Do people OWE you the truth? I’m not so sure. If they’ve promised it to you, yes.

You could say the very act of communicating — of asking someone to believe you — contains an implicit undertaking that what you are saying is the truth. Unless you say, “Look, I can’t go into ALL the details, or reasons for this, but that’s just the situation” … but even that seems dodgy, sort of like sins of omission.

I know I have felt constrained in the past by a promise of confidentiality which has prevented me from explaining something fully, or sharing information that others would be interested in.
That felt bad, like a compromise. I’m reluctant to agree to be bound by such promises… they are isolating.

In terms of how one REACTS to being lied to (besides taking offence), there’s this nice recent comment from Seth Godin which put it well:

Righteous indignation

This is a default response for many people–irked customers, angry bosses, disappointed colleagues. It’s easy to go into high dudgeon (in fact, low dudgeon isn’t even in the dictionary, it’s always ‘high’).

The thing is: it doesn’t work. It rarely succeeds in accomplishing much, and it makes you unhappy at the same time.

What if you took it out of your toolbox of responses?

What if, just like becoming a cannibal or painting your face green, you eliminated righteous indignation as an option in your list of responses to various situations, no matter how unfair? What if the people you work with weren’t permitted to indulge? Just think of how much more you’d get done and how much calmer everything would be.

That’s sort of where I am at … or where I’m headed. – P