But lets be real: you truly do know best. Experts now believe that we may be better at unconscious lie detection than we are at searching for signs, so if your gut senses something’s up, pay attention.
1. Speaking in a weirdly formal or distant way
Bill Clinton’s infamous “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” speech is memorable for the same reasons it’s a red flag: the awkward phrasing. Clinton’s use of “did not” instead of “didn’t,” and clunky “have sexual relations“ that woman” are tip-offs that he wanted to distance himself as much as possible from the dirty, dirty truth. Another common distancing move: removing the “I” pronoun from stories.
2. Changes in tone of voice or emotional “flare ups”
You’re in a better spot than most FBI agents when it comes to interrogation: as half of an intimate relationship, you know your partner’s normal speech patterns (which is the purpose behind questions like, “What’s your full name?”). So, you’ll know something’s up if your bae’s voice gets squeaky, or if speech patterns are different (ie. there’s lots of long pauses, stammering, weird intonation). Same goes for random defensive outbursts around certain questions or topics.
3. Taking a long time to respond to a question
Simply put, the truth doesn’t require a lot of prep time. This goes for texts too.
4. Overly complicated or long answers to simple questions
This is just another form of stalling, because we all subconsciously hate lying. Note whether your questions ever actually get answered, or if you get weirdly mismatched responses that are sorta kinda on the topic. (Note: this should beespecially obvious in emails).
5. Changing the subject
As with avoiding talking about a topic (or taking a really long time to give you an answer), good liars will not just change the subject—they’ll change it toyou. Who cares where they were tonight, what did YOU do?
(I’m pretty sure one guy did this to me re: his entire personal life for the three months we pseudo-dated to successfully avoid the topic of his live-in girlfriend. Deception level: expert.)
6. Overuse of details about that other thing you didn’t really want to talk about
Basically, we all suck at lying and hate doing it, so we’ll talk about a million other truthful things first. Of course, if an entire story is fake, overuse of detail is an attempt at making it seem convincing. Take note of any suddentense changes in all this yarn spinning—a jump to present from past is a hint that what you’ve been hearing is being made up RIGHT NOW.
7. Mismatched body language
Yeah no… when your boyfriend or girlfriend is telling a whole long story about how their friend got drunk and puked everywhere and they had to go back to their place and change and THAT’S why they’re four hours late and obviously just took a shower, check their facial expressions and body language. Shaking their head “no” when answering affirmatively, or smirking when they’re supposedly “really sorry” are tells.
8. Leaving or refusing to talk about a subject
You ever notice how cheaters that ultimately turn out to be guilty on TV and in movies are just so offended that you would even suspect that, that they won’t dignify the conversation?
If that happens in real life because you said, “Gosh, you’re home late!” and your person books without even seeming particularly angry, it’s a bad sign. They don’t want to talk about something they’ll have to lie about (hence the leaving), but they won’t be able to summon any fight-fueling righteous anger through all that guilt.
9. Verbally overcompensating
To be honest… this is bad news bears. Methinks your boo protesteth too much with the “seriouslys,” “honestlys,” and “reallys.” Look for qualifiers too —”to the best of my knowledge,” or “as far as I can remember.”
source: bustle.com