Dear Mr. Smith: How can I tell when my guy is lying to me?
Women's magazines - which tend to congregate and then multiply, like mice, in my bathroom - often attempt to give the answer to this and other relationship-straining questions. According to such publications - particularly Cosmopolitan, which is especially preoccupied with male truthfulness, running dire alarms about it every other month or so - you know that your man is lying when: He looks you straight in the eye or avoids your gaze; he is sketchy on details of where he has been or gives too many details of where he has been; he loses interest in sex or his libido increases; he is distant and remote or is overly attentive and gives unsolicited gifts, an activity, incidentally, that is also much praised in other relationship articles.
You can, in other words, surmise from the clearly scientific research conducted by these magazines that men are lying all the time - and everything they do gives it away.
The point of such warnings is, I think, to increase female paranoia and the secret surveillance that tends to come with it. Apparently, the modern woman runs a constant panopticon on her man because all men's relationships with other women - professional and social - should be seen as suspect. The corollary to this belief is that all other women are threats to you. I'm not sure of the motive for encouraging this view, aside from cultivating further reliance on women's magazines (which helpfully give great spying and snooping tips). It does seem to be part of the trend toward advising total control of your guy. (They also advocate insisting that he hang out with your friends and family whenever you demand. His stupid sporting events or his "work" should be no excuse for skipping this duty.)
Most of the time, these tips read like pet-training manuals. Sure, they might work. But do you really want a pet for a lover?
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