“Ask Kai: Advice for the Apocalypse” is a column by Kai Cheng Thom to help you survive and thrive in a challenging world. Have a question? Email askkai@xtramagazine.com.
Dear Kai,
When is a lie unforgivable? I recently found out that one of my closest friends, a member of my chosen family, has been pretending to be poor all this time when secretly they’re actually super rich … and honestly, as someone who has actually experienced real financial insecurity, it just disgusts me.
My friend and I are both non-binary and in our mid-30s. We met in undergrad, and we hit it off right away as awkward queerdos amid the normies. They introduced me to feminism, queer politics, class politics, even the concept of being non-binary. They’ve always pushed me to be better and do better when it comes to living my values. And you know what else? They always described themself as “working class,” as hating “bougie” people, as someone who experiences “material insecurity.” They would talk about growing up worrying about money, being impacted by services that weren’t sliding scale, and so on. I always believed them because I had no reason not to.
Recently, they told me that they bought a house. A whole freaking million-dollar detached house in a major city. When I asked them how, they said that their parents “helped out a bit with the down payment” and when I asked how much, it was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. When I asked how that was possible, they said that their parents have “always had some money in the background.” Basically it turns out that they have been really well off the whole time. I couldn’t even look at them.
They said they were afraid to tell people because they didn’t want to be “judged by community” and their “access to generational wealth” has been shaky because they’re queer and their parents are homophobic. Not homophobic enough not to BUY A FREAKING HOUSE for them, apparently. I’m not mad that my friend is rich. I’m mad that they lied and pretended to be someone they’re not. And for what? Some irrelevant kind of activist cred? Why would someone do something like this? I don’t know if I’m overreacting. I know that this lie doesn’t really affect me and my life, and maybe I should just get over it. But I also don’t know if I can forgive them.
Bamboozled, Flabbergasted & Furious
Dear BFF,
You have every right to be angry. We rely on the words of our close friends and chosen family to let us know that we are safe with them and understood by them, that they have our backs in an unpredictable world. Queer folks particularly depend on our friends to help us grow and survive. When such a significant deception is suddenly revealed in an important relationship, it feels like walking up a familiar staircase, only to have one of the steps give way. It makes you wonder how safe that staircase ever was in the first place. It makes you wonder what other parts of the house might be broken.
What I find most interesting about lies isn’t what they hide, but rather what they reveal. Once spotted, a lie can often tell you something important about the liar: What they care about. What they fear. How they want to be perceived and how they wish to see themselves. In Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, iconic pathological liar Blanche DuBois spins a web of falsehoods about her age, her financial straits, her relationship history and her intentions, all in the hopes of clinging to her fading glory days as a formerly wealthy Southern belle. Caught in her lies by a man she hoped to seduce into marriage, Blanche cries out, “Never inside, I never lied in my heart!”
I think about Blanche a lot when I think about the peculiar phenomenon of people in queer and trans communities—and perhaps more broadly, in social-justice-oriented communities—pretending to be more socio-economically disadvantaged than they really are. This sort of thing ran rampant among a certain crowd of mostly (but not entirely) white, middle- and upper-class queer and trans folks when I was in university, and I still encounter it fairly frequently today.
I suspect, BFF, that the people who do this are, ironically, trying to express a certain truth about themselves through the deception; that is to say, their deep desire to belong to something bigger, and perhaps better, than themselves. Like Blanche DuBois, their mistruths are a reflection of how they’d like to be seen in order to best get their needs for connection and esteem met. Where Blanche pretends to be wealthy and glamorous, folks like your friend pretend to be poor and abject. I suspect that the goal of the lie, however, is similar: like Blanche, I imagine that your friend was presenting a story that they felt made them most lovable (to themself as well as to others) at the time.
“Rather than face that we can be both oppressed and complicit in oppression at the same time, some people feel the need to choose a simpler story.”
Queer and social justice culture have done a good job teaching us to empathize with the oppressed and the underdogs—perhaps they have not done as well at teaching us how to simultaneously acknowledge and be critical of the aspects of ourselves that are privileged by the dominant culture. Perhaps rather than face the fact that we can be both oppressed and complicit in oppression at the same time, some people feel the need to choose a simpler story where they are always an underdog hero and never a villain.
Perhaps reading the above has made you feel softer toward your friend, BFF, or perhaps it has only enraged you more. Either reaction would be understandable; on one hand, looking more deeply into a liar’s motivations often awakens our compassion. On the other, unresolved emotional needs are not an excuse to appropriate other people’s experiences and pull them into our own psychodrama.
When it comes to forgiveness, I think that the first step is to assess is your friend’s ability and willingness to have the hard conversation and fully acknowledge the reality that they are living in: one where they are benefitting from unearned financial privilege and where they lied (or at least, were not fully honest and misled by omission) about it to you. How much are they able to own up to their actions and their privileges? Are they able to hear and understand the impact on you? Can they learn from this experience? And if so, does that help you to feel more trust in the relationship?
I might also encourage you, BFF, to consider if there have been moments in your life where you failed to represent yourself with the full truth, or where you compromised authenticity for the sake of belonging. This isn’t to say that you’ve done anything “just as bad” as your friend, but rather a reminder that sometimes connecting to our own flaws can be helpful in making room for the mistakes of others. What your friend did hurt you, yes, but as you’ve mentioned, there were also many times that they gave you important gifts: insight to who you are and what kind of person you want to be. It may be important to acknowledge those gifts as real and important, regardless of everything else that has happened.
If, having explored all of these angles, you still can’t find it in yourself to forgive, then it might be time to consider the possibility that the friendship has run its course, at least for now. Forgiveness is a choice, not a moral requirement, which means that we are allowed to choose not to. Some relationships can’t be repaired, and that doesn’t mean that you’ve failed, BFF. It just means that it’s time to let go, and to grieve the connection you had.
I’m sorry your friend lied to you, BFF. You deserved the truth. In moments where trust is broken in our closest relationships, it’s more important than ever to trust ourselves. Listen to your own heart. It will tell you what you need.
Kai Cheng Thom is no longer a registered or practicing mental health professional. The opinions expressed in this column are not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content in this column, including, but not limited to, all text, graphics, videos and images, is for general information purposes only. This column, its author, Xtra (including its parent and affiliated companies, as well as their directors, officers, employees, successors and assigns) and any guest authors are not responsible for the accuracy of the information contained in this column or the outcome of following any information provided directly or indirectly from it.
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