Generally, when people lie, they have a fairly clear motive. Either they want to avoid something unpleasant, such as blame or responsibility, or they want to achieve something desirable, such as celebrity and admiration. Or they want to make heaps of money by means of some fraudulent scheme.

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But some people just cannot help themselves.

The pathology of tall tales
There are pathological conditions which make people regularly tell tall stories.

Those who have Munchausen syndrome, for instance, tell very elaborate and fake stories about themselves taking great care to fake physical illness, in order to gain care and medical attention. Clearly, that's not what's been going on here.

But then there are some curious conditions which could be more relevant in such a situation.

Pathological liars
These are people who tell lies compulsively, even when there is no possible benefit to them, and even when they are bound to get found out.

Their motives are obscure, and of course the condition is very difficult to treat, especially as these people rarely actually seek help, and when they do so, neither the psychiatrist/psychologist, nor even the patient, may be sure what is true in what they say.

They are often highly convincing liars, as though they first of all lie to themselves, so that their body language and emotional responses to their stories then all feel genuine and convincing to the onlooker or audience.

But because they lie so frequently, they themselves lose sight of the objective, external, verifiable truth. They could find themselves telling completely conflicting stories to the same person two days in a row, without particularly considering this a problem. It is hard enough to keep track of the truth, and exceedingly difficult to keep track of serial lies, or to keep them entirely consistent. Pathological liars do not deal well with being confronted, and seem to consider this simply unfair of us."

There are people who tell lies on an ongoing basis and then you find people who go one step further. They make up a whole life.

Pseudologia phantastica
This is a condition in which people tell very involved and complex stories, far beyond ordinary lies. Their lies are partly aimed at getting attention - if possible, approving or positive attention. A sense of importance, of significance, may be what they are seeking.

They tell involved stories in which they play a central and fascinating role, stories which are designed to grip the audience. I've seen, for instance, an old man who told gripping and indeed enthralling tales of his experiences during World War II in miniature submarines, while he was leading reconnaissance expeditions into occupied France. He wept as he remembered those of his comrades who had not come back with him, and showed us the scars on his leg from when he had got caught up in some barbed wire.

The problem was, when I checked up on him, it turned out that he had spent his entire period of military service in the Quartermaster’s stores at a large barracks, fitting uniforms to soldiers. He had never left Britain at any time in his life. He had found a story that brought an important sense of meaning and significance to his life, even though it was entirely untrue.

The SA sex blogger
But then you find people whose motives are unclear. Last year a controversy started with an annoying blogger, calling himself Skye. He announced that he was a male prostitute, and proceeded to tell lurid tales about a number of well-known South Africans.

A man called Juan-Duval Uys has since appeared in court on charges of fraud and crimen injuria. He alleged that he had been accused of 10 to 15 similar cases in the past – none of which led to court appearances. Among these were alleged possession of child pornography, and the murder of a friend in Kroonstad.

The prosecutor claimed that there was not enough information in the court affidavit to link Uys to the two charges. The case has been referred back to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

True or false?
I don't want to comment specifically on the details of this case, but whether the stories are true or false, they raise questions about a number of issues. There's a surprising range of possible explanations for the appearance of a set of nasty stories about local celebrities.

They might be true, perhaps, though that would be odd. The services offered by a prostitute are supposed to include discretion, as well as sexual skills. So telling tales about one's clients would seem likely to speedily end any such career. From what I could see on reading the notorious blog, the encounters (if such they were) seem to have taken place some time ago. So one wonders why he'd choose to divulge supposedly true stories after so much time has passed?

What’s the pay-off?
What would be the point, the pay-off? Why would he want to harm to reputation of his former clients? Especially as the entire process doesn't make him look good either. If he just wanted to get public attention, there are much easier and more harmless ways to achieve that (try entering Big Brother, for instance!) and anyway, the blog was anonymous, so at most he received attention by proxy.

Blackmail, where money is extorted in return for your silence, could be a motive. The stories don’t even need to be true. Possibly publishing stories about the first set of victims might encourage others to pay lest they be similarly exposed, but if this was the tactic, the blogger essentially gave away some of his stories without payment. Or were those he published the tales of those who had firmly refused to pay?

If the stories are untrue, then why might someone choose to lie like that, and on such a scale?

There does not seem to be any clear possible motive. Lying on such a scale by means of an anonymous publication, isn't likely to be rewarding personally in any of the usual ways. You won't get admired, and the fame won't be yours to enjoy. And you'd be attracting blame rather than evading it.

So, next time someone tells you about a miracle cure, or a way to double your savings, or how they single-handedly fought hand-to-hand combat with an entire army, or had sex with a celebrity, you’d be well advised to take it with a pinch of salt. When it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

(Professor M.A. Simpson, aka CyberShrink, updated January 2008)
 

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