Dear Avani,My group of friends and me are great — I love them — and the more we hang out the closer we get.  However, our group believes that one of its members lies a lot. Some of the things he says are hard to believe. At first we ignored it; however, we are starting to believe he’s a chronic liar. Half of our group wants to support him and sympathize with him, while the other half is starting to despise him.  We want to confront him, but we also don’t want our great group to die.  What should we do?-Distressed FriendLying is a horrible thing. I’m no saint, so I won’t tell you that I’ve never done it, but lying to your friends is potentially the worst thing you can do to your relationship with them.Honesty is the single most important value of any human relationship, at least by my terms; and if your friend is lying to you, confront him immediately. If it is a chronic condition, recommend he see a doctor or a counselor. If you care about this friend, it would be the most beneficial thing to do. If he is not confronted, you are feeding his problem, and potentially setting him up for bigger issues in the future. Be prepared for him to deny it, put up a huge fight, and become extremely defensive.Having been in your shoes before, I know what it feels like to have been lied to, especially by someone with a potentially pathological problem. From personal experience, I can tell you that if this problem isn’t nipped in the bud, he can go on to create bigger lies, ones that can cause him and the people he associates himself with extreme amounts of emotional pain and loss; that’s not something anyone should have to face. I sympathize with you for what he has done to you, and I am beyond sorry that you have to be in the position I found myself in not too long ago. Please trust my judgment when I say confront him, because aside from it being unfair to you and your friend group, it is a serious problem if it is pathological and he could potentially be of harm on a whole different level.As far as the group falling apart, I can tell you that it is inevitable. Granted you really care about your friends and I’m sure they care about you too, but a group of friends is more than likely to slowly and steadily drift apart. You’re not going to like hearing this, but again, I know this from personal experience. A group of friends means a group of ideals, mindsets, values and mentalities. It is foolish to believe that so many different and changing people can coexist for a very long period of time, especially in as delicate of a time as college life.At this age, we as people are growing, and to believe that we can create permanent relationships at such a delicate stage is almost foolish. It’s unfortunate, it’s sad, but it’s reality.Long story short, lying in a friendship is unacceptable, and if that means you have to confront him for his problem — do it. Yes, this may divide up the group, but that’s inevitable. Possibly sacrificing a pseudo-permanent group for the truth is a small price to pay.