共进晚餐（其实是在和朋友打扑克），午餐吃的是火鸡三明治（其实他更喜欢汉堡和比萨饼），想喝冰茶（其实是找个借口走出屋子偷偷抽根烟）。这位纽约市28岁的投资者关系代表说，“男人撒谎的第一大理由就是避免让女人生气。”
对于坦纳?雷纳特(Tanner Lenart)来说，撒点小谎让她五年的婚姻生活避免了很多争吵。问题何在？她老公最喜欢的T恤衫，上面有很多小洞，而且没有袖子（他把袖子剪掉了）。现年30岁、正在法学院读书的雷纳特女士说，“我肯定这样的T恤衫在德克萨斯州的树林里工作时非常有用，但是它们跟我们位于盐湖城的可爱社区一点也不搭调。”
因此，她把这些T恤衫藏了起来，包括一件来自某家沥青公司和一件来自瓦胡岛某家潜水店的刹绿色T恤衫。当她老公问她是否看见过那些T恤衫的时候，她就说没看到。
约书亚?雷纳特(Joshua Lenart)则对老婆的欺骗睁只眼闭只眼。这位31岁的大学英语教师助理说，“只要她没有把T恤衫扔掉，我就无所谓。”“我会找找床下，或者衣柜后面，看看T恤衫是不是洗干净了，然后继续轮换着穿。”
正如德克萨斯州巴黎的塞迪?亚历山大(Sadie Alexander)可以证实的那样，一点小谎还能帮助我们保护爱人。为了让老公去看医生，她自己就编造了一个谎言。亚历山大先生的睾丸上长了一个突起，但是因为过于害怕，他不愿接受检查。她说，两年的时间，他对之不管不顾，任由它慢慢长大。
因此，一天晚上等孩子们都上床睡觉了之后，她把他叫到露台上坐下，告诉他，自己当天做了个检查。“如果我的胸部有个小肿块，那可能没什么，是吧？”她问他。
“他马上大呼小叫起来，” 现年35岁的亚历山大女士说。她说老公咆哮着说，如果没有她，他根本无法活下去，并坚持让她立即去看医生。她让他发泄了一会儿。接着，她平静地告诉他，“我并没有说自己胸部有个肿块。我说的是，‘如果我有的话，我应不应该去看医生？’你是那个有了肿块的人。而医生说，它有可能让你丧命。”
亚历山大女士说，“这个小手腕像魔法一样有效。”她的老公同意去看医生，并在几周后接受手术，突起的地方也痊愈了。（亚历山大先生谢绝接受采访。）
嗯，这有点极端。不过，让我们面对现实，在某些事上我们总会对自己的爱人撒谎。
西雅图的退休财务管理人士韦恩?威尔逊(Wayne Wilson)表示，“我们都想说实话，但是这也有技巧。”当他的老婆问他她看起来怎么样的时候，他总是说，她很美。现年64岁的威尔逊说，谁一辈子没有一两天看上去不那么精神呢？对一个在你生命中如此重要的人说些不好的话，你又能得到什么呢？
他的妻子，现年48岁、拥有一家公关公司的塔玛拉?威尔逊(Tamara Wilson)说，“在经过15年婚姻后，我们都意识到自己有时候可能会比较夸张。”
她标准的谎言是什么？“哦，你还是这么威猛。”
原文链接： Why We Lie to Our Spouse
