Everyday Canvas

Can One Spot a Liar Unmistakably? Not Really

Prompt: Is there any way to spot a liar? Do you have a special trick for it or what makes you suspicious that someone is lying?

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Most of the prompts I come up with have to do with writing. This one is no exception as it has to do with character actions.

Is there any way to spot a liar? Not really, since everyone acts and reacts differently to a stimulus or what they want to get out of a conversation. As for me, no I have no tricks. Something about the person, though, makes me suspicious when that person is lying; however, I can’t put my finger on it, exactly. It is a gut feeling or sixth sense.

So, I checked the Emotion Thesaurus for writers. It has no entry for how liars act. An FBI agent, however, has some tricks to get the truth from the person he interrogates, although these are not tricks for spotting a liar for a regular person.

https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/an-fbi-agent-s-8-ways-to-spot-a-liar.html

Then, I found a page in La Times where it lists “dead giveaways” to spot a liar.

“Liars often:

1. Avoid eye contact.

2. Look down when speaking.

3. Angle their body away from the person they're speaking too.

4. Omit critical information.

5. Get fidgety or agitated when pressed for details.

6. Touch their faces, especially their nose.

7. Less apparent to the eye: Their heartbeat skyrockets and their pulse quickens.”

My answers to those:
1. Most Middle-Eastern women (sometimes men, too) are brought up not to look directly into someone’s eye or face.
2. Some people are shy or have an inferiority complex which makes them look down.
3. A person may angle his/her body away for many other reasons, a cramp in the leg for example, but I think this is a good sign if you know the person well and he or she suddenly changes his/her posture.
4. Not everyone wants to tell about some things. They may be private things they won’t tell anyone no matter what. Not all evasions have to do with lying.
5. Press me on something private I don’t want to talk about and I’ll get fidgety, too. We all have the right to keep what’s private to ourselves.
6. This may be, but it is still iffy. What if their nose itches? What if they have the mania of putting their hands on their faces?
7. How can one figure this one out if he or she doesn’t have a stethoscope! This pointer may have a use, however, when we writers go into a character’s head and write about the way he feels when he lies.

To wrap it up, in real life, there’s no exact way to spot a liar, but the pointers we may use in our stories.