I visited other sites yesterday and saw a fair amount of outrage and pearl-clutching going on because Dosan lied on behalf of JP.

I’m not going to talk about lying from the legal perspective since none of the characters testified under oath and committed perjury. I’m not going to talk about lying from an ethical standpoint because it’ll take me at least 2 weeks to discuss consequentialists vs deontologists (lol. No, they’re not the same as dentists). And I’m not going to talk about lying from a theological perspective because heyyyyy…we all know that the 8th commandment is “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

But I’m going to give you two ways of looking at lying from a behavioral perspective.

1. prosocial lie (white lie) vs antisocial lie (black lie)

What we used to call simply as “white lie” is now referred to as prosocial lie. This is a lie said to benefit someone else. It’s called “prosocial” because the lie stems from a desire to preserve harmony, avoid conflict and foster good relationships.

A prosocial liar shows empathy and compassion for the “target” of the lie. To me, the perfect example of a prosocial liar is Dalmi’s Grandma in Episode 1. She sees Dalmi suffering when her sister went away, and feels sorry for her (empathy). So she alleviates Dalmi’s suffering by giving her an imaginary friend in the form of a penpal (compassion). She writes the letters with the help of a reluctant JP.

The other prosocial liar here is Dosan in Episode 2. From JP, he learns about Dalmi’s desperate search for her penpal from childhood. Then, he feels sorry for her after he read her letter about the unopened music box, and her text saying that she was waiting for him at the party (empathy). So he alleviates her suffering and humiliation by showing up at the party as her imaginary boyfriend (compassion) — despite JP calling off the arrangement.

When Dalmi is about to confess to her sister and mother that she lied about her boyfriend, Dosan holds her hand back and replaces it on the crook of his elbow. He’s keeping up the pretense.

In both the Grandma’s and Dosan’s cases, their lies are justified since they’re benevolent in essence. Their lies are intended to spare Dalmi from suffering more.

In contrast to a prosocial liar, an antisocial liar lies strictly for his/her own personal benefit. The lie is considered “antisocial” because there’s no sense of guilt or remorse for hurting others with the lie. The lie is calculated to gain an advantage. It’s narcissistic.

The best example of antisocial liar is InJae. She overhears Director Yoon crediting the origin and logo of Sand Box to a doting father who didn’t want his daughter getting hurt when playing on the swing. Injae then lies on her application, and claims to be the beloved daughter for whom the sand box was made.

An antisocial lie is also called a black lie, I guess, because only black-hearted persons lie like this.

2. Honesty vs Kindness

The problem with WHITE lies is that it pits two moral virtues against each other: honesty and kindness. We want people to both be honest and kind at the same time. However, there are many situations when it’s difficult, or even impossible, to juggle both virtues.

Take for instance that dreadful question, “Honey, do I look fat in these jeans?” If the girlfriend is literally bursting the seams of the pants, then the hapless boyfriend is trapped between being honest or kind to his chubby…err…voluptuous girlfriend.

If he honestly agrees, “yes, you look fat,” he’s going to sound mean. If he answers with kindness, “no, you look good,” his nose extends by a inch.

Now, if this dilemma occurs during the early stage of a romance, kindness may be more of a prevailing concern than honesty. The boyfriend will go with a safe lie: “Honey, you look fine to me.”

However, during the later stage of the relationship, honesty becomes more of a priority than kindness. The boyfriend is more comfortable speaking the truth. He’s more likely to say, “Honey, let’s try on another designer jeans.” Such honesty is a sign of growing trust and intimacy.

In this Episode 6, both JP and Dosan faced situations where they were required to balance honesty with kindness.

For JP, he was caught tongue-tied when Dalmi asked him why he was helping them. “Why did you go to great lengths to help us even if it meant you had to lie?” She would later admit to him that she suspected that he was showing interest in her romantically, not professionally.

To me, the fact that she was willing to confront him and possibly get him to respond that he was doing it out of feelings for her, indicated that she was NOT embarrassed to talk about his feelings. Moreover, if she wasn’t embarrassed to confront him about his feelings for her at that very moment indicated to me that she was going to turn him down.

That is, she wanted no misunderstanding about their relationship. She didn’t want him to harbor any romantic feelings for her that would make a working relationship between them uncomfortable, going forward.

Do you understand what I mean? Dalmi was thinking ahead.

Now, JP didn’t know how to respond to her question, so he ran away. And when he was alone, he argued with himself. “What’s wrong with me? It’s not like I did anything wrong…. But what am I going to tell her? I don’t have any answer.”

Honesty vs kindness.

He could have delivered the bombshell that he was helping her because he was obligated to help as the original letter writer, Nam DoSan. If she was shocked and devastated by the honest truth, so be it.

But he knew that exposing the sham would have been unkind, especially since she was all worn-out and tired after the 48-hour hackathon, her pitch, and the performance test of the software.

Of course, he couldn’t also choose between honesty and kindness because his own feelings for Dalmi were mixed-up. He couldn’t be honest with her when he wasn’t honest with himself. lol. He knew her as Grandma’s beloved Granddaughter, and any feelings he had for her would be inextricably linked to his devotion to Grandma. He could be helping her EITHER because of his sense of obligation to pay back his debt to Grandma OR because he was growing fond of her.

He didn’t understand himself, so he had nothing to tell her.

As for Dosan, he was prepared to tell Dalmi the truth. Their personal relationship had progressed far along that:

a. he could trust in her reaction to the truth. If he delivered the bombshell, i.e., he wasn’t the original letter-writer, Nam Dosan, and the letter-writers were JP and her Granny, he was sure that Dalmi would understand the lie had been perpetuated out of kindness of her, rather than malice.

b. the delaying the truth was only going to impede their relationship. This was the “bug” which was threatening to shut down the whole operating system — or their relationship.

For Dosan, it was time for honesty.

Dosan: Are you sure about this, though? Being the CEO without being the majority shareholder?
Dalmi: Why am I not the majority shareholder? 7 plus 64 is 71. I’m the CEO with 71 percent equity. (holding him by the shoulders) You’re my share in the company. The one who is completely on my side. So we have to always be a team no matter what. Understood?

Dosan didn’t answer her. Certainly, he was completely on her side, if by “complete” she meant absolute support and devotion. But if she meant longevity or timespan, then he couldn’t be said to have been there “completely” on her side because he wasn’t there in the beginning. He wanted to clear this white lie up before moving on, and the best way was to have Grandma present.

Dosan: Is your grandma home?
Dalmi: I think so. Why?

There’s a flashback to Dosan and JP’s conversation. Dosan kindly gave JP heads up that he was confessing the truth that night.

Remember now: Dosan was the aggrieved party here. He was dragged into this mess by JP and Grandma when they picked his name out of the newspaper. While he understood that that Grandma concocted that story out of empathy and compassion for Dalmi, he he wanted to end it.

Dosan: Can I come in to say hi to her?
Dalmi: Are you sure? I’d love that.

She rushed in to clean up the house for Dosan’s sudden visit. Meanwhile, Dosan took a look at his “present” for Grandma. lol.

Do you know why Dosan made this gift?

He was practicing his speech outside, “I have a little something for you. I made these. These are scrubbies I made myself. They’re RGB, the primary colors of light. Maybe I don’t need to explain about RGB.”

I think that was a computer joke. He was giving her scrubbers. It symbolized his desire to “scrub” the wrong data used in the beginning that created this bug in his relationship. He was “cleansing” the operating system/relationship so he could have a do-over with Dalmi.

lol.

To me that’s the reason he’d been knitting it AFTER that night he overhead the guys talking about bug.

Part 2 is here: Start-Up: On Lying, Part 2