Lies and the Humans Who Tell Them, Part I

time and time again, you'll hear tell of the woman's superiority in crafting lies. men, as the pseudo-metaphor goes, are dogs, therefore, they don't bury their bones too deep in the backyard, oft times digging them up and bringing all types of drama into their lives. the XX-chromosomes, however, are more associated with cats, slinking about in silence, doing whatever it is they do, while the hapless dog is none the wiser.

i don't know, though. pet comparisons aside, what experience has taught me is that both genders are capable of creating fiction the likes of which no Fitzgerald or Hemingway could have imagined. the difference isn't so much between which of the two is more adept at story-telling, but which of the two has the greater need to believe those lies.

and, to para-quote another of the great dreamweavers, therein lies the rub.

from before their chests sprout the first bump along the way to becoming breasts, long before they ever have to keep their eyes on a calendar, little girls are taught that men lie; all of them, be they Little Leaguers or their beer-imbibed pre-cursors in the stands.

"that's just how they are," seems to be the explanation.

as such, by the time they realize --consciously or otherwise-- that tens of thousands of years' worth of men have fought, killed and died for the moist, velvety skin between their legs, young women resign themselves to spending the rest of their lives being lied to.

and with good reason.*

because both genders have socialized themselves and each other into accepting this to-and-fro as the "natural" order of things, a bastardized symbiosis has emerged in which women, conditioned to believe that it's in a man's genetic code to be untruthful, have played the roles of dutiful wife, wifey and girlfriend** on autopilot; while men, who've been the primary beneficiaries of the exchange, have done the same.

need proof? ask around and you'll find how rare is the one cat out of a crew of homies who does not cheat. odds are the attitudes of his compatriots toward his lack of play swing wildly between either end of the pendulum, from the adversarial "that bitch got him whipped" to the admirational "damn, i wish i could do some shit like that."

what most men are not taught***, however, is that their chromosomic counterparts have been playing the same game, only they don't celebrate touchdowns in the end zone; they do so when all the fans have gone home, and the locker rooms are empty of reporters.

the aforementioned rub? well, because men, in general, have become so accustomed to the eons-old arrangement, they simply can not fathom that their beloveds, with their virgin eyes and angelic smiles, the godly mothers of their children or the keepers of their beating hearts, would ever look them in the face, and lie.

it crosses our minds, to be sure. but in our eternal quest to become "better," we ignore instinct and rely on intellect, which tells us we're projecting. we're somehow ascribing our own shortcomings to find fault where it doesn't exist, just to relieve our guilt.

dime-store psychology goes a long way, no doubt. especially when self-diagnosing. but like lawyers who represent themselves and have fools for clients, physicians, even emotional ones, should not be so inclined to heal themselves. especially when they ignore their spirit, screaming at the top of their ethereal lungs that although the numbers seem right, something just ain't adding up.

kinda like swimming with dolphins. they're beautiful to look at, we've told ourselves that they're "smarter" than we are, and we want to believe so, so badly that we can somehow keep up.

my mother, rest her traitorous soul, said there'd be days like this. "don't ever, EVER give us the opportunity to break your heart. we lie. and we will not hesitate to do either."

but i knew it all. and in my need to believe, mom-dukes' admonition and my instincts got the curb.

and i got...

well, when all was said and done, i got smarter, finally.

finally.

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*because that is the status quo, if you will, i have no need to elaborate here. if you're reading this, and you honestly can't or won't agree, i suggest you remove the focus off your own life and watch the world as if you weren't the star of today's feature. trust me; it works.

**interestingly enough, the one role in which honesty --in all its raw, brutal power-- plays the motivator is the role which most women do their best to not play for too long. when it matters, it's that of homie/lover/friend; when it doesn't, it's the jump-off.

***the irony is that despite the ever-growing single-parent [usually female-dominated] family, one positive is that young men learn about women from women. and whether directly or indirectly, they are taught that the only absolute about truth is that it is relative.