Do Aspies Make Good Liars?

Don't ask me where I get these topics from (sigh). They usually come up because I read someone's comments about something in a forum and start applying them to myself to see if they fit.

The answer is;

Amongst People who don't know them very well - NO
Amongst Friends - YES.

Why is this?
There are a lot of social cues that people use to determine whether or not someone is lying. These include;

• Eye Contact (which aspies have trouble doing)
• Certain "nervous" body gestures like clasping hands (which aspies do naturally)
• Differences in vocal tone (which aspies don't vary as much)
• Facial Tics or twitches (which aspies often have naturally)

This means that when someone who doesn't know the aspie well is talking to them, they often interpret the aspie as lying even when they're telling the truth.

Conversely, when someone who knows the aspie and their behavior very well is talking to them, they won't be able to use these things as clues. They know that their friend does this all the time. Of course, if the person has reason to suspect that the aspie is lying, they may well be able to look further.

One strange thing is that NT's think that they can say "Look me in the eye and say....". The thing is, that whether we're lying or being truthful, it's pretty much impossible to look anyone in the eye for long. NT's only ask you to do that when they're suspicious of something but I don't think it helps either way. They'll always interpret it as a lie.


The other thing that I think aspies can do, certainly I can do, is...

Rewriting Memories
This is where you take an existing memory that you want to forget/erase and you spend time creating a replacement false memory. You then join it to the existing surrounding memories (ie: memories that occur just before and just after the event you want to forget) and replay those memories together over and over again in your head. This effectively changes the "extraction keys" to the new memory.

It takes a little time but eventually the new memory takes root and the old one fades. It doesn't fade entirely and it's possible for someone with a clear memory of the event to break though by discussing details. This can be quite painful for the aspie since they're usually painful memories anyway (things they want to forget) and it's a bit like re-living the experience in fast forward.

I've included rewriting memories here mainly because it's associated with falsifying information. I'm not really sure how useful it would be in an outright lying situation.