If you could create a separate life for yourself woven from lies, would you?

To start this off; I have.

To dispel from your mind any thoughts of doing this, I will tell you that it is very, very, very difficult.People always come close to finding you out – I’m still going at the moment, but it’s getting harder.

I already do. It is called my internet presence.

I wouldn’t want to do it. I would rather focus all of my energy toward enjoying the life I have instead of trying to maintain two separate lives.

Dam, Sounds like it would take too much energy. Like I dont even want to vacuum the floor right now. Let alone have to lives to run.

Resist the urge to answer this. They’re always watching and waiting for you to slip up

No. it would be too easy to get caught. It would take too much energy away from actually living my life.

Witness Charles Lindbergh.

No, I couldn’t keep up with the lies and falsehoods. I am the worst liar and anyone that knows me tells me that, so I avoid lying. Even playful lying is written all over my face.

Nope. It’s why I came out of the closet. Mostly.

No, lying will catch up with you “sooner than later!” Plus, I sleep very good every night!

@Blueroses They are.

No seriously, I swear they are. I have to calculate every choice I make to avoid slipping up, and I swear that someone will figure me out soon.

To be honest with you, though, it is fun, in it’s own special way. It’s just exhausting, is all, and it really does test your brain to make sure you don’t get the facts mixed up. When love gets involved too (even when you never wanted it to in the first place) it gets extremely difficult to lie. I’m a very good liar, but looking into my limerent object’s eyes and knowing that I could never data her because I’d have to destroy the life I’ve tried to create, to fake, over the past five years… it’s difficult.. Very, very, very difficult, as I said above.

No. I mean, theoretically I could do that right now and I choose not to. That sounds like way too much work… and for what??

Have you never heard that quote about “men leading lives of quiet desperation”? That happens because people may have thought themselves to be one thing at one time or capitulated to societal norms earlier in life and then found themselves unable to relinquish what was created before in order to step into a life of self actualization. They are leading lies that once were thought to be truths. And they continue to spin more lies on top because to do otherwise would cause them so much cognitive dissonance that they would implode or come totally unglued in desperation.

@Rubrica Sounds like the making of an excellent novel. I’ll bet you won’t write it for fear being discovered by the “wrong” people.

I wouldn’t do it to fit in with the “cool” kids but I do live I guess you could say a double life my friend sees the true me my buddies see parts of the true me and my mom sees a completely fake me.

Never. I am happy with the life that I have.

Maybe I’m lazy, but it just seems like way too much work for anything but a life-or-death situation (i.e. going into witness protection or something).

I mean, I pretended to be Irish once to one of my tables, on a dare. I used to mess around in the back and make people laugh by affecting an Irish accent, so they dared me to keep it up during an entire table’s service. I felt like a horrible person for lying to my customers, even if it really wasn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. It did get me a nice tip.. maybe I should be Irish more often. ;)

@MissAnthrope Pogue Mahone, darlin’!

@Blueroses Haha, I couldn’t agree more with you; indeed, at one point, I considered adding it to my current novel, but when your former protagonist is actually a psychopath with Dissociative Identity Disorder who has manipulated his friend into believing he’s the good guy through drugs and magic, and who then goes on to become a tyrant king of Britain along with his new wife, a masochistic murderer… yeah, it’s not worth adding more flimflam. Wow, I’m out of breath.

I have, however, just succeeded in demonstrating quite good point; people good at creating the “webs of lies” discussed in this question are usually good authors – or, in my case, bad authors, but never mind.

@Rubrica Dissociative Identity Disorders of the world, UNITE!

@Rubrica that sounds like a good book, I would read it.

Thanks, it’s going to be loooooooooooooooooooooooong in the end. I may split it up into separate manuscripts, that may work better. I’m too young to get them published at the moment, though (although Catherine Webb managed to get publish at the age of 14…)

Did you come up with a name for it? If you did can you tell me it so when you get it published I can read it.

Nope.

I’d rather devote all my energy to my life as a young Asian woman living in an igloo mansion on the Ross Ice Shelf with my boudoir of penguins. :-P

Hell no, it’s hard enough just living this life. If I had to juggle 2 lives, I suppose I’d go stark raving mad.

@daytonamisticrip Not yet, no; I’m thinking that one of them should be called “Perpetual Motion”, just because I can. Any suggestions? :D

Also Christopher Paolini started writing “Eragon” at 15. S.E. Hinton wrote “The Outsiders” when she was 17.
Don’t ever discount yourself because of age.

Heh, thank you, good point – although it would be a lot better if I’d only stop procrastinating. :)

Although I really was not fond of Eragon whatsoever. Blargh.

It’s okay to procrastinate. If your writing a long book and want it to be good the best way to make sure it’s good is to only write when you feel like it. If not you might get sick of your book and trash it.

As the used carsaleman would say, “I wouldn’t lie to you!”

Along with the typical Sullivan Nod, of course. :)

@Brian1946 Not only is that a great answer, but “Boudoir of Penguins” would make a great band name.

To answer the original question, no, never. I think you have to really love drama to indulge in that sort of behavior and drama is the last thing I seek in my life.

I don’t think this is the kind of thing that one decides. It’s the sort of thing where one thing follows another, and each on their own is innocent enough, but then suddenly you realize you are sitting on top of a mountain you created your own self, and you have to keep the other mountain from becoming aware you have two mountains. What a sucky metaphor. I can’t help it. It’s what came to mind. ;-)

Of course, some mountains are small and not that difficult to hide. I never tried to hide a big one. I’m not sure I would ever believe I could. But since this is a hypothetical, then yes. I think that I’m pathetic enough that I would be unable to say no to it. I’ve found that if you recognize the signs of mountain building, it’s easier to stop doing it. How stupid is this?

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it and I wish I didn’t but there is a promise I made to myself that I must keep.

No, I would not. Life is too short for that kind of stress. I have spent enough time in my life hiding certain things from certain people. When I was faced with death and survived ..that changed everything. Life is too precious to try to live two of them.

@wundayatta I honestly could not stop laughing at that mountain metaphor. I still am, and I had to pause for five munutes to calm down, at that.

But yes, that’s true; everything did sort of snowball (bet you wish you thought of that metaphor, eh?) and now it’s becoming rather difficult to stop the snowball from disintegrating (ok, the metaphor’s going downhill now).

@Rubrica LOL. Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m losing my memory. I can’t come up with the old…...chestnuts. Yes. I remembered! I was just about to try to fit something else in. Bromides? 78s?

Anyhoo_… Anyway, another promise I have made to myself is to either come up with a fresh metaphor, or if I can’t do that, to describe something directly. Also, if I ever use “think outside the box” in anger…. living color? A real situation? I have promised I will cook my own goose slit my own throat that very evening.

Remember this, kids: There Is No Box!!!

See how I’m living another life? Where I’m pretending to be an Alzheimer’s patient?

I…. what? I think I’ve just lost track completely…

@wundayatta Thanks a lot. Now you have me worried about that jealous mountain. Seriously, I’d give you +500 lurve for that metaphor.

@diavolobella

Thanks mucho! :-D

I’m going to look up the definition of “boudoir” when I get a chance, so that I can see just what a BoP would be. :-p

I’ve given GA’s (great answers, not gas) to many of your posts too. :)

…require you to adapt to something to fit in? what kind of circumstances require you to do that? Sounds like high school to me, and I’ve very much out grown that.

no

I am totally against telling lies – ever.

I like not having anything that makes me not sleep at night. I think that having to maintain a web of lies would drive me around the bend and back again.

@Brian1946 When you look up boudoir, you will see why it’s so wonderfully wrong and hilarious. I wish I had a boudoir full of seductive penguins!

absolutely not.