How do you know if someone is telling you the truth?

You don’t, really. You can, to a certain extent, go by their eyes and their body language, but some people are accomplished liars.

Look at their noses.
You never know for sure, it’s a matter of trust (and, if being lied too, that trust being broken).

If they’re not blinking a lot, then I guess so.

If I know them well enough to call them friends, then they’re telling the truth, believe me.

Bout what? Sometimes the truth has weight to it and a particular a ring. Every now and then you can can hear that ring or the weight of what’s said just feels true. Mostly, you just have to wait and see.

The man I love, who lives far away from me, has cancer. He says he is improving, and that the prognosis looks hopeful, but I have a fear, an intuition, that he might not want to crush me with bad news. I am not typically an untrusting person, but for some reason that I can’t fathom this is a struggle for me.

Can can? WTF?

@Silhouette
FTW

If it hurts they are telling the truth…as they say truth hurts.

Liars will blink and frequently break gazes with you and if they are looking up and away they are toast. Crossed arms and or legs is another defensive move. Change in voice tone typically a higher pitch and fast scattered dialogue is also a give away as if the more they say the more you will believe them.

i will try to research something or double check if possible. in the case of someone’s word, i will ask them the same question several times on several different occasions, to see if they give the same answer. i might word it differently so they don’t notice it’s the same question. or i may research by trying to bring up the topic with someone they know, in a subtle way, to see what they say about it. i guess it all depends on how important it is to me to find out if it’s truth or not.

I’m sorry to say, that only time will tell. There really is no other way to know.

Trial by Ordeals worked in the past. Put him to a test that he believes will reveal if he is lying or not. If he agrees to go through with it, he is more likely to be telling the truth.

People lie when they’re afraid to tell the truth, for whatever reason.

Some people enjoy backing others up against the wall in some kind of twisted game to rope them into a lie. Everyone, at one time or another, has done it. But, nobody likes it done to them.

It used to bother me a lot. Now, it’s not so black and white. I try to understand ‘why’ they felt the need to lie.

I’m unable to tell from nonverbal cues. The only way I can tell for sure is if what is said conforms to facts as I know them.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land On this issue, we are pretty much all in the same boat. It is very difficult if not impossible to tell if someone is lying. Even people who have specific training in what to watch for can be fooled or miss the cues.

@YARNLADY Thanks. I thought all “normal” people had some magical way of knowing.