Monday, November 12, 2012

"I'm Not Drinking" Decoy #2

This one is a little bit more limited in its application, but if you can make it work for you, it's a great one!

Insist that you are dehydrated/have a headache from some strenuous physical activity.

I first dropped this excuse the afternoon after my 10K; my brother's baseball team was having a fundraiser at a bar, and not a person questioned my decision to drink water once they had heard I ran a 10K a mere five hours earlier. I may have gotten some grief from a few people, but my slight gimp from sore legs and incredibly lethargic demeanor seemed to sell them on the fact that I, in fact, probably shouldn't be drinking.

Of course, this excuse is not only extremely dependent on there being a reason for you to be dehydrated, but also on it being believable that you accomplished said physical activity. If I had tried to pawn my dehydration off on completing a triathlon, it's doubtful anyone would have bought it. But since people were aware the road race was going on, and know that I lean more toward physical activity than being sedentary, no one really doubted me. Plus, my immediate family all knew I had been training, so it wasn't like the whole event came totally out of the blue. But, if you were wily enough, it could be possible to pull this one off as a total lie. Because aside from Darrell, no one was at the race and able to verify whether or not I actually ran.

Update: I also discovered that the 10K/strenuous activity excuse works as a good decoy to distract from the fact that you might be eating more than normal. Because it's totally believable that someone training for a road race, or even just doing more intense than usual workouts, is going to have an increased appetite. But again, it's certainly helpful if these claims fit in with the perceptions people have of you; if they know you are someone who has never ran more than a mile in your life, it might be a hard sell to convince them you aren't drinking/are eating more because you are training for a marathon. So make sure to be realistic.

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