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The poem shows how the romantic relationship between the speaker and his lover depends on lies. The couplet plays with the double meaning of “lie:” both telling an untruth and lying down or sleeping together. The poem ends with a couplet tying all of these themes together: “Therefore I lie with her and she with me, / And in our faults by lies we flattered be.” In other words, telling each other lies allows them to feel better about themselves. Why do the speaker and his lover lie to each other and then pretend to believe these lies? The sonnet argues that the best thing about love is “seeming trust.” This can mean both “appearing to trust” and “trusting in appearances.” According to the poem, this kind of lie is actually better than the truth because the lover does not want to admit that she is unfaithful similarly, the speaker does not want to admit that he is old. In fact, he intentionally pretends to believe his lover’s lies about not cheating on him because acting naive and inexperienced in love helps him present himself as younger than he actually is. His lover is very much aware of how old the speaker is yet she humors him so that he can feel better about himself. Similarly, the speaker likes to present himself as younger than he is because he is self-conscious about his age. The lover swears that she is faithful to the speaker, but he knows that this a lie. Their relationship is based on mutual deception. Sonnet 138 describes a complicated relationship between the speaker and his lover.