Sometimes it just happens: little white lies to make someone feel better, excuses to explain why the homework isn’t done, or elaborate lies just for the fun of it. According to a 2002 study by University of Massachusetts, about 60 percent of people lie at least once during a ten-minute conversation. So if lying is so widespread, why is it looked down on so often?

Sometimes people who are frequent liars are seen as untrustworthy. But while it’s true that lying isn’t a very trustworthy characteristic, there are plenty of reasons why it happens. Speaking from personal experience, I can say that lying isn’t always done with harmful intentions. Sometimes people lie to protect themselves or even to have fun.

During middle school, I lied to my friends and classmates that my best friend Grace was my twin sister. We came up with the story together, thinking it would be a fun joke, and since she didn’t go to my school we figured it wouldn’t be hard to convince everyone. Our fun idea quickly became an in-depth lie as I told people that Grace was a cancer survivor, and that she was a genius and went to boarding school, which was why no one had ever met her.

We kept the lie up for over a year, but then at the beginning of freshman year my friends finally discovered the truth. I had expected them to find the whole thing funny, but a lot of people were really mad at me. I think the reason they were so mad was because all of a sudden they felt like they couldn’t trust me anymore.

I can understand why they felt somewhat hurt. Sometimes people do lie to hurt others, and people learn to mistrust lies of any kind. There are times when lying to your friends is basically betraying their trust, and I don’t think that that kind of lying should go unpunished. But this was not that kind of lie.

If my lie had actually hurt anyone I would’ve stopped, and that’s the way I feel that all lies should be treated. Lies that are hurtful for the person telling them or anyone else involved are wrong, but sometime lying is okay and sometimes lies may actually help.

When it comes down to it, I think there are a lot of reasons why people lie. Sometimes it really is to hurt people or be mean, because, unfortunately, that happens. But for some people there really is no other option, or it’s just the easier option, or they are trying to be funny. Sometimes people lie about things that they think will make them cooler. During a survey by a British film company, 30 percent of the people lied about seeing The Godfather.

Lying can be a difficult choice to make, and it’s even harder to admit that you’ve lied. So, while I don’t exactly encourage telling an in-depth lie about siblings you don’t have, I also won’t judge people who choose to do that. I think that when people get mad about others lying they need to remember that lying happens all the time and most people do end up lying at some point in their lives.