93: Tell-Tale Signs Someone is Lying to You in Text or Email

In our socially distant world, much of our personal and professional interactions are now online and in the form of email and text. In all those missives, how do we know that what we are reading is true? The truth of the matter is that most of us are lied to in either our personal lives or professional lives on a daily basis. Of course, most people would agree that some line is necessary. The White lies the Our team is just finishing up on the project Type of lie you is prevalent in many emails, but have you ever received an email or text, one that mattered, and read it and thought to yourself, hmm, something isn't quite right? No one likes being lied to, whether it's a partner in business or in life. The big lies can lead to bigger problems. Ongoing interactions with someone who consistently lies can create an environment where there's a lack of trust. It creates anger and resentment, especially if that person feels like they're being duped. It also creates an unsteady environment, leading people to make the wrong decisions because they were uninformed decisions. Spotting the moment a person is lying to you helps you establish a more honest relationship. It also prevents a disaster or downfall from happening due to being falsely informed, which is a nice way of saying being lied to. In this episode of the podcast, I want to share with you how you can tell the telltale sign someone is lying to you in text or email, and more importantly, some potential responses to help defuse the situation and perhaps turn it to your advantage. There are a lot of methods for how to tell if someone is lying. We'll typically notice somebody's body language being off, or perhaps there are some dead giveaways in their voice. Much of our communications nowadays have moved to a remote platform. That is, we're typically having more conversations via text and email and chat and other forms of electronic correspondence. So while these are convenient, they also put up a wall that makes it difficult to spot the usual signs when someone is lying to you. But is there a method for how to tell if someone is lying if we're not looking at them dead in the eye? I'm here to answer that question and to help you get a deeper look into how to tell if someone is lying to you over text, email, or other written correspondence? The Prevalence of Lying Before I get into how to tell if someone is lying to you in email or text, let's take a look at some general statistics about the prevalence of lying. How many lies are occurring on a typical day, and where are they coming from? One study found a positive correlation between a person's confidence in their lying ability and the number of lies they told on a daily basis. That same study also noted that a mere 5% of the respondents were responsible for get this, over 50% of the total number of reported lies. And clearly the majority of lies are coming from repeat offenders. But that doesn't mean that we're all not at least a little guilty of telling a lie from time to time. As I mentioned in the introduction, speaking an untruth is fairly common. Most people tell an average of 2 lies per day, with higher figures occurring in teenagers and adolescents. Well, ain't that the truth? Says the podcast host, mother of teenagers, other parents. I'm sure you can agree with that statistic. If you consider yourself to be honest, or at least you say that you dislike lies, well, then this episode is for you. I'm sharing these telltale signs not for your gotcha moment, but as an opportunity to create foundations from truth. You've heard me talk a lot about how to respond in a crisis by using my response framework. Step one is the own IT step, the step that's taking accountability for your actions. It's a foundational admission or acknowledgement of your role. The response needs a foundation cemented with truth. Without it, you're building your response on unstable ground. If you are working with someone or for someone who isn't honest with you, or you routinely deal with someone in your life who is dishonest with you, it means you are now operating on shaky ground. That's why it helps to spot them before they cause too much damage in your life. Now I know that people want to know how to spot a liar. How do I know this? My number one downloaded podcast since my launch is episode 16, how to spot a Liar. I included the link in the show notes, so the reason why I created this episode is because I think it ties in nicely with the response framework and people are starting to notice more lying online and in social media and in the news. People like to spot liars. I suppose in some cases is so they can learn how to fib and get away with it. But many of us feel thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor, which is God's way of telling us don't lie. How to tell if someone is lying through text without the typical physical sign someone is lying. The shifty eyes stumbling over words, telltale facial expressions and tics. Ooh, I can spot those a mile away. However, if you want to know how to tell if someone is lying through the written word, the text, you'll need to know how to read between the lines. Now you may notice the person being purposefully vague. If the person you're corresponding with seems to have trouble committing to a solid story, then this could be a sign that they're not being truthful. Let line by omission refers to telling a half truth that leaves out specific incriminating details. These examples are in the more personal vein. The text may read something like I got home at 8 o' clock last night, when really what happened was I left for work at 5 and then I went to the bar and then I got home. No lie here, but still dishonest all the same. In many cases, the less detail, the more suspicious. Think about when you relay a status update to someone, either an email or text, and it's a truthful one. The proposal will be in by the end of the day. I should be home at 6. You are writing from truth. You are writing from facts, because there's nothing to hide until there is, and then you can spot it. Also, look for delayed response times. Often when a person tells a lie, they're feeling apprehensive about what they're going to say. They that word smithing is happening behind the scenes. After all. We've got to get our story straight and remember to stick to it, right? So that's going to translate into longer response times when you're trying to have a conversation with someone on text. When someone isn't being truthful, they could be taking a lot longer than normal to answer your message. This is actually a big determining factor that lets us know how to tell if someone is lying in text, chat or or any type of instant message. I won't say it applies to email as much, but you can make your own judgments there. If your messaging platform features the ellipsis, the dot dot dot with the moving gray cloud that signals they're reading the text. They're reading the text. Now pause for them. Thinking about what to say. Thinking about what to say. The ellipsis lets you know when the other person has engaged in your text and they're ready to type. Until they don't. There are other reasons why a person could take longer to answer you. For example, they could really just be searching for the right words to say. Maybe they just got busy or forgot to respond, or they were texting while driving, which is never a good idea. Instead, it could show that they're having trouble crafting the right response. It could be a dead giveaway when it comes to how to tell if someone is lying to you. That's not to say the longer response times are always one of the signs someone is lying, but it can definitely be a tip off. Pro Tip Check your phone for the text read function. If you don't want people to know that you've read their text, turn it off on your phone now. There may be people in your life that you will want to have that feature on and remain on. Don't mention it to them. It's a helpful tool for spotting liars. If someone tells you I never saw your text, well, if they have the text read function on their phone, well, you can say yes, you did. More telltale Signs for spotting a lie in text or email look for overly complicating things in their response. Examine the volume and details of their response. Are they giving you an overly complex answer to a relatively simple question? If so, that could be a red flag. And when I see it, it's like a Cat 5 hurricane flag. She's coming on boys and she's coming on strong. For example, let's say you ask the person, where are you? Or where were you? If they give you an overly complex answer filled with insignificant details, well, then there's your sign. And the telltale sign is when they connect onto a different story entirely, only tethered by one truthful thread, however narrow it is, where they can spin a whole new web. They want to distract you with a truth that they can commit to, and they're comfortable discussing it because it's an effort to remove themselves from this first story, which was a shaky story. We've also seen this pattern in pathological liars who compose grandiose storylines to fit their narrative for seemingly no reason at all. The more untamed the tale, the greater the tell. This could mean that they're trying to use these specific details to convince you to believe a lie. You might even see them backtracking here and there to correct details. Another sign that someone may be lying to you in the written correspondence is avoiding certain questions. When you're asking someone a question and they're acting as if you didn't ask it, this could be a good indicator for how to tell if someone is lying to you. For example, you could go in multiple directions in the same correspondence saying something like I put your name into the pool for selection on the committee. But this conference is becoming so unyielding. The vendors aren't cooperating and our numbers are down because we transitioned to a virtual platform. Now, if they are overly overwinded on the latter, then this could mean that they're avoiding the former, Another sign is using a red herring to divert the topic of the conversation. They might give a quick non answer to your question and shift the topic to something unrelated. Going back to the example, they don't really want to discuss the part of you being selected or not being selected and their role in it. Because perhaps maybe they had nothing to do with it at all, or they put their own name into the hat and not yours. So instead they want to relay that the conference is turning into a circus. So when you aren't chosen for the committee, you'll suspect that it's because of the chaos, not because of your colleague or boss not advocating for you. They might also turn the question around to you in an attempt to avoid answering it themselves. Oh, did you want to be on the committee? You're screaming yes. You knew I wanted to be on the committee. So this is why Understanding when someone isn't being entirely forthcoming can help you stay ahead of potential problems. Another tell you can spot in writing Going out of their way to proclaim honesty Ironically, you might know how to tell if someone is lying to you by their overuse of the buzzword honest. They might write I'm being totally honest with you, or honestly, I just went straight home after work. Now, were you accusing them of lying? If not, then why do they have to go out of their way to claim their innocence? A person who lies a lot might also overuse this claim in general, saying they never lie or they were raised to always tell the truth no matter what. Another word in this realm is transparency. When someone writes that they are being fully transparent, it usually means they're not. Note when this language appears in text or email, if you didn't call them a liar in the first place, there shouldn't be a need to proclaim their intentions about honesty. It sounds like that is coming from a place of inner guilt. Look for this next tell in text and email. The wording seems off. If you've talked to someone via text or email often, then you've probably got a pretty good idea of their typical conversation style and communication skills. If they sound a little different in a particular conversation, a little more stilted, then this could mean that they are carefully crafting a false narrative. For example, are they using bigger words than they usually do? They might say utilize instead of use, or something similar. Perhaps their grammar and usage is flawless. No emojis. All of a sudden too flawless and emojiless for a text. This may mean that they're spending more time than usual writing it Overall, if their wording sounds suspiciously scripted, it could be one of the signs someone is lying to you. Or they might hit you with an acronym like GTG when the texts are hitting too close to home. Boomers and Gen Xers, that's got to go. If you're suspicious of a particular text stream, take a look at how quickly they're trying to remove themselves from the conversation. Lying isn't fun or comfortable. Oftentimes they just want to drop the bomb, have the other person accepted, then move on to something less excruciating. You might spot this in your text or chat conversations. A person will emerge when you've got something to confront them with, only to say or write gtg. Soon after, they might add a quick reply to your question and then add anyway igtg so I'll talk to you later. After this type of answer, it's assumed that the next time the person talks to you, it will be under normal circumstances. So that acronym that GTG or Gotta go is like pressing a reset button that removes them from liability. This might also be counting on you to drop the subject or forget about it. In the meantime, the truth of the matter is that you should trust your intuition. When you're trying to determine how to tell if someone is lying to you, you might have nothing to go off of aside from your gut feeling. I'm here to tell you that if this is the case, you you should trust it. You've heard this time and time again because it's the truth. Always go with your gut first. Human beings are incredibly complex creatures and we have innate instincts that tell us more than words ever could. If you've got a funny feeling that someone isn't being honest with you, then that feeling is usually right. Use it as your baseline, your starting point for digging a little deeper. Okay, so you suspect someone's lying. Let me tell you three ways that you could use to respond to this situation. If you suspect someone is being less than truthful with you, don't let it go. The lies could be a harbinger for worse things to come. It doesn't mean you have to call the person out for their lie, but use it. And use the knowledge of knowing they're lying to you to your advantage. When you sense something is afoot, keep asking questions. Not pointed ones to raise suspicion, but open ended ones. The kind of questions that keep the conversation going. The more back and forth, the more informed you will be. The lie may still be buried in the text, but you will have enough data points to piece together the truth. The goal at all times is to stay informed. Lies can only damage you if you let them. So three things that you can do. 1. Encourage them to be honest. Don't accuse them of lying, but write words like honestly, that happened. Honestly, you said that on my behalf. Honestly, you wrote that entire proposal yourself. This is a gentle way of pinning them down to your answer. If they dodge on these questions, well, you may have spotted your liar. 2. Go ahead and let your guard down. Ask a question here, then add a follow up statement to one of their statements. There's a you want to surround yourself again with these data points that back them into a corner where they will have no choice but to tell the truth or the lie will be so blatant you can make an informed decision from that moment on. And three, you could just let it be. Paul McCartney was on to something. When you whisper these words of wisdom, if someone lies to you, okay, let them. It's on them. The power is in knowing that they are lying. The damage from mistrust is when it leads you down a path to make a decision you wouldn't make otherwise. So the takeaway knowledge is power. Any response, whether it's to a crisis in your business or a crisis of a personal nature, should be rooted in truth. That's all for this week on the podcast. Be sure to follow me on Twitter. Molly McPherson. Thanks so much for listening. Hope to see you here next week. Bye for now.