DNA
London, Jan 18: Anyone who claims they never lie is a liar! The results of a new survey say that Britons tell an average of four fibs per day.
The most commonly told lie is ‘Nothing’s wrong — I’m fine’ with 28 per cent respondents saying it was their favourite untruth. At number two in popularity is ‘Nice to see you’, followed by ‘I haven’t got any cash on me’ and ‘I’ll give you a ring’.
The survey carried out for the drinks brand WKD found that men lie more than women. “It’s men who tell the most fibs, coming out with five every day compared with women who lie three times,” said a WKD spokesman. This gives an average of four lies a day, added up to 1,400 every year and almost 88,000 in the average 60 years of adult lifespan.
Most lies are told to work colleagues, followed by parents, partners and spouses. One in five men interviewed said he would lie to his girlfriend to go to a pub or watch sport.
Worryingly for women, ‘No, your bum doesn’t look big in that’ is the eighth-most-common lie told. Almost a quarter of men have said they have told their partner she looks good in an outfit, despite thinking the opposite, and 29 per cent have lied about flirting with another woman.
Other fibs in the top eight are ‘Sorry, I missed your call’, ‘We’ll have to meet up soon’ and ‘I’m on my way’.
“Although we have revealed that most people tell porkies quite regularly, they are most often not told to spare people’s feelings rather than cause upset,” said the WKD spokesman.
Two-thirds of those polled said they do not feel guilty when they tell little white lies and four out of ten think they are good at lying.
The most common lie told by women is about how much new clothes really cost and how much drink they have really had. 75 per cent people feel that women are the better liers.
Respondents felt that lying about having kissed or spent the night with another person is the worst fib to tell, while 50 per cent admitted that they had been embarrassingly caught telling a lie.
Fibs that make up the rest of the Top 20 are ‘I’m stuck in traffic’, ‘What text?’, ‘I had no signal’, ‘Of course I love you’, ‘Our server was down’, ‘ My alarm didn’t go off’, ‘The cheque is in the post’, ‘My battery died’, ‘The train was delayed’, ‘I’ll phone you back in a minute’, ‘This tastes delicious’ and ‘I’m going to the gym tonight’.