define compulsive liar — and the mail pile agrees

the mail pile in the apartment has reached the point where it has weather. i started a list to define compulsive liar and the pile kept agreeing with every bullet. unopened envelope number four had a window. through the window i could see the word final. i closed my notebook. the pile won that round.

writing this from my desk, the morning after the pile-related event. carla is in the all on the hands third floor the one that, by reputation, generates more handouts than insight. it’s 3:14pm on a wednesday and i have, by my estimate, about an hour before any of the handouts make it down the stairs.

so. define compulsive liar. i wanted, last night, to have a clean working answer by the time i got to the desk this morning. i sat in the apartment with the unopened mail pile leaning against the side table. i had a notebook. i had, on the table next to the notebook, a tea i had let go cold. i wrote a list. the list got, by the third bullet, mostly autobiographical.

to define compulsive liar: a person whose lying is small, repeated, mostly automatic, and frequently unprompted — a behaviour that has slipped past intention into something closer to reflex. unlike the broader liar, who lies occasionally with intent, the compulsive liar lies as default — small “yes”es, small “i’m fine”s, small “i’ll get to it”s on a long enough timeline. cousin to but not identical with the pathological liar, who lies with structure rather than reflex.

THE. PILE. AGREES. WITH. EVERYTHING.

that goes on the wall. the pile, in fact, is the most reliable witness in the apartment. the pile does not, technically, speak. the pile, by leaning, has its own form of testimony. last night the pile leaned in the direction of the kitchen and, by my reading, agreed with every bullet on the list.

define compulsive liar — the working bullets

the working bullets, in the order i wrote them with a tea going cold by my hand:

• the lie is small. not the cinematic confession. the small “yes” at the till. the small “great” when the seventh microwave is, in fact, struggling. the small “i’m on it” when the gas bill envelope is, in fact, leaning at an angle in the pile.
• the lie is repeated. one is a wednesday. forty-seven, in a working week, is the shape.
• the lie is, mostly, unprompted. nobody has, in any active sense, asked. the lie is, frequently, the small affirmation given to a question that was not asked out loud.
• the lie is, frequently, automatic. reflex more than choice. cough more than performance.

i ran out of tea before i ran out of bullets. that is, i think, the shape of an honest list.

the pile’s testimony, in evidence

the pile is on the kitchen counter. the pile is, by my last count, sixty-seven envelopes deep. the pile has, over the past months, developed a small lean. the lean is, by my structural reading, southwest by southeast. the lean is consistent with a pile that is, on a long enough timeline, going to fall.

last night, i conducted a small, voluntary audit of the pile. i was not going to open any of them. i was, however, going to count them and look, where i could, at what was visible through the window envelopes. seven of the envelopes are red. two of the envelopes have the word “URGENT” stamped on the outside in a font i recognise from my own week. one of the envelopes — envelope number four, by a count from the bottom — has a small clear window on the front. through the window, i could see the word final. final is, by my reading, a word that does not, in friendly correspondence, often appear.

i closed the notebook. i put the cold tea in the sink. i went to bed. the pile, by morning, had not moved. the pile had, however, agreed with every bullet on the list. the agreement was silent. the agreement was, by some readings, the loudest thing in the apartment.

the lie i told myself about the pile

here is the part i want to land. the lie i told myself last night, sitting in front of the pile with the notebook in my hand, was that writing the bullets was, in some way, the same as opening the envelopes. it is not. it is, by a reasonable reading, the opposite. writing the bullets is, in fact, a small act of compulsive postponement disguised as analysis.

this is, by my own definition, a working example. the lie was small. the lie was, mostly, unprompted — nobody asked me to write the bullets. the lie was repeated — i have, on three previous evenings, sat with the same pile and a similar notebook and a similar cold tea. the lie was, in its way, automatic. i did not, in fact, decide to write the bullets. i found myself writing the bullets.

the certified letter that arrived two weeks ago, by the way, is in the pile. it has, by all visible signs, not been opened. it is, on the strict reading, what the courts would call received but unactioned. on the loose reading, it is what the kitchen would call still in the pile. i prefer the loose reading. i acknowledge, however, that the loose reading is, by my own bullets, exactly the kind of small invented thing this post is trying to define.

the taxman’s font, briefly

compulsive vs occasional — the cleaner cut

this is the part the cluster keeps making me clean up. the broader category of liar is anyone who occasionally tells a small untruth. by that reading, almost everyone i know qualifies. the compulsive liar, by contrast, is the person whose untruths have moved from event to habit. the line, mostly, is frequency.

one fib at a wednesday dinner is a wednesday. fourteen fibs in a week is, by the bullets above, the shape. one missed envelope is forgetfulness. sixty-seven envelopes, in an architectural pile that has its own weather, is, by a reasonable reading, the structure.

the cinematic version — the version most people picture when the word “liar” arrives — is the swagger of a man flying a plane he does not own. you have, possibly, seen it. that is the postcard. that is not, however, the working definition. the working definition lives in the small, daily, unglamorous traffic of the kitchen counter.

am i one — the napkin verdict, again

i wrote the bullets. i checked them, in candour, against my own week. i score, by my own count, four out of four. that is, by the strict reading, a pass. that is, by the loose reading, a worry.

i am, however, going to use the same loophole i used in the napkin piece earlier this week. the loophole is that writing the bullets is, in itself, an act of self-examination. self-examination is, by some readings, the opposite of compulsive lying. self-examination is the willingness to bring the bullets into a room and look at them under the light. that is, by my own reading, a small mercy. i’ll take it.

tom — old college friend, now married kids volvo two with the that adjust seats in fourteen ways — does not, as far as i know, write bullets about himself in a notebook by a pile of unopened mail. tom does not need to. tom’s mail, by his wife’s testimony, is opened the day it arrives. that is, in itself, a small heroism. tom does X. i do y we’re both absurd valid mine has more envelopes.

verdict, the definition fits the kitchen counter

the pillar piece, liar — a definition i’m fairly sure about, is where the larger conversation lives if you want the noun version. this post, by my count, is the kitchen-counter version.

the all-hands let carla is out back she has a small bottle of water and an expression that suggests the meeting was, on balance, the meeting. the pile, technically, is back at the apartment. envelope number four, also, is unchanged. i’m minimising this tab.

the cold tea, last night, ended up in the sink. the notebook is in my bag. the pile, in total, leans about half a degree more than it did yesterday. that is, by my reading, the slowest possible way to fall.

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