87% of the Respondents to Our ‘Truth & Lies’ Survey Have Lied About Whether They’re Happy

Fake news, falsehoods, alternative facts… it might seem like we’ve been talking about the difference between fact and fiction, and truth and lies an inordinate amount ever since a certain President took office but of course, there’s nothing new about human dishonesty. However, aside from the lies we tell others, ranging from white lies to utter deception, we sometimes fail to acknowledge the lies we tell ourselves. According to the evolutionary biologists interviewed by writer Katherine Gougeon for our August issue, our brains are “constantly putting the most noble spin on our choices and behaviours while keeping our conscious minds in the dark.” So to get a sense of some of the things our readers lie to themselves and others about, we put forth a survey involving a web-based questionnaire that readers anonymously and voluntarily responded to. Here are some of the things we learned.

69% of respondents think lying is bad, but 62% would be okay with someone lying to them if it was done in order to spare their feelings. When asked to count how many lies they’d told in the past 24 hours, from small to whoppers, answers ranged from none to “too many to count.” It’s no secret that people’s social media feeds are a curation of the ‘best’ parts of their lives, rather than the ‘real’ parts. Our survey results seem to corroborate that, with most respondents saying that the number one lie they tell via their social media presence is that “everything is fine.”

87% of respondents lie about whether they’re happy, 82% about whether they’re sad, and 77% about whether they’re anxious. 45% have lied about whether they’re happy/content with their job, 33% about the pressures of their workload, and 17% have lied about their credentials or past work experience.

When it comes to personal appearances and health, 56% of respondents have lied about their weight, 47% about whether they’re happy/content with their body, 55% about their eating habits, and 45% about how often they exercise. The number one lie it seems most respondents tend to tell themselves also revolves around the topics of weight and exercise.

On the personal finances front, 26% of respondents have lied about their debt, 21% about their salary, and 40% about how they spend their money. 35% of respondents lie about how much money they spend on clothes and accessories, while 27% lie about how much they spend on beauty and skincare.

When it comes to relationships, 45% of respondents have lied about whether they’re happy/content with their partner, 27% have lied about their sexual fantasies, and 31% about their sexual history. 45% have lied about their sexual satisfaction with a partner, while 25% have lied about how many sexual partners they’ve had.

As our editor-in-chief Noreen Flanagan noted in her August editor’s letter, “If you think you’re not a liar, you’re just lying to yourself.” Maybe confronting some of the things we lie most often about will help us reshape the narrative—either by changing the thing itself that we find ourselves lying most often about, or feeling confident enough to tell the truth about it. You know what they say about the truth—it sets you free.