I'm hurt by lies. In my relationships with other humans, the one thing that will always get to me is the betrayal of trust. Regardless of how close we are, or the specific nature of that relationship, I don't suffer blatant lies gladly. I've been known to talk and write at great length about truth, the beauty of truth, and my duty to it. This is most often in response to some misrepresentation of facts that someone has presented for public consumption, but this type of lie is generally one based upon ignorance (or occasionally stupidity). There is not often a deliberate attempt to deceive; it's usually just a matter of one person - or a group of people - whose beliefs are contrary to reality. That is ultimately excusable. But then there are those times when people are, for whatever reason, fully conscious of their falsehoods. They know the truth and lie anyway. They have the facts, but don't want you to know them. They somehow think that it will benefit them to be dishonest with you. Well, how should one react when one such person claims to love you? She lied to me again. We're not even together, and I cannot see how such an elaborate deception would have served any useful purpose to anyone, and yet she chose to lie to me again. I know her so well that I can often detect a lie without any tangible evidence to support my speculation. That's bad. That's really bad. I should never have been fed enough lies by anyone to be able to automatically recognize them when I hear them. First of all, there shouldn't have been any to begin with, but what's most inexplicable is that I don't think I should have been available to hear any more anyway. It's not like me to simply accept that this is the way things are. Trust derived from consistent honesty is fundamental to any relationship of which I feel that I can be a part, and I fail to understand how I've somehow managed to have one without that. How many times can I allow someone to lie to me before I've had enough? Had I asked myself that question before, my response would have simply been, "once." What has happened to me? Why am I so confused about my emotions in response to this issue? How should I feel? Betrayed? Which emotions should I attach to betrayal? Should I be angry? I am. Should I be upset? I am. Should I try to understand? I have, and I don't.