There is a new show on tv where they ask you all kinds of probing personal questions and all you have to do to win money is to tell the truth. When I first saw the commercials, I was repulsed. They were asking personal questions about family skeletons, and hurtful questions that could only damage feelings. But yesterday I started watching the episodes they have posted online. And they are quite fascinating. One family that was on was so obviously well-adjusted, they were still going to be speaking on the way home, even though a few of the answers surprised them.
Then there was the woman that took off her wedding ring when going out with her girlfriends, admitted to cheating on her husband, admitted that she was in love with another man on her wedding day, AND admitted that she thought she should really be married to that man. The question she lost on? They asked her if she believed she was a good person. She said yes. The lie detector said she didn't believe that. Go figure.
Apparently the idea the maker had was that telling the truth would set these people free. Oh, and also maybe boost ratings when they cry and lives are ruined. But they would be free in their ruination. I guess I can't mock too much since I watched it. And I don't think it really ruined any lives, although there will be some tense conversations on the way home. I think as much as the girlfriends or spouses said they were surprised by certain answers, deep down they weren't. There was one where the guy is a total jerk and his girlfriend should run fast and far away. They really did her a favor. Her boyfriend was a vapid narcissist and also inconsiderate.
It was interesting to hear some of those questions and be able to look at the person and predict the answers, usually correctly. It was cause for some self reflection. How would I answer those questions? A lot of the questions as you get higher up are tricky. They ask you if you think you are honest and on the surface, you might think you are honest, but deep, deep down, you know you aren't because you sometimes take a pastry home from work or something. And they do the actual lie detector test ahead of time, so I have to wonder if they ask slightly different questions there, because they sometimes seem surprised by the questions. Also I think some people aren't in touch with their inner self. You can win 500,000 dollars but no one has gotten past 100,000, and several have lost whatever they had earned because they totally thought they were telling the truth but the machine said they were lying. And they have not only upset their family but they have no more money than they came with. That does not sound like good times to me.
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