I thought I wrote here once about lies of omission vs. outright lies. But, if I did, then I must have spelled omission wrong because a search didn't find it. Oh well.

I get lied to a lot lately, it seems. Over the weekend and into the start of the new week, I seemed to inadvertently surround myself with liars. The dishonesty bothers me. Of course it does. I think of myself as an honest person. But I think that, given a choice, I'd rather hear the outright bald-faced lies than the lies of omission.

That's because the latter, they carry with them certain implications. That I'm an idiot. That I could never figure out the truth on my own. That my brain is so preoccupied with listening to what they're actually saying that it has no processing power left to contemplate what they're not saying.

Oh, hey! I found that old entry. It was during my trip to Las Vegas last Fall. I apparently used different terms in the olden days. What I wrote back then was this:

I think that an implied lie might be even worse than an explicit one. Why would I think such a thing? Well, because an implied lie reveals not only the foolishness of the recipient, but also the cowardice of the liar.

Well, that's completely different, isn't it? Reading that now, I'm not even sure what I mean by implied lie. I probably meant lie of omission but was too tired drunk to think of that term.

Anyway.

So I've not only been lied to lately, I've been called a moron at the same time. Not the best combination. No wonder I've been feeling so irritated. See, quite often I see right through these lies of omission right away, straight to the truth hidden so sloppily inside them.

But do I call these people out? Nope. Do I expose their lies? Nope.

I just turn my head to the side, and I roll my eyes.

Because there's always a chance that I'm wrong. It's been known to happen. Seriously, it has. So there's a slight chance that I'm wrong, but there's a slightly bigger chance that the liar doesn't even know what they're doing. That they're lying to themselves. And to start smashing down the barriers that they've so carefully built around themselves - well that just seems like it would be mean.

So I don't smash their barriers. I don't hand them a flashlight and force them to start poking around the dark recesses of their own minds. I don't grab them by the throat with one hand, forcefully smack them across the face with the other hand, and shout, "Wake up! Don't you see what you're doing? Are you stupid or something?"

Hmmm.

I guess in a way I'm lying, by omission, right back at them.

I should do something else, then. I'm thinking that I should start with the calling people out thing, save the choking and the smacking thing for only the most incorrigible cases.