Dear Nikki,
Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire
I have two BFFs just like you! We do everything together. Lately, we’ve been playing this online game where you have to be a team of three. The thing is, I don’t even LIKE playing online games. In fact, I kind of hate it. I’d rather be reading! But I told them that I love it, because they’re obsessed with it! They want me to play the game every day and it’s killing me! If I tell them the truth, I’m afraid they’ll get mad at me. . . and maybe stop wanting to be friends. What should I do?
Hi Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire,
Funny you should mention lies, because my dad just wore a shirt this morning that was COVERED IN DEAD BUGS LYING ON THEIR BACKS!!! He said it would be good for his extermination business, and he was all, “Isn’t this great?! Nikki, what do you think?”
I nearly choked on my cereal. Okay, I didn’t nearly choke. I totally choked. Then, thanks to Brianna, Miss Penelope pounded me on the back until I coughed up a cereal marshmallow shaped like a unicorn. My dad clearly LOVED the ridiculous, hideous shirt, so I looked at the wall behind him and said, “Um. . . I like it.” Because who doesn’t like walls in houses, right??? So I didn’t really lie.
Yeah, I TOTALLY lied. And that’s the thing. There are all kinds of lies:
- Mean lies, like the kind Mackenzie spreads about me constantly.
- Weird lies, like my temporary gym teacher Sensei Hawk saying he didn’t know where the salami sandwich in his gi (aka, karate uniform) came from.
- Little lies, like the one I told my dad (which, hey, wasn’t technically a lie, because I was talking about the wall! It’s a nice wall!).
- Straight up nice lies, like when someone asks you if you like their new haircut (PS, THE ANSWER IS ALWAYS YES! Even Brianna told me that my hair looked FABULOUS at Salon Brianna after she stinkin’ CUT. MY. BRAID. Okay, so that lie was completely obvious, and I didn’t appreciate it at the time, so maybe that’s a bad example).
- Accidental lies, like when you feel pressured into not telling the truth to friends or family. . . like when I didn’t tell my friends Chloe and Zoey that Brandon had asked me to a dance, because the three of us were supposed to go as a trio. I couldn’t stand to let them down!!!
Your situation sounds like a classic number five. And I totally get how you feel! Deep down, I know that Chloe and Zoey would have been SO excited for me if I had told them that Brandon asked me to a dance. They might have even done my Snoopy Happy Dance with me (though that would have been pretty tough if we were all in the janitor’s closet where we have our meetings during school—it’s a little cramped in there).
When I think back on that time, I really wish that I’d just been honest with them. I told myself that I was trying to protect THEM because I didn’t want to disappoint them, but really. . . I think I was trying to protect ME. I was worried about what they would think. Would they hate me for ditching our idea of going together? The answer, which I realized way too late, was OF COURSE NOT!!
The thing about lying is that it eats you up inside. I LITERALLY felt sick to my stomach, knowing that I hadn’t been truthful with my best friends. Turns out, it would have been better for me and my BFFs if I had just been honest from the start. I mean, would you want to be lied to by your BFFs? Probably not. But also, if you found out that a BFF lied to you about a sensitive situation, would you be mad at them forever? Again, probably not. When it comes down to it, it’s your decision!
My advice for you is this: be honest and up front. Talk to your BFFs about your situation and tell them how much they mean to you—I’ll bet that everything will work out fine! Then find out if there’s anything else you guys could do together that all of you sincerely love. 😀
Okay, readers, what do you think? Have you ever felt like you needed to lie to a BFF? How did it make you feel? Tell us all about it in the comments!
