The Love Map
She had mapped out exactly what she wanted in a partner. The map was detailed, precise, and wrong in every way that mattered. The man she chose fitted it perfectly.
Read Story →Self-Deception
Stories about what we do not let ourselves know — motivated blindness, selective memory, the gap between what we believe about ourselves and what we are.
The self-deceiver is not a liar. The liar knows the truth and withholds it. The self-deceiver has done something more structurally complex: they have arranged their inner life so that a certain category of truth simply does not arrive. The evidence is there. The conclusion is not drawn. The mechanism that would draw it has been quietly, entirely sincerely, switched off.
These stories are interested in that mechanism. In the map that is wrong in every way that matters. In the model that omits the decisive variables. In the silence that becomes a position, and the position that becomes a wall, and the wall behind which a person lives for years, believing themselves to be someone who does not hide.
Portal Avalon’s self-deception fiction is drawn from behavioural psychology — motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance — but it is not a lecture. It is an experience of recognition, which is often less comfortable than a lecture.
Game Theory
He had modelled the relationship as a series of optimal choices. The model was correct. The variables he had omitted were the ones that destroyed it.
Read Story →The Triangulation
She introduced the third person to stabilise the relationship. She told herself this. She told herself other things too, most of which she believed.
Read Story →The Stonewalling
He went silent because silence felt safe. He stayed silent because silence became a position. The position became a wall. He lived behind it for three years.
Read Story →Explore More
Continue into Dark Psychology
There is more to find in the full category — and in the wider Portal Avalon collection.
All Dark Psychology Stories → All StoriesQuestions
Self-Deception Fiction — FAQ
Self-deception fiction explores the stories we tell ourselves to maintain a bearable version of reality — the motivated blindness, the selective memory, the conviction that is more wish than evidence. These narratives are interested in the architecture of denial.
No, and that distinction is central to the genre. The self-deceiver is not lying to others but to themselves. The damage they do is largely inadvertent, which makes it no less real and often harder to address.
Deeply. Portal Avalon’s fiction treats self-deception as a near-universal human tendency rather than a moral failing. The horror comes not from judgement but from recognition.
Significantly. The revelation of self-deception — the moment a character sees themselves clearly — is often structurally identical to the horror reveal. What is uncovered is genuinely frightening.
The authors draw on behavioural psychology, particularly work on motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, and cognitive dissonance. Specific references appear in the author notes attached to each story.
It uses game theory as a structuring metaphor. The protagonist is a behavioural economist who applies his professional frameworks to his personal life with catastrophic results.
In psychology, triangulation is the introduction of a third party into a two-person dynamic to reduce intimacy or deflect tension. The story explores this as a form of relational self-deception.
“Game Theory” touches on this. A more directly professional narrative is in development for the Self-Deception subcategory.
Some do and some do not. Portal Avalon’s fiction resists the therapeutic narrative in which insight automatically produces change. Characters sometimes see themselves clearly and change nothing.
Explore the full Dark Psychology category at /category/psychology/, including the Narcissism & Abuse and Emotional Abuse subcategories.