I’m going to make an observation:

Any instance where you were the “victim” (I’m talking about adults here) because someone “lied” to you or otherwise deceived you, may actually be the result of you choosing not to see the truth to begin with!

The degree by which you deceive yourself is the same degree you will be deceived by others…

The layers of rationale in which you have shrouded the “truth of something”, in order to justify your beliefs or actions, creates openings in your psyche. A “deceiver” will be able to recognize those openings and manipulate you.

You won’t see it coming because you have already accepted a similar level of deceit within yourself. In other words, you have desensitized yourself to the truth by your own compromise of personal honesty.

This makes you vulnerable to being compromised by someone else.

One thing a “con man” knows: You can’t cheat an honest person. He or she will not compromise on their inner foundation of moral and ethical values. One the other hand, you can cheat someone who is dishonest with themselves because they have already torn down the inner fence which keeps the predators at bay.

A “con man” just walks through the hole in the fence. He (or she) accomplishes this by using very same rationale the victim has already used on his or her self. The rationale and excuses the victim has already used as the basis of their own self-deception.

In essence, the victim’s own self-deception made it possible for the “deceiver” to deceive.

-Bob Baran