Someone asked me two questions recently:
- Is your mood affected by whether you have a good writing day or a bad writing day?
- When you're having a bad day, do you conclude that your entire life must be somehow defective?
So much for my vaunted introspective capabilities. Apparently I'm as clueless about myself as I am about everyone else.
Sometimes it feels like I've created a persona for myself, a fictional character named Robin Wasserman whose personality is made up of a series of "I'm the kind of person who" statements. (eg "I'm the kind of person who hates small talk." "I'm the kind of person who hates parties." "I'm the kind of person who hates change." and, apparently, "I'm the kind of person who loves to hate stuff.")
Am I so invested in this persona that I willfully ignore reality? Is this Robin Wasserman character just somebody I made up, based on wish-fulfillment and self-deprecation and a weird inclination to put myself on the fringe of whatever group I'm currently trying desperately to fit into?
Last week, someone (a different someone) explained to me that a pathological liar -- a term I've used for years without actually knowing the definition -- is someone who believes her own lies. I'm pretty sure there's a distinction between this and the delusional person who can't distinguish truth from fantasy, but I'm not sure where to locate the dividing line.
If I'm basing my choices in life (whether to go to this party, whether to take this job, whether to write this book) on some mistaken belief about myself, drawn from a fictional persona that I accidentally created, am I lying or am I delusional?
(Just to be clear, no one -- ahem, mom -- need worry that I'm having some kind of massive identity crisis here. Nor do I think I'm particularly unique on this front. I just think it's interesting that, given the embarrassing number of man-hours I've put into analyzing and obsessing over the finer points of my personality, I'm still wandering around in the dark.)
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Comments
But maybe we should not think about those possibilities. You know, cause I'm susperstitious.
A pathological liar is someone who often embellishes his or her stories in a way that he or she believes will impress people. It may be that a pathological liar is different from a normal liar in that a pathological liar believes the lie he or she is telling to be true—at least in public—and is "playing" the role. It could also be that pathological liars know precisely what they are doing.
So, I'm the type who knows what she's doing. Perhaps you are, too. Perhaps we can keep telling friendly (grumpy?) lies to our hearts' content, and our mothers can believe whichever ones we choose to share with them. ;)
P.S. You just have to make small talk interesting.
P.P.S. Does Camp Barry count as a party?
But it gets used much more broadly and loosely in the wider community as in the definition you quoted.
Having been married to a pathological liar for nearly 20 years (would that be roughly two thirds of your entire life?), I wonder what you'd think of this answer.
It always seemed to me that the lie was secondary to the goal achieved by lying. A sort of ends justifies the means thing. Whether or not it was a lie was wholly beside the point. In her mind, a complete non-issue.
It was an interesting 20 years.
Todd