When we’re in “image is everything” mode, it’s hard to resist the temptation to sweeten that image a bit. One survey found that 90 percent of a large sample of Americans said they told little lies about themselves on a regular basis. Most often these fibs lower ages, raise incomes, bolster credentials, and enhance accomplishments.
For the most part, no harm done. Who cares if we gussy up our ID a bit?
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Sprucing up one’s background with dubious data has become as common as tucked tummies and transplanted hair. Its motivation dips from the same well: a desire to be better than real. Petty fibs allow us to wear psychic outfits beyond our means. They’re a grown-up version of “let’s pretend.” Bs and Cs we got in college become As and Bs over time. The 200 game we bowled in high school creeps upward to 250. A retort we wish we’d made now is one we did. In his play The Wild Duck Ibsen called fibs such as these “life lies” (translated from livslognen, a term he coined). They’re not white ones told to protect someone else’s feelings or to smooth a rough social situation. These are unprovoked deceptions meant to make the deceiver look better.
It’s a rare man or woman who doesn’t inflate his or her height. Since so few of us are happy with our God-given feet and inches, the figure we report to the world tends to be a hodgepodge of fact, fantasy, and whatever we think we can get away with. After being told a fanciful height once too often by a subject, Philadelphia Daily News reporter Rose DeWolf said, “You think people lie about their age? Ha! Height is worse.”
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Among a group of job seekers who were measured after they’d recorded their height on an application, 100 percent—ten out of ten—had rounded up by an inch or more. And this is not just an oversight. Another study found that a group of women who were warned in advance that they would be measured reported their heights far more accurately than a second group who weren’t warned but were measured.
In Hollywood, where height matters, one casting director made a practice of estimating how tall actors were as they walked through the door because she knew she couldn’t trust the figure on their resumes. This document is where life-lying becomes art form. Resumes are not just a record of what we’ve done. They also tell the world what we wish we’d done.
