If someone told lies about you, what would you do?
I don't mean unintentional little fibs. I mean full-throttle, out-and-out intentional untruths.
Lies designed to make you look bad.
Lies designed to make them look good or to cover their sorry butts.
And what would you do if you found out about those lies but the liar doesn't know that you know about them. (does that make sense?) And to compound it all, the liar writes you an apology email, in which he lumps all of those hurtful lies under the category of "I let stuff get out of control...[i]t was mostly me"?
Do you confront the liar? Do you say "I understand that you told X these things and Y these other things. Is this true? Why did you lie about me?"
Do you let it go? Forgive and move on?
Do you ignore the apology email or acknowledge it?
I heard that this apology email was probably on its way to me. And, to be honest, I was looking forward to it. Not that I wanted the writer to grovel, but because he and I used to be good friends. The kind of good friends who tell each other the truth, and who listen to the other's advice and wisdom. And he shunted me out of his life when I asked him if he was being honest in his dealings with his wife and family. So I was hoping that his apology would be a sincere expression of regret for the lies he told about me, and for killing the messenger (so to speak).
Instead I got bragging about his accomplishments. Whining about how another friend and I are mad at him. And "I'm so sorry for [the] way things turned out between us". And "I should not have reacted the way I did. I regret doing that!"
I know, men are never good at saying "I was wrong. I am sorry." (I know, blatant sexism on my part - sorry, but that has been my experience) And maybe for this guy, this is as close to that as I will ever get.
But what bugs me is that he never acknowledged the fact that he intentionally lied in order to turn people against me and to bolster his self-importance.
He was dishonest and behaved in the most unfriendly manner possible, and yet he turns it around to sound like I am the one who told him to take a hike!
