If you have the iPhone and can see the ellipses (“. . . ”) at the other end of the text exchange, indicating that it’s taking your texting partner forever to craft the perfect response, then this can be a red flag. Just remember that, just because it takes a person a longer time to respond, it doesn’t guarantee that the person is lying. If the person really likes you, it can just take them longer to respond because they want to sound impressive. Of course, it’s also possible—though less likely—that the person got held up just when you asked an important question.
If the person is describing every little detail of their night when all you wanted was a simple answer, then it may be to convince you that whatever story they made up really did happen. If the person is really a novice at lying, then they may even backtrack to correct themselves in the middle of the text exchange.
They can say something like this: “I ended up staying out late with John. How about you? How was your night?”
This will be especially suspicious if the person leaves with no explanation, and if you didn’t think they had any plans during that time.
Of course, if the person is normally sweet to you, then it may not mean anything out of the ordinary. But if they suddenly tell you all of the sweet things you’ve always wanted to hear, then something may be up. If the person who is lying doesn’t have a romantic relationship with you, then they may still jump to give you a quick compliment or some positive reinforcement to take your mind off the lie.
If your girlfriend says something like, “I really, really missed you last night. Though I was out with the girls, I really wish you could have been there,” then she might be trying a bit too hard because she’s not telling the truth.
Unfortunately, one study shows that people can only tell if others are lying 54% of the time, which makes the chances that you can tell if someone is lying to you not much better than a coin flip. Still, your instincts should be leading you in the right direction, especially if the person in question is a repeat offender.
“To be honest…” “What I really mean…” “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, but…” “Actually, it was really more like…”
“It must have been around midnight when…” “Maybe it was because…” “I probably got home around two. ” “I’m not sure if…” “It seemed kind of like…”
Scroll through your past texts with this person. Does it sound like the same person is texting you, or like their phone has been abducted by aliens? Even if you can’t pinpoint why, if the text just feels different for some reason, then you’ll know.
Look out for when someone speaks like this: “Last night, I went out with the boys for a few drinks. But I only had a few beers. Then I’m going home before midnight…” People can tense hop when they’re lying because once they start fabricating the story in their heads, it may naturally switch to the present tense.
If they say something like, “I was out late at the diner with Jim. He was talking on and on about The Raiders. We had the best cheese fries, though,” when they normally never give details like this, then this may be a sign that they’re lying.
If the person usually uses lots of abbreviations, doesn’t always use punctuation or capitalized letters, or just generally is a sloppy texter, then they may be lying if they suddenly send you four perfect, grammatically sound sentences.
If a person is telling the truth, they’re more likely to say, “I was out late with the boys. Eventually we called a taxi to get home. I didn’t even realize it was so late. ” If they’re lying, they can say the same thing without using the first-person pronoun: “The whole group was out. A cab came for us eventually. The night just flew by…”
