Richard B Riddick said:
You were stating how you sometimes like to falsify certain points about your character, like the fact that you're poor when you're clearly not, to people on forums. You then went on to say that you did this as a ridiculous form of an "experiment," in order to see how they would respond. You are lying, that's the point. If you said to me, "Sneakerpimp, I come from a broken home and my parents work two dead end jobs but we're all poor," and I ended up sympathizing with your plight not knowing that you were lying, you would basically feel proud. You would feel proud knowing that your falsifying of your socioeconomic status to gain some pity and sympathy from people would be successful. But what do you truly gain from that? If I then hypothetically found out you were lying I would be rather annoyed and lose respect for you. What good does it do to lie when you can be honest?
That's my point. Forget that I mentioned my friends as an exemplary demonstration of how I would treat people. I'm talking about the virtues of honesty and being humble; it's like you don't seem to understand the value of those characteristics. When you're honest to someone about where you come from, whether your home is broken or not, they gain more respect for you. When you lie to someone and you gain their pity and they empathize with your falsified plight, only for them to find out you were lying to "see their reaction," you will anger them. They're wasting their emotions and energy on you all because in your twisted sense of logic, you feel it's necessary to conduct some sort of theoretical situation centered around "what if I'm poor, how would these strangers treat me?" It shouldn't matter. People don't befriend you simply because you lack monetary funds. They will usually befriend you ( I say "usually" because there are selfish people out there) based on your personal conduct, your character, and that is to say, the way you carry yourself or expose yourself to other people: strangers, relatives, and friends alike.
Furthermore, you state that no one gets hurt?! Are you kidding me! I've had friends backstab me and even strangers tell me something that was completely untrue. Then I investigated their lies and revealed the fact that they were dishonest and I lost respect for them. It hurts and it does affect the victim in this scenario (the victim in this case is the person you're lying to). Sure they'll get over it but they won't ever trust you.
I wouldn't be your friend or have any respect for you if you conducted this experiment on me. Frankly I find it to be a pointless exercise. Just be honest, you gain so much more respect from people that way: on forums and IRL.
