Plausible Deniability

“If you are not a practiced liar don’t try to start. It will backfire. You are dealing with pros. You would not believe the time and energy that real liars pour into honing their craft.” -Someone on Substack

Not to put too fine a point on it, but that’s exactly right.

I don’t think of myself as a liar. I’m an engineer. I almost never tell lies. Lies are dangerous and they’re a lot of work. Lies are unsophisticated at best and they take up a huge amount of working memory. Lies require backstories and supporting evidence. You never know when a lie will come unraveled due to factors beyond your control.

Bad liars always get caught. If not immediately, by the 2nd or 3rd interaction because the facts start to not add up. Timelines don’t make sense, contradictions appear. A bad liar overestimates their own intelligence and is insulting to the cognative powers of every person they speak to.

Granted, a lot of people are pretty stupid. Bad liars lying to bad listeners is a perfect storm of everyone getting what they deserve.

But if you’re gonna lie to me, you better put some effort into it. I play at a different level.

Like I said, I’m not a liar, I’m an engineer. I create scenarios that provide opportunity. By establishing habits and routines that are not questioned, lying is not necessary. I generally am where I say I am, doing what I said I was doing.

Leveraging an existing system for an ulterior motive is the definition of an elegant strategy.

You are dealing with pros. You would not believe the time and energy that real liars pour into honing their craft.

-Someone on Sunstack

As you may have guessed, the devil is in the details – down to minutia.

I build relationships from the ground up following my own rules. I set about creating expectations, leverage, and opportunities for things I’m not even doing yet but may do at some point. It’s too hard to change the rules midcourse so everything has to be established in the beginning.

Boundaries and respect for privacy

This is perhaps the most pivotal factor in the success of everything else. I never allow there to be any expectation of device or location sharing. My phone and my computer are mine – end of story. They are critical tools in my business and no one uses my devices but me. Need to look something up? Use your own. Don’t have one? Spend some money. The day I catch you or your kid using one of my devices is the last day of our relationship. This is Ground Rule #1.

But, of course, things have to be consistent. I never violate their privacy either. I don’t look through their phone. I don’t use their computer or open their mail. I don’t interrogate them.

I consider all of these privacy violating behaviors to be disrespectful but also pointless. You can’t stop someone from doing what they’re going to do (obviously). Being nosey and intrusive only motivates the other person to be more defensive and secretive. It does not actually alter behavior.

Last, but not least, I don’t give them reason to doubt me.

One last caveat: avoid forming relationships of any kind with people who are narcissistic, insecure, jealous and controlling. Remember Ground Rule #1. This type of person is inherently disrespectful and looking for trouble. They will never accept that the need for boundaries is non-negotiable.

Follow the routines

Do you see a practitioner on a regular basis? Go to a yoga class on the other side of town? Like to visit a certain store after a weekly obligation? Whatever the routines are, follow them whether they’re actively being leveraged or not. Don’t make a big deal about it and don’t provide superfluous details, just casually keep doing what you do.

Integration

Find legitimate ways of integrating what (or who) you want to do into situations that are not questioned. This often requires some kind of business arrangement. Either you hire them or they hire you and this business arrangement explains and justifies their presence in your life. Or maybe they’re part of an organization to which you belong. Birdwatchers Anonymous meets weekly and is full of interesting, like-minded people. This part is important; they have to be someone who is in your life organically, allowing for the principle of hiding in plain sight.

A flow chart with variables

There are literally endless ways in which these principals can be leveraged. It depends on the specific circumstances and what you wish to accomplish. What is always the same is the need to see the bigger picture and to think things through from many angles.

Start with, “how does this go wrong?” and reverse engineer. Is there a surface level plausible explanation for what you’re doing and/or time that is unaccounted for? The goal is always to do ordinary things that don’t draw attention thereby eliminating the need for excuses and lying.

The most elegant design is also the most simple.

Fight Club Rules

The more people are involved in a thing, the more likely the thing is to go wrong. Don’t talk about your exploits. Not to your friends, not to your other exploits, not to your relatives, not to anyone.

Not talking about it is difficult. Sometimes incredible things happen that would be so awesome to brag about but don’t do it. Likewise, there are times when it would be such a relief to unburden your conscience or to get some alternate point of view or advice, but it’s a bad idea.

Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

Every time you tell another person something they shouldn’t know, you create a liability. Never arm people with information they can use against you. The fact is that you simply don’t know what they might do. They could tell someone else. Or they might decide that they’re upset with you and want to use the information as leverage. If they’re a known friend, your spouse may decide to interrogate them. Anything at all could happen. Loose ends are very, very dangerous. No one can tell on you if they don’t know anything to begin with.

Word to the wise

I have refined these basic systems over decades, so don’t be fooled into over-simplifying or becoming over-confident because you got away with something once. I move through life with relative ease, doing whatever I want to do, but I never forget that every situation is wrought with unseen dangers like traffic light cameras or running into the wrong person at the wrong time. God forbid my car breaks down somewhere I’m not supposed to be. Understand that covert activities are inherently dangerous and it only takes one fuck-up to burn down a life or destroy a home. System failures will always involve innocent casualties. Have no illusions, you are playing with fire.

These games are not for amateurs.