It seems like lying to people you don’t know in your own self-interest to is generally socially acceptable. A person who receives one job offer, accepts, then receives a better offer, then rejects the first offer, is one such example of a lie. It’s hard to pick between two opportunities. But one thing’s for sure – lying makes whatever choice you go with 10x worse.

One consequence of lying that I’ve found is that any good faith in a new relationship that was there at the beginning vanishes at the slightest hint of betrayal.

It seems like when you lie to someone else for your own self-interested purposes, you then fear and expect the other person to do that himself too. You project your own vices onto the other person (perhaps for good reason).

But good faith means that you assume someone is doing the honest thing until proven otherwise. And it’s the glue that starts relationships on the right foot. So flipping it and assuming that someone is deceptive until proven honest is not only very difficult to do, but it’s also a lot more costly for both parties.

Lying for your own self-interest is something that one should avoid. It’s not easy to do. Even if the other partner lies to you and acts in his own self-interest, it’s much easier to handle him when you can trust yourself. You can only trust yourself if you don’t lie.