How good a liar are you? Nothing to be proud of even if you are I suppose.
A lie is an intentional false statement. To lie is to say something one believes to be false with the intention for it be taken for the truth. A white lie is a lie which is believed harmless or innocuous. So really, a lie is a lie, no ebony and ivory distinctions here I reckon.
And how about Lying by Omission which means allowing another person to believe something that one knows is false, by failing to reveal the truth, rather than by stating an untruth. I must say a very often used 'tactic' to justify and rationalize that one hasn't actually told a lie
per se.
My point is, for every spousal relationship, the Idealists, marriage counsellers, pastors, parents and old couples celebrating their Diamond Wedding Anniversary always say that Truth and Honesty are the cornerstones. Its hard to argue with such wisdom. But harded still, is to believe that 100% Truth and Honesty between husband and wife exists in the real world we live in.
So if the wifey asks you, in all her genteel girlish seductive charm, how many girlfriends you had slept with so far, what would you say? A friend swears by the 'whatever-figure-it-is-automatically-minus-5' formula. He does not explain how you get youself out of negative-number territory if you had only slept with 4 =))
So assuming you slept with 10, if you said 20 because you are insane and want to make her jealous, you would be telling a lie. If you used the formula and said 5, its a white lie because the harmless subtraction won't hurt Her Majesty. If you had said 7 because sleeping with the 3 girls you met after clubbing at Zouk, MOS and Attica respectively does not count as 'girlfriends'
per se, then it would be lying by omission =))
Experience tells me that many people ask for the truth, but cannot handle the truth. The lies hurt, but sometimes the truth hurts even more.
To lie or not to lie? Nobody can teach you. Just be prepared for the consequences =P