Wiretap - All Lies Great and Small

Episode Date: July 13, 2020

Jonathan's mother confesses to a lifetime of lies. Plus, Jonathan invites a group of youngsters into the studio to play "Canada's Littlest Liar".

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Want to know more? Know it now. Find the latest season wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. You're listening to Wiretap with Jonathan Goldstein on CBC Radio 1. Today's episode, All Lies Great and Small, in which a lifetime of lies is revealed, a roundtable is convened, and an internet love affair is uncovered.

Oh, my gosh, she's getting on. A couple of weeks ago, I was driving back from New York with my parents when my mother lets loose with this. I lie like a pro. You would never even know I'm lying. I sometimes believe my own lies. Now, my mother is at this moment admitting what I've always suspected but could never confirm that she is an.

amazing liar. And she's proud of this. Things from my childhood like, you're the best son in the world, and this is the best drawing of a robot I've ever seen, all shadowed by doubt. So I'm sitting there kind of dumbstruck, but trying to play it cool, I ask her about her techniques. I can make you believe things. Go ahead, tell me a lie.

People are basically good, and they're interesting when you get to know. know them. And I enjoy their company. Wait, so that's a lie? You don't believe that? Of course not. I don't like everyone. Some people get on my nerves. Some people I don't like. Can't like everyone. It's impossible. No, you can't like everyone, but at least you can pretend to. And not only does my mother pride herself on her pretending, but she also keeps a tight reign on the pretending of others.

Like, for instance, sometimes in the middle of a meal, my father will start to tell me how he really feels about a girlfriend of mine, when suddenly the table will just jump up and down, like off its legs. My father will let out a stifled yell, and then he'll abruptly stop whatever he's saying. What just happened, I'll ask. Nothing, he'll say. You were just talking, I'll say. And mom obviously didn't like what you were saying because she clearly just kicked you under the table, and now you've stopped talking.

I wasn't talking, he'll say, and no one kicked me. Then he'll go back to wincing in pain and rubbing his leg under the table. I ask my father how he handles the pressure of keeping up with my mother's lies. For example, you know, I like a little shot before my meal. Like you're talking about booze?

Yeah. And she knows that I'm doing it. But I'll find all kinds of ploys, I'll go downstairs, I'll have a shot, and I'll sit down and have myself, and she could look at my eyes and know that I had a shot, and I'll swear that I didn't. But she knows I'm lying, and I'm not good at it. But I'll keep denying, because she taught me years ago, your mother.

If you tell her lie, deny, deny, deny, keep denying. So I do it. It's as simple as that. But what I would really like, you know, ideally, is I don't have to slouch away like an animal down into the basement. I would like to be like a man with my chest out, open a drawer, take a decanter out and pour myself a shot and say, look, I am like a man.

Life ain't easy, my boy. Life indeed is not easy. And that's why we invented lying. To make it just a little bit more bearable, for ourselves and for others. Where would we be without, let's do lunch sometime, or you haven't changed a bit?

And I think this is something from a very young age we just intuitively get. Man is called the speaking animal, but I would go so far as to call him the lying animal. True, half true, a blatant lie? I decided to convene a roundtable to discuss. I figured I have a radio show

why not start convening roundtables? So, I did. I can't really remember last time someone did a bad lie to me. Okay, so I convened a round table of children. But still, that's a round table. The table was round, we had glasses of water, and everything. And who better to talk to about lying than kids? With their making believe, great imaginations,

and near lack of moral compass or sense of social consequence, kids truly are built for lying. I brought in Atara, age 11, Liam, also 11, and Liam's younger brother, Daniel, age 8. But while we were setting up the mics, Liam told me that he'd misunderstood that he thought he'd been brought in to talk not about lying, but about lions.

I asked him if he was putting me on. No, I was totally telling the truth. You thought we were going to talk about lions? Yeah, I mean, I actually convinced everyone else It was about lions, too. But didn't you find that a bit odd? Like, why? I mean, you're not an expert on lions that I know of.

I actually found it really weird. I was like, oh, I forgot to research lions this morning. So you must be relieved that it's actually about lying. Yeah, I'm used to lying. In fact, you were probably going to be lying about your knowledge of lions. Yeah, I think so. Okay, well, let's go around the table here. Liam, have you ever told a lie?

Yes. You didn't even have to think about that What was the last lie that you told? My last real lie? I don't know, but it happens all the time. They just happen, it's just so often that you can't keep track of them all. Yeah.

I don't really like lying, but it gives you a little thrill. Whenever you lie and the person buys it, you're like, oh, I'm at the top of the world right now. Do you guys think of yourselves as good liars? I think I'm a pretty good liar because, like, I don't tell lies that much, So when I do tell a lie, no one really knows I do.

And what about you, Daniel? Can you remember the last lie that you told? No, I don't remember, but I do know the lie that I got tricked into thinking that was true. What's that? That painted pabbles were nerds, and I ate them. You mean nerds of little candies? Yeah. That's terrible because you could have hurt yourself.

You could have broken a tooth. It's pretty funny. Okay, so I thought we could play a little game that I thought. I like to call Canada's littlest liar. Liam and Atara, I'm going to give you a few seconds to each write down two true statements and one falsehood. And I'm going to try to guess which one is the lie. Okay, so the challenge is to get it by me. Okay.

Got it. Daniel, you're going to help me cue up the game show music, okay? Okay. Okay, you ready? Yeah, you're ready. Okay, go. Okay, and time's up. Okay, why don't we start with you, Atara?

What do you got? Number one, my favorite singer is Justin Bieber. Mm-hmm. Our old car was white. Mm-hmm. And number three is me and my brother got stuck on a train alone in Switzerland. Okay, this raises some interesting points, I think, about lying. The last one, I find a lot of times people get needlessly complicated when they're telling a lie.

So I think I'm going to have to say that the last one, the complicated one about being stuck on a train, was a lie. It's not a lie. Well, which one was a lie? My old car was white. It was blue. It's the old, such a simple kind of lie. You don't think it's going to be a lie, lie. God.

Do you think that girls are better liars? than boys? I actually do. Because I find girls think more than boys about what they're doing. Hmm. Like, because, like,

I wrote one that was true and it was, like, really long and complicated, so you would think that it's a lie. So you faked me out? Yeah. So you were already

one step ahead of me. You were thinking... I knew you were going to choose that one. Okay, I fell right into it. I fell right into the trap. Uh, all right. And Liam. Number one

Yes As a child I love chicken But I haven't actually had any In almost two and a half years As a child you love chicken But I haven't had any in two and a half years And yet you haven't had any Number two

I like tomatoes Number three I can do a backflip on a trampoline Okay you used to like chicken That one sounded odd But so odd actually that it seemed like it wasn't something That someone can invent Two you do like tomatoes Say it again?

I like tomatoes. I like tomatoes. Say it again? I like tomatoes. How many times I need to repeat this? I like tomatoes. I like tomatoes. Okay, I believe you.

I buy it. I think it's that last one, the backwards trampoline when I think that that's your lie. Incorrect. I'm wrong? I can do backflip on a trampoline. He hates tomatoes almost as much as I do.

You guys, you don't like, who doesn't like tomatoes? I don't know. I hate tomatoes. I love ketchup. I love ketchup. And yet you don't like tomatoes. Fascinating. Well, let me ask you guys this as a part of my expert panel. How can you tell if someone is lying?

When you know someone well, you could tell if they're lying. I mean, like for Daniel, I can because we're related. So he tells the same lies as I did when I was his age. Like, what happened? He always kind of gets nervous. and whenever you say I'm sorry if I'm embarrassing you but whenever you say

I wash my hands I know it's not true I wash my hands Uh huh Because he's According to your theory He has never washed his hands once He watches his hands like once every two days

It's gross Yes I do Well you know what I think this whole panel Confirmed what I already thought I knew Coming in is that kids are great liars I think you're right Thank you guys

all for coming in. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having us on the show. Oh, thank you very much, Daniel. You'll have to forgive me if I don't shake your hand. In 1996, my mom bought our family's first computer, and I spent the next three years turning into other people. I was 11 years old, and I'd just started middle school.

I'd hair down to my waist that I wore in a ponytail with a middle part, and giant kind of sallied Jesse Raphael glasses that dwarfed my face. And I didn't have a lot of friends. Kids called me Cyclops because I had a lazy eye. And it was just unpleasant. Every day it was rough. And I remember one time I tried to take the initiative, and I spoke to my teacher,

and I said, listen, these kids are teasing me every single day. You've got to do something. And the first thing she says is, Taylor, I know you want to be like them. I know that you're the child of a single. mother and your mom makes you take care of your little brother, and that must be hard. And I just got up and I went home. Every day was like that. It was like the kids were tormenting me and I had no allies.

The teachers were completely oblivious. But then I discovered AOL chat rooms. I started checking them all out. There were tons of them in every imaginable category. As I went into each one, I noticed the same thing was scrolling across the story. screen each time. It was a slash S slash L, age, sex location. And then people were responding with things like 16 slash F slash Burbank. And that's when I realized that I could put anything I wanted. And I kind of have my fingers poised over the keyboard. And I realize that now is the time

when I can not be 11 and not be super into overalls and be whoever I want. And so, So I type 35 slash M slash Brisbane Australia. The woman who seemed to be the leader in the group who asked me to introduce myself, her screen name was Mommy, R-N-S-N-S-N-C-C. And we hit it off right away. And we started instant messaging, which is a private chat between two people only. We start just telling each other about ourselves. She tells me what her screen name means, mommy, because she's a mommy.

And then RNSNCC are the initials of her husband and all of her kids. And then we exchange photos. And I sent her a candid backstage photo of the lead singer of Savage Garden. It's taken with a digital camera by some fan I found on the internet, so it looks totally legit. And this is before Google and before there were a lot of websites where you could clearly see that this is a famous person. And so I sent her that. I said it was me.

And she sent me a picture of herself. And it truly was her because it was an older woman, late 30s, in her kitchen with her mouth open. She was laughing. And she had kind of a baggy denim dress, kind of like what you would see seventh grade math teachers wear. And very fine, mousy hair. And she told me that she was Mormon and she lived in Idaho. And she had four kids. and her husband didn't pay much attention to her.

I was a single father. I had an estranged wife. I told her that I had two kids. They were twin boys. They were a year old. And I sent her pictures of them, too. Which were? One was a picture of one of the Hanson kids

when he was a baby that I found. From the band? From the band Hanson. Uh-huh. And then I scanned. a picture of my friend when he was a baby, but they're fraternal twins, so it was cool that they didn't look the same. Oh, I see. And for whatever reason, it was a total thrill to talk to her, and we were just immediately talking for probably four to five hours a night. Every night?

Every single night. And so I'd come home, I'd turn the computer on, and from maybe after dinner till three or four in the morning, we were talking every single day. What would you talk about? I spent a lot of time on the estranged wife because there's a lot of material there. So I told her we met in high school, which she could relate to because she met her husband in high school.

And I said we had kids really young. She had kids really young. Without knowing it, I was kind of hitting all the points that really resonated with her because that's exactly what her life was like. I was unhappy with my marriage. she was unhappy with hers. I felt like there was more to life

than just being a single father. She felt like there was more to life than being a mother of four with a totally absent husband. But I mean, as an 11-year-old, what did you know about having a relationship, let alone becoming disenchanted in that relationship? That's why it's so fabulous.

I just, I felt possessed. I felt like I really was this 35-year-old Australian man. I really was this guy. I watched a lot of date line. And so my perception of what it was like to be an adult was that their lives are filled with drama and pain. And I wanted to get in on that because I had a lot of pain, but I had no outlet for it.

So I diagnosed my character with manic depression. So I had him go to the doctor, he gets diagnosed, and then I had to choose an antidepressant for him. So I researched all the antidepressants, and I decided that Welbutrin was a pretty good one because the side effects were mild. So when I would talk to her, I'd say things like, oh, you know, today was rough.

It's so hard raising two kids when you're nauseous and you have dry mouth. Because that was one of the side effects of the side of fact, right? We talked about sex too, which was super stimulating for me because I was 11, and I would tell her things like I took a woman on a date, and we had a couple glasses of wine in my place, and we were holding hands, and then we took a shower together. And that was just so hot and heavy for me. It was really even hard for me to type it out, and she loved it.

And it was great because she was a Mormon woman. I was an 11-year-old girl. I was her dream man. You refer to him as a character. Is that how you think? thought of him at the time? No, I thought of him as part of me. Whenever I had an actual problem in my life, I would just channel it through my character. If I couldn't get a boyfriend in eighth grade because I had a lazy eye and giant glasses and a lot of acne,

I would channel that into the fact that my 35-year-old character couldn't get a date because he had to take care of his two young kids and he just didn't have time and he didn't feel sexy anymore. and she would respond with the kind of empathy that I needed to hear but I was too ashamed to actually talk to people in my real life about my problems so I could get this kind of

it was this bizarre she would I mean she was a mother and she was in her late 30s so she was about the age of my mom who I didn't really feel comfortable talking to about things so when I came home and I saw that I had this like portal to another world It was this huge release and it was for some reason

exactly what I needed. I had started this relationship at 11 and it had been three years. Three years you kept this up. Like I was almost 14. And like this is taking over my life. I didn't have any friends. I hung out with this woman on the internet every day.

At this point, it was getting too close. I mean, she was saying stuff like, I hope my daughter marries one of your sons, and she wanted to talk to me on the phone. Right. I had to take a break. So I came up with a visit to see my estranged wife. My kids were getting older. She wasn't calling. She wasn't a part of my life or their life.

I sent her pictures. She didn't reply. It was almost as though she didn't exist. Yeah. Yeah. So I took a break. I took a week off, and it was rough. Um, when I, so when I came back from that week, the, the fictional week and the real week, uh, I got, I logged on and she was there as always. And she instant message me and said, uh, you know, have you been? And I said, not great. And, uh, we talked for about four hours about the meeting with my estranged wife who, I feel like she's bipolar. She had emotional and psychological problems and just manipulative. And we were so young when we met. I,

you know, head over heels for her and now I could see what the monster that she'd become, you know. And we were talking for hours and I got off, I logged off, I think the sun was coming up and I kind of dragging my feet up the stairs to my bedroom, which by the way was pink and had hardboard or wallpaper. So I went up to my room and I got in bed and I just had this tension in my chest and I was going through what I had been telling mommy about my estranged wife. and you know when you're a kid and you make a fist and then you kiss it because it's kind of like a mouth

so I kind of did that and I was having an argument with myself but my estranged wife so I was saying I can't believe you're doing this to me what about our kids and then she would say I love you

but I can't not hurt you and then I kind of like brought the fist up like it was her and kiss her and then I like collapsed back onto my bed and I was actually crying I was having this argument trying not to be loud but I was crying and then I passed out and the next day I woke up and I was like you know where do you where do you go from that what's after

that I mean where do you go as a person when you're having a fake conversation with yourself in your childhood bedroom crying and you're almost 14 years old and you're kissing your hand like it's your estranged wife in Australia. You're like channeling some childhood sadness and fears and anger and it's coming out, why is it coming out this way? And why is that your release? And why don't you have a boyfriend? And just a lot of questions, just a lot of questions that I didn't want to answer. I just felt physically dirty. I just the thought of going on the computer and talk to her, it could never be the same as it was. And so I logged into the screen name that I had been using

to be this character and I deleted everything. I decided it was like taking a band-aid off. I knew that if I thought about it, I'd be like, oh, well, you know, I'll come up with a story and instead I'll just tell her something and then maybe we can talk once a week.

It doesn't have to be this thing that controls my life. But I couldn't be like that. I had to just get out. Did you consider just telling her the truth? I considered maybe for 30 seconds telling her, but how devastating would that be? I mean, what does that mean if you've spent the last three years of your life as an adult woman talking to an 11-year-old girl? I mean, she told me some really personal things. I mean, an 11-year-old girl also that you were possibly starting to fall in love with.

Yeah. I mean, at 14, I was world-aware enough to know that if I told her, that would be really devastating to her. I didn't want to hurt her The thought of hurting her really hurt me And so I canned that idea And then the only other idea I had Was just to disappear And leave it up to her to wonder what happened

It was really like losing a really good friend I would cry about it I mean afterwards there was just this loneliness And this kind of emptiness I wouldn't get as much pleasure out of hanging out with my actual friends because it just, it wasn't as exciting. It was, you know, 14-year-old problems,

going to the mall and getting made fun of. I couldn't talk about, you know, going on a first date when you haven't dated in five years and thinking maybe you can have a new mother for your children. Nothing was as profound. The relationship I had with Mommy was, even though on the surface it was not real, the feelings

that I injected into the story were real and I think that's why she bought it for so long is that it wasn't me making up this fantastic story about being a man and being a father it was a human being talking to a human being somebody who felt lost and like they hadn't been listened to and they felt cheated

and I think that's what she identified. that you were those things or that she was those things maybe that we were both those things did it ever strike you that maybe mommy was also like this 11-year-old girl who would scan a picture of you know her aunt or something like that yeah I like to think that there's no other 11-year-old girl like the 11-year-old girl that I was but that's just me. On Wiretap today, you heard Buzz and Dina Goldstein, Daniel and Liam Jewer Smith and Atara Laur. You also heard Taylor Tower, whose story was first told as part of Montreal's confabulation storytelling series. Wiretap is produced by Jonathan Goldstein.

with Mirra Birdwind Tonic and Crystal Duhame. Jonathan Goldstein's firetap. I have to be. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca.com.