You Can Tell Someone Is A Chronic Liar If They Do These 11 Things
Asier Romero | Shutterstock Lying is a tricky thing. We’re all guilty of it, whether we’ve done it for more self-serving purposes or with good intentions. While some lies might be able to be excused as kind-hearted or even necessary, others just don’t fit that description. When someone is a chronic liar, this is often the case. They’re not lying to serve some greater purpose — they’re just trying to protect themselves and the fictional web they’ve created.
As licensed psychologis Dr. Drew Curtis explained, “The criteria for pathological lying is people who tell an excessive amount of lies and that impairs their functioning, brings about distress, and poses some kind of risk of danger to themselves or others.” While these lies may not be obvious at first, once a pattern develops, you can tell someone is a chronic liar if they do certain things. Because chronic liars don’t care how far they have to go to make others believe them.
You can tell someone is a chronic liar if they do these 11 things
1. Never tell the same story twice
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One thing that chronic liars have a habit of doing is never telling the same story twice. After all, how can they? No one has a perfect memory, including liars, so they’re bound to forget exactly what they said when they originally told a lie because it was completely made up. This means that when they share that same story again, it’s just not going to be the same.
According to health and wellness writer Hilary I. Lebow, “changing narratives” can sometimes be a sign of a chronic liar. Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone who can’t keep their story straight is just chronically lying left and right, but it is a sign to watch out for. She defined pathological lying as “a compulsive pattern of telling people things you know aren’t true.”
You might have heard your parents warn you that it takes a lot of effort to keep up a lie when you were growing up, no doubt trying to dissuade you from doing so. And they were right. Lying isn’t easy.
Suddenly, a person has created all of these fake scenarios that they have to try to keep up with so they seem somewhat believable. It’s exhausting, and it means they just don’t tell the same story repeatedly like someone recounting actual events would.
2. Exaggerate and elaborate their explanations
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You can tell someone is a chronic liar if they don’t give explanations that are short and to the point. Instead, they’ll over-exaggerate and elaborate on everything.
Liars tend to think that the more details a story has, the more believable it is. So, they’ll tell you what color their shirt was, what the weather was like, and the name of everyone else involved for good measure. As a bonus for them, this will also make their story more confusing and harder to follow.
Licensed professional counselor Tamara Hill explained that “exaggerating minor details to distract” is a common tactic that pathological liars use. “Individuals who are skilled at manipulation and pathological lying will often exaggerate minor details to distract your attention away from the elephant in the room,” she added. “They may also overreact when confronted about minor things.”
Asking a truthful person a question seems easy and straightforward because they have nothing to hide or dance around. But getting an explanation from a chronic liar will feel like pulling teeth.
Instead of just telling you what happened, they’ll tell you a hundred other things that don’t matter at all. They hope they can hide the lie in the irrelevancy. Sometimes this works for them, and sometimes it doesn’t.
3. Get defensive when they’re questioned
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If someone is lying to you, it’s only natural that you would question them a little more closely. Chances are their story isn’t making sense, so you want to get to the bottom of it and find out what really happened.
Instead of just answering those questions, they’ll get defensive. Although they’re the one in the wrong, they might accuse you of not minding your own business or overstepping boundaries.
Behavioral analyst and body language expert Dr. Lillian Glass revealed that this also comes through in subtle but noticeable behaviors of chronic liars, like pointing. “When a liar becomes hostile or defensive, he is attempting to turn the tables on you,” she said. In other words, liars make the person accusing them feel uncomfortable for daring to ask them questions.
Chronic liars don’t like to be questioned or second-guessed. It causes problems for them because it means they will probably have to tell even more lies to get out of the situation. They’re also very protective of the narrative they’ve created and the lies they’ve told, so someone else calling those things into question will upset them.
4. Give vague and evasive responses
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Similarly, when a chronic liar is questioned, they’ll be very vague with their responses and attempt to act evasive. They don’t want to actually give away the truth, so they won’t share anything they don’t absolutely have to. It’s also possible that they simply don’t remember their most recent story at this point, so they answer vaguely in an attempt to not get caught red-handed.
Psychology educator Kendra Cherry said that one potential “red flag” that points out a liar is “being vague and offering few details.” Obviously, this doesn’t mean that every vague person is lying, but it is something to watch out for. “Look for someone who is telling a lie to leave out important details,” she added.
The less information a liar gives up, the less likely they are to be caught in a lie. Think about a time when you were little and did something like eat the last cookie and then tried to lie about it. You probably didn’t tell your parents every detail about what happened and tried to stay as evasive as possible. Some things never change.
5. Claim to be forgetful
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If you’ve ever encountered someone who seems to be skirting around the truth and also seems to have a poor memory, chances are they’re really just a liar. And, fortunately, you can tell someone is a chronic liar if they fabricate information that they have to keep up with.
There’s no way they can keep it all straight if they don’t. Sometimes they’ll deviate from their previous story, and when you call them out on it, they’ll just claim to be forgetful. And really, they are. Who can possibly remember everything they’ve come up with?
Interestingly, this forgetfulness appears to extend beyond just trying to cover up slips in their memory. A study published in Frontiers in Psychology examined whether lying leads to memory impairment over time.
Researchers found that it does, and that their study wasn’t the first to prove this. “Therefore, consistent with previous studies, this study supports the idea that lying but not simply denying could bring more memory disruptions,” they concluded.
Chronic liars may lean into forgetfulness as an excuse for not being able to remember every detail of the lies they’ve told. It’s also possible that they have actual memory impairments caused by their chronic lying.
Whatever the case is, they just won’t remember things very well. Maybe that’s intentional, or maybe it’s not. Either way, it’s a sign of a liar.
6. Avoid talking about the past
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One of the easiest ways for chronic liars to refrain from getting tripped up in all the lies they’ve told is to simply not talk about the past at all. The more it’s discussed, the more likely it is to come out that they weren’t telling the truth.
Because it’s hard to remember all the stories they’ve told and the lies they’ve stood by, it’s better for them to just avoid talking about the past altogether so they don’t accidentally say something that gives themselves away.
As Cherry noted, “Telling a lie might solve a problem quickly, but maintaining a lie can be stressful and lead to long-lasting problems. Even small lies can snowball and grow bigger than you intended. It is easy to forget how much it costs to maintain the habit when the results are temporarily positive.”
Lying might seem like a good idea in the moment, but liars will soon realize how difficult it is to keep up with that lie. One way to try to combat this is to simply avoid discussing the past. If it’s never addressed, how can it come out that they were lying? Unfortunately for chronic liars, most lies do eventually come to light, even if they try hard to fight against this happening.
7. Tell inconsistent narratives
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Have you ever watched a true crime documentary and seen the police question a suspect repeatedly? They ask them to tell their side of the story over and over again because they’re looking for inconsistencies.
The common belief is that someone who is telling the truth will stick to the same account because it’s what they know, while someone who’s lying will show inconsistencies because they can’t keep track of what they said the last time. In fact, the only thing consistent about liars is that they’re inconsistent.
Therapist Dr. Kyle Zrenchik said, “It’s a sign when someone consistently tells stories about extreme, abnormal, or unlikely events that they weren’t involved in. Like befriending celebrities, witnessing a kidnapping, winning a major award, or losing both parents during childhood.”
You may not know someone well enough to be able to verify all of the information they’re offering, but it’s a pretty safe bet that your co-worker has not won a Pulitzer Prize. Still, they’ll tell you that story like it’s completely true... until the story changes a little bit and it becomes the Nobel. Chronic liars just can’t keep their story straight, and it leads to major inconsistencies in what they share with other people.
8. Act overly charismatic
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One thing about chronic liars is that they know how to turn on the charm and act like the most confident person in the world. In reality, the fictional world they’ve created may actually feel like it’s eating them alive and impossible to keep up with, but they would never let that show. To get more people to believe them, and to make themselves seem more trustworthy, they’ll act super charismatic and interesting.
In his book "People of the Lie," author M. Scott Peck described the behavior of chronic liars. “Utterly dedicated to preserving their self-image of perfection… They are acutely sensitive to social norms and what others might think of them… While they seem to lack any motivation to be good, they intensely desire to appear good. Their ‘goodness’ is all on a level of pretense. It is, in effect, a lie,” he said.
Liars have an image to uphold. After all, most of that lying was probably done in the name of protecting their image in the first place. They want to make themselves look good, and they’re willing to go to whatever lengths it takes to do so. This means acting charming when they’re not and telling lies to make themselves seem “good,” as Peck said.
9. Pretend to be the victim
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Chronic liars may also pretend to be the victim or try to blame others so they look innocent. This doesn’t mean that someone necessarily caught them in their lie, but they may still try to win the sympathy vote.
If someone is getting close to the truth, they’ll deflect all blame and convince them that they are the one who was wronged, even though they’re the one who has actually been lying to everyone. Fortunately, you can tell someone is a chronic liar if they do these things.
Health and wellness writer Adrienne Santos-Longhurst explained that pathological liars will often “portray themselves as the hero or victim.” She said, “Along with being made the hero or victim in their stories, pathological liars tend to tell lies that seem to be geared at gaining admiration, sympathy, or acceptance by others.”
Liars want to receive all the sympathy they can garner, and they want others to feel bad for them instead of thinking too hard about what they’ve said. Really, they’re just looking for attention.
Playing the victim gives them this opportunity. And since they’re so good at lying, it’s not hard for them to lie in a way that makes them appear victimized.
10. Manipulate and gaslight
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It will come as no surprise that chronic liars are manipulators and gaslighters. The very act of lying is manipulative itself. Liars make people question their reality and what they know to be true. They want to make people believe falsehoods, and they are willing to go to any lengths necessary to do so. A little bit of manipulation means nothing to them.
Psychotherapist Erin Leonard sees this in her work with couples. “When an individual distorts an experience to the extent that they unconsciously split elements of the experience out of their conscious awareness in order to escape threats to their sense of self, they are utilizing a rather pathological defense mechanism called splitting,” she revealed. “In essence, they are unconsciously altering reality to protect their ego, thus excusing themselves from accountability.”
In other words, a liar may not make the conscious choice to gaslight someone else. They may do so unconsciously in an effort to protect themselves from what they know to be the truth. So, they’re basically lying to themselves, too.
Of course, some people really do want to manipulate others, and lying is one way of doing that. Whether the manipulation is intended or not, it’s still a very serious issue.
11. Act overly dramatic
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One final thing that chronic liars tend to do is act overly dramatic. Think about a time when someone told you a lie (that you actually knew was a lie). They probably weren’t very relaxed when they did so.
As the story got blown more and more out of proportion, their behavior mirrored this, becoming more dramatic. Similarly, if a liar is accused of not being truthful, they’re not just going to sit there calmly while someone accuses them. They’re going to fight back.
Health writer Rosie Jones shared that histrionic personality disorder can be closely linked to lying, and can cause people to act out in this way. “Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is a psychological condition that causes someone to engage in attention-seeking behavior,” she said. “Some aspects of this condition may cause a person to lie to manipulate others.”
This doesn’t mean that every chronic liar automatically has HPD, but it is one explanation for their overly dramatic behavior. People with HPD crave attention, and they use lying as a means to get that attention.
It’s best to avoid a liar’s drama at all costs. It’s simply not worth getting involved in, nor is it worth it to let that person try to reel you in with all of the lies they tell.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
