Lying

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I've heard people say that people on the spectrum don't lie

What do you think about that then

Apparently they do but not that good at it

At least this was the conclusion of an autistic mother of an autistic child...

I think it requires a certain amount of fantasy to imagine something that is not true... (which is also something they say autistic people do not have... so perhaps related). I have been known to tell my stories as being real. I can make things up and I can certainly lie (not sure in how good I am at it).

I do think allistic people underestimate how often they lie... Not the real actively claiming something that is not true but bending the truth or just hiding parts. Subtlety is certainly not my best characteristic...

Um, they do lol. While I am generally loyal and trustworthy, I can lie if I feel the need to. A white lie is what started the bullying off at work (though I won't go into all that in this thread).

I admit that I lie a bit. When I was a kid people sometimes thought I was lying when I told the truth. I'm used to others not understanding my various issues & I learned that the right lie or story can be easier for others to believe & understand than the truth. In general I tend to prefer honesty but I realize that's not always practical.

My girlfriend is on the spectrum & she prides herself on her honesty. However she sometimes misunderstands things or misexplains things & others might interpret that as lying.

I think it's more along the lines of people with ASD tending to be direct in what we say resulting in us appearing honest.

For example, someone asks you what you think of their shoes, you'll feel very uncomfortable telling them how wonderful they are and why if you hate them (though you could probably manage "they're fine" with very little difficulty). In addition, lack of social skill tends to result in defaulting to honesty where someone with better social skill would tell a white lie.

So it's not so much unable to lie as not knowing when a social lie is required or how to tell it.

We are probably just as guilty of lies to deceive as anyone else.

I generally can tell when to lie, and I understand
how lies work. I'd sometimes rather be lied to than told brutal truth.

But I have ran into social difficulties by lying when I shouldn't have. While I'm generally a loyal person and not a compulsive liar nor do I go around telling lies to hurt people or anything like that, sometimes the "fight or flight" response can kick in when under stress, so very quickly I make a decision whether to just say the truth or just lie if lying would make the situation easier and less embarrassing. But this has got me in trouble before, leading to persistent bullying.

I have learnt that if you have accidentally taken something that isn't yours (not anything valuable, just like a cookie or something), and the owner of the cookies aggressively confronts you about it, don't ever reply with "what cookie?" because they'll usually know that asking that is actually playing dumb in quite an obvious way. It is best just to know what they are talking about and say "no" straight away. I know it may look like it should be the other way around, but believe me, it isn't.

I do struggle with social lies but it's partly due to not majorly caring & my mind drawing a blank.

I do better with other lies, especially if I'm prepared & have time to think of how to explain. I find others including medical providers do not take me seriously unless I exaggerate or plain lie about things.

I tend to be a bit distrustful of others partly due to others tending to be wrong about things or not following through with what they say they'll do. I don't think it's near the level of suspicious paranoia though.

Actually, that's a really good point. I find it very frustrating how the socially accepted way to answer questions is to answer in a positive way even then one doesn't truly feel positive about it.

I genuinely want feedback on something and everyone tells me that it's great. Even though I know it's not. It's very, very hard to get an honest opinion. And that's annoying.

I struggled majorly in school & with various household tasks & life skills. As a kid adults would sometumes lie to me to be encouraging but my actual results majorly s#cked. I've also been told contradictory things by different people like my classmates & I find it difficult to believe others compliments about me.

I remember one time at school I impulsively said, "yuck!" when a friend had opened her lunchbox revealing the tomato salad she had made in cookery class. I think it was because 1, I didn't like tomato salad myself, and 2, I didn't know she had made it. But if she had asked me if it looked good or whatever as she opened her lunchbox, I would have just said "yes", as her tone of voice would probably have suggested pride in her work without having to tell me she'd made it.
I immediately felt bad when she responded with "thanks, Tamaya, it took me like an hour to make that".

With me though, it's more down to ADHD impulsivity than it is about missing social cues like tone of voice, etc.

I'd be guessing prosopagnosics generally don't lie.

How could one tell which lies went where?

I don't mind when people believe that.

I'm not a good liar, so it's a helpful handicap.

I lie if I think it will get me out of trouble, a lot like the fight or flight response Tamaya described. But I'm not very good at it, no pokerface. Otherwise, if I need to I prefer to omit rather than replace with a lie. It's easier to omit. Eventually I sometimes end up telling the truth anyway because hiding things bothers me. I want the other person to know what I know for some reason. My instinct when not fearing being told off is to honestly answer a question, when I was young and got bullied, kids used to take advantage of this. As do creepy sex pests even now. Ask personal questions and stuff. I know they don't mean well and even though I'm uncomfortable in the moment I just start firing off answers on autopilot. It's all I know how to do.
What I can't do is prank people or pull their leg, I hate being dared to. Literally won't do it, I feel embarrassed on their behalf and will say JUST KIDDING instantly. I don't want to be the source of wrong information and let them believe it. Unsurprisingly I'm absolutely dogshit at playing among us, my strategy is silence, because I can't hide being the murderer once anyone asks!

I think the question is not "Who out there is lying?", but "Have I lied also?", "Am I lying on accident?", and "What is the truth?". "Who out there is lying?" would result in an unresolved loop because there is not enough given data. "Am I lying on accident?" resorts the question into what actually matters. "What is the truth?" is the question that would close the unresolved loop and sort out the 'wrong doing' of either the false accuser, false judger who does the same, the accidental liar, or intentional liar. And this would reveal the source of false information. Because that which focuses on "This is a source of false information." in a judgement format always self destructs, while that which focuses on the question "What is the truth?" always self regenerates.

Think of it like a computer running in binary of 'true/false', or even a more human version of 'good/evil'. Binary computers always self destruct, which is a well known thing. Technicians have to replace drives and try to bring them back to life by thinking again. This is caused by conflictions of data and creating impossibilities in further resolutions. An example would be if someone accidentally gives false information, and in resolution one states "This source of information is corrupted." Thus, any information coming from this source will not be weighed and determined as false, which will cause conflictions with the actual truth when the truth is stated. Take a quantum computers way of thinking as another example. Quantum computers do not rely on a hard 'true/false' method of thought, but takes every thought and possibility into consideration. I understand in a forum that is highly aspie, I must state I am only speaking poetically to make a point, and that actual quantum computers operate much more dynamically. But without the 'judgement' for lack of better words, or to weigh out all possibilities of where and how the false data arose instead of 'hunting the liar', the truth will be retained more likely though any outcome.

An example of choosing facts based on judgement of a source instead of the data itself would be in politics, where people choose a 'side' based on previous experience instead of whether or not the data is factual. This is why people on any side of a political spectrum can lose their virtues to the point of their own self identity to stay aligned with a 'side'.

Or I guess a normie would say something more like "Point the finger both ways or else be judged.", except I am saying 'mentally break down and lose the ability to rationalize' instead of 'judged'.

We are all lying right now to ourselves, we all have mistakenly claimed false information, we have all judged others for it. So what resolution is there? The only resolutions are 'present the facts' or 'destroy the entire system one piece at a time by claiming it is faulted'. Am I wrong? So better questions would be "Did they intend to lie?", "Did they accidentally lie?", or "Am I assuming they lied because I wish it were so?", or "Am I assuming they lied because I dont know if they are or not, and that is my defensive mechanism when hearing new information?", or "Am I judging others for what I do every day and not realize it?", and "Is judgement the answer to my actual question or is it what the actual truth is and intent of its source?".

I dont think "Do people with ASD lie?" was the actual intent of question. I know one can do much better than that, as that answer is already understood. I think the question was not properly thought out and stated. It seems to me that the question was based on a statement made by another that raises questions of validity. And that the actual question is "Was this person lying?", which I also think the answer is available online and no reason to be asked here. I dont think asking here was for the intention of gaining the answer to the asked question, but was actually making a statement based on false data, which is called a lie. I think this question is a lie. We all already know the answer to this. I think this question is actually focused towards an individual person. And I do not think hardly any statement here could not be confirmed by searching online or simply asking to elaborate on the original claim in question to gather more data. It seems this is more of a directed judgement. And that is a method of falsely resolving data that causes corruption, or insanity in human form. To accept an answer of either 'people with ASD do not lie' or 'people with ASD lie' would only promote said self inflicted insanity. Because this process would be eliminating core data or 'what is simply known' for new incoherent data based on pre judgement of source with no prior experiences, other than data evaluation.

This could answer the assumed unspoken actual question indirectly. And this might answer the assumed unspoken actual question indirectly. Einstein had awesome hair but if people knew that he could not tie his shoes and connected that to his hair, they probably would not see it as awesome anymore. He was wrong alot but that did not make him 'a liar'. My own imagination suggests that if Einstein himself was faced with this question, he would pour some tea, have a smoke, go outside and feel the wind on his face, and say something along the lines of "Energy is valuable beyond our own understanding, do not waste it on senseless riddles."

Last edited by Keeper of the Garden on 16 Jan 2026, 10:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

I sometimes omit or lie to avoid confrontation or conflict with others. As for pokerface, others sometimes assume I'm lying when I'm being honest or others misread my emotions in general like think I'm experiencing emotions I'm not like they assume I'm happy when others are upset or that I'm angry when I was actually in a good mood till I was pestered about why I was angry. As for hiding things about myself, I readily give waaay too much info online like this forum but I tend to be private & secretive offline. As a kid I was bulled a lot in elementary school, I have been criticized & nitpicked by adults, I was in trouble a lot for bullying others when I did not even do the actions I've gotten accused of, & I've also been accused of being mean & insulting others when I was simply making a statement like answering a question, giving an opinion, or even just trying to ask a question to better understand something. It tends to be better for me to keep to myself & stay quiet. Plenty of people have lied directly to me or about me so I'm OK with lying myself to avoid some kind of trouble or make things easier for myself, especially when my lies do not single anyone else out. I draw the line at lying that could get others in trouble because I hated being on the receiving end of those lies.

Last edited by nick007 on 16 Jan 2026, 11:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sometimes people think I'm lying if they're staring at me too much while I'm answering a question truthfully that they want to be the truth. This can sometimes makes me smile or laugh uncontrollably, which then makes it look like I'm lying when I'm actually not, so, still giggling at their prolonged, distrusting stare, I'm like, "I am telling the truth, honest."