3 Rules to Get Away with Anything

Actual tips to help you never get caught in another lie, that don’t involve telling the whole truth

I read a great post, one of many, from

Smillew Rahcuef

, about lying successfully. Amateur. I can tell he’s lying at least 70% of the time, and possibly 100% of the time. Link to his post at the end of this one. Before we get there, here are my actual (drum roll)…

3 Rules To Get Away With Anything™

I got these from a friend who vouches for them. I of course would never stoop to these tactics regardless of efficacy.

That was a lie!

And an obvious one. Now let’s see how much better we can get.

Wrap the lie around a nugget of truth.

Never create a lie that is a complete fabrication. Having an easily verifiable or believable element lessens the listeners desire to challenge the rest.

In this case, I would say “Look, everyone knows you can’t maintain a lie if you’re challenged. It’s impossible to stick to the fiction because it didn’t actually happen.”

Everyone wants to believe a statement like this. There’s your nugget of truth, or believability.

Be specific.

As soon as you start making sounds like “I got home about 2 am, because there was construction on the highway” or “three or four people attacked me and stole the gift I bought you,” the ground you’re on will start to get soft.

You got home at 2:11 am, you remember because you heated up some food and noticed the time on the microwave.

You got attacked by two people, and they threw the necklace you bought to a third accomplice who immediately ran away while the others held you down.

In my own case, I know that based on a study I heard quoted by Joe Rogan, 22% of people are habitual liars, but only 1% can lie well enough to fool a polygraph.

Add a detail that makes you look bad.

This is the one the amateurs forget or don’t know. Never lie and try to look good. The point is to get away with the lie, not get a medal.

That gift that got stolen? You stupidly ran out of gas and that’s why you were in a bad part of town.

In my own example, I would never lie because I’m terrible at it. I get a twitch and start to smile if I try to hold eye contact when lying, so I’ve learned to just not do it.

Bonus Tip for reading this far — Look ’em in the eye!

Look the person in the eye as you lie to them. As any liar will tell you if you can get them to stop lying, it’s astonishingly easy to lie while looking someone in the eye, and yet people take this as a sign of veracity. Idiots.

So let’s put this all together.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these lessons and learned something. I also hope I never have to meet you in person because now I can’t trust you. You can trust me though, because I’m not a liar. Any more that is, I used to be a habitual liar but it would always catch up to me and I’d get in trouble. Better to just stick to the facts, they’re a lot easier to remember.

These tips I’m giving you? They came from a friend I met in college who eventually joined the FBI and they swear by them (yes my friend is asexual and uses they as a pronoun). We’re still friends only because I know the tricks they use so they don’t try to use them on me, as far as I know. I’m still kind of gullible that way. I’m looking at you in the eye as I say this of course.

Because I’m not an amateur.