The evolution of an inveterate liar

Telling whoppers – and white lies – has served this writer well throughout her life, but for reasons that have changed over time, she explains.

Whoppers – and white lies – have served Geordie Gray well over the years.

When first confronted with the theme for our summer writing series – Little White Lies – I froze. Not from guilt or shame but from the realisation that I couldn’t possibly single out one measly fib. God’s honest: I lie all the time.

It’s hard to pinpoint when I first committed to this path of perpetual invention. My earliest recollections are hazy but I recall being in kindergarten and lying about my size. It wasn’t an eating disorder – those came later – but a juvenile misunderstanding of the social cachet attached to numbers.

Back then I thought the bigger the size, the bigger the flex. I was a scrawny wisp, hardly 15kg soaking wet, claiming to be a size 16. Who among us hasn’t lied to impress?

The lies grew only more elaborate with time. In school I never did a scrap of homework, yet I managed to pass myself off as diligent by spinning fanciful excuses. A sick relative here, a blackout there, mourning the death of my pet rabbits who were poisoned by a vengeful gardener at the football field where my parents were caretakers. (That one was true – rest in peace, Bubbles, Beckham and Bella. Eternal damnation for you, Sandy.) By year 12, when deadlines began to carry actual conseq­uences, my lies became more sophisticated. I would send teachers corrupted files instead of completed assignments, buying myself extensions. Some may call that dishonesty, but I’m deluded enough to think it was the symptom of a burgeoning tech savant.

Of course, poor Mum bore the brunt of my deceit. On my 13th birthday I was arrested by mall cops for stealing a pair of spiky rubber earrings from Diva. Instead of admitting to being caught red-handed, I sold my best friend Vienna down the river, insisting she was the one who planted them in my bag. That felt rotten – not so much the stealing part (although I swiftly packed in my Artful Dodger days; it’s not worth the hassle) – but ratting on my friend. A lesson learned.

By 16, my lies were logistic masterpieces. It’s hard to pull a fast one on my mother – she’s a former teenage rebel who’s wise to it all. I had to get savvy: I staged photo shoots, meticulously curated tableaus of me “studying” with friends, surrounded by textbooks, under varying lighting conditions and wearing different outfits for maximum believability and multiple uses. On Friday nights, when I was invariably in an Oxford Street club sipping some vile cocktail called “purple drank” using someone else’s ID, I’d text her one of those photos as an alibi. It’s probably worth mentioning that she told me, as an adult, she knew what I was up to the whole time. I guess she respected the lengths I went to.

Even in adulthood my lies persist. But now I lie mostly to save people’s feelings. “That dress looks lovely!” “Oh, so you made this pate? How divine!”

A few Christmases ago my boyfriend gave me a pair of AirPods that I lost almost immediately. Rather than confess, I legged it to JB Hi-Fi and bought a replacement pair – $219 seemed a small price to pay to avoid disappointing him. Naturally I found the first pair weeks later, in the pocket of a jacket I had sent through the washing machine.

There are lies I tell professionally – not to my employer, if you’re reading this, but to PR people.

When you work in the arts space, you are pitched an obscene amount of rubbish. It’s much simpler – and I believe kinder – to email a friendly, “Oh my gosh, darling! I’m so sorry I missed this – sounds amazing, though, maybe next time xx” once the opportunity has passed than to explain that their client is a dud and that being waterboarded sounds like a more pleasurable way to spend my time than interviewing a TikTok comedian about their “hilarious and spot-on parodies of the ­ultra-rich”.

I’m not saying my compulsion for fibs is hereditary but the evidence is compelling. My father, God bless him, is a committed drinker. A life of heavy drinking demands certain skills: stealth, invention and an unshakeable commitment to denial. Take, for instance, the time he polished off six bottles of lovely wine that my Aunty Sharky had sent my mum for her 50th birthday. Not content to leave the crime undisguised, he refilled the bottles with cold tea (darker in colour, more believable, the thinking went), presumably intending to replace them later. He never did. Months later, we celebrated Christmas with a bottle of festering PG Tips.

We were asked to write about the consequences of our little white lies, and apart from the odd spout of guilt, there haven’t been many. I’m of the belief that lying, within reason, is less of a moral failing and more of a lubricant for social machinery. It gets you into where you want to go – and, crucially, out of where you don’t. My friends who are the most magnificent storytellers are open about their impulse to embellish, while those who feel bound to the truth tend to overwhelm you with lots of dull, tedious information. While my taste for fairytales may mean that once I leave this mortal coil I won’t be seeing the pearly gates, at least I’ll be keeping great company in the eighth circle of hell.