How to Get to the Truth

Sometimes you're sitting with someone you know, and she starts talking and you wonder if she's lying. Or maybe you think your boyfriend isn't being honest with you. There are some telltale signs to seeing if someone is not telling you the truth. If you want to know how to find out the truth, there are ways to find it. Here's how.

Instructions

1. Decide if he's lying to you. There are physical indicators such as refusing to make eye contact or turning away from you. And there are verbal indicators like participating in the conversation by asking as well as answering questions and stonewalling, stalling for more time or refusing to directly answer the question.

2. Give her incentive to tell the truth. If she thinks that she has something to gain from being honest, or at least that she'll be cutting her losses because you know anyway or it's worse for you to hear it from someone else, she may tell the truth.

3. Hook him up to a lie detector. The body responds to lies with heightened blood pressure, body temperature and pupil dilation. Even if you don't have a lie detector handy, you can gauge some of that visually from how well you know him and how he responds when he's telling the truth.

4. Torture her until she opens up. Water drips between the eyes are particularly effective, but tickling might be sufficient. The verbal torture of not being entirely sure of what you know and what you don't know is also a possibility.

5. Inject him with truth serum. If you don't have any chemicals on hand, verbal truth serum lulls him into the sense that what he did isn't bad, that his intention is really what matters or that you don't care so much about him doing it but having him lie to you about it.

6. Ask Sobek, the crocodile god, as the ancient Egyptians did. If Sobek isn't around or doesn't conform to your religious attitudes, asking any other third party who might know is sufficient.

Tips & Warnings

• Once you get past Step 1, get out of the relationship and get away from the person lying to you. It's not possible to have a relationship based on deceit and no matter how great he looks, it's not worth the effort if he's lying to you.

• Confronting him or manipulating him to get the truth might not work to your advantage. Verifying it with another source might not work either. Even armed with the truth, you risk losing the guy.