(Today’s entry dedicated to a guy named Dan)
Ever wonder how the guy across from you at work has lived in the Congo, fought with the African militia, been a CIA spy, climbed Everest in 2 hours, made love to a Swedish princess in a dragon’s lair and managed to learn Microsoft Excel in the same lifetime? Sorry to kill your faith in humanity, but you’re probably sitting across from Compulsive Liar.
Don’t get us wrong, we love a good story, but at a certain point a man goes too far. It’s unnecessary to lie about your dog’s pedigree dude, because we wouldn’t care, even if you were telling the truth about him being half lab, half Norwegian mountain goat. And you didn’t drink 72 liters of vodka last night, because you’d be dead, and frankly, that wouldn’t have been the worst thing.
Sorry, that was excessive. Really though, the next time Pinnochio tries pulling the wool over your eyes, clog his lie-hole with a handful of truth-fist.
my “best” friend of almost 3 years is the most compulsive liar. when i didnt really know her, she had said she had an older brother who was a pro surfer and had the balls to put pics of a guy surfer on her psp or whatever and would show people also when she was younger when she didnt live in our city that she was sponsered by alpine star a motox company . which i never witnessed proof of either of these when i actually started going to her house,where she has a normal family and no major family issues. she contradicts herself constantly in the statements she makes. . her older but nice car cost a ridiculous amount of money and she lets everyone know. every thing she buys she has to show you so that you know how much it cost . her best frined from her old town was preg with black twins but the friends myspace never had any proof of this so we messaged her and she first repyled not knowing what we were talking about and we further explained and her anwser changed saying we should trust our frined in what she says. she is the queen of upping you even though NO ONE CARES . its the most annoying and draining thing i have ever gone through. we are now going to diff schools and i am curious to see if she will be able to get close to people with out them knowing about her lying because she didnt let people get close enough to her in high school for people to see it was all fake !
I went to uni with a girl like this… she told everyone that she was having epileptic episodes, and even faked having them. But when one of her friends called the medics during one of her “fits” she managed to smooth her skirt down as she was being carried away.
She also stole money from my friend’s account and told us all her cousin had come down for a surprise visit and taken her shopping…
My boss lied to me this morning.
we had a job re-printed yesterday with someone we use every week for the last 3 years. A guy called me from their office to say half the job has been folded and its ready to be picked up, as I’m typing this I can see it is a pointless for me to write about it is so pathetic. Anyway she (boss) shows me how to fold the job her way. I said they (other company) could have used their machine. Boss say’s they don’t have machines to fold this kind of job. ( my brain ticked over ) and I said, “well I must have heard wrong on the phone” The job by the way is the size of your standard birthday card with one fold.
I have been here 9 years. This kind of banter happens everyday. Who is the real idiot here?
Ya I think it’s me….
I dated a guy who claimed to be Fish and his friends were put up as being the staff at Z Rock.
I went along with it for the sake of seeing what else he would try to pull off, a total whack job.
I dated 2 guys like this, and had a best friend that did this. I dont associate with any of the three. Didnt take too long to figure out that the guys were liars, the chick now that took a little longer to figure out.
Serious. I used to work with a woman who told us all she took her own appendix out. Another time, she was driving along and the car in front of her threw their baby out the window and she caught it. Her house had dropped a bit and she got a big car jack and jacked her house up and put some bricks under it. Her Dad invented the White Knight chocolate bar. So many stories, so little ability to wheeze laughing.
One liar I know said he shot a killer whale, (Orca) dragged it ashore and buried it because he wanted the jaw bone to carve it.
Someone just popped into my mind: my ex-female-roommate’s boyfriend. This guy was so full of it, that just about everything that came out of his mouth was a lie, or a one-upper story. I became “Facebook Friends” with him through my room mate, and I hung out with him a few times, before I realized he was totally full of sh*t. He had volunteered with the Zapatistas down in Chiapas, Mexico… he had been a published poet… he was a photographer, and artist, just trying to get a break… he seemed to be involved with an impossible amount of causes that he would post on Facebook in order to say “Hey, look at me…I’m liberal and into causes!” (Save the Forests, anti-Child Pornography day, Recycle Batteries Organization, Save the Spotted Owl, Cindy Sheehan for Senate…etc.) There was no possible way that he could have contributed anything to most of those causes, noble causes though they may be. Hanging out with him, he told me about his travels through Asia and South America, Mexico, and the ridiculous stories attached to those travels. He just rubbed me the wrong way.
He is like, 22 or something, so I doubted that he could have fit that much into his life. But the best part was, when he said “I’m training to become a cage fighter…” This was the one that pushed me over the edge, because as a martial arts instructor and well-known aficionado of cage fighting, I knew all the gyms in town. I say, “Which gym do you train at?”, to which he responded, “Oh, you know, one of the gyms downtown (looks uncomfortable, eyes shifty).” And then he quickly switched into a story about how he was soooo drunk one night, and fought 4 guys, and was so drunk he didn’t remember what happened except for his bloodied knuckles… OK, whatever poser. You’re full of sh*t. Stop lying you insecure little douche.
Ahh liars yep I’m related to one too. Lets see so far being the girlfriend of a deceased rapper. Hmmm but I remember it differently…only screwed him. Next got a $100,000 record deal but shhh don’t tell anyone. She still has nothing to show for it years later. She lies on others too like my hospital stay due to a beating which never happened but she thinks it did because she lies so much she can’t remember her lies she’s told. Oh and the job she has requires a professional license and a 2-year degree but yet she’s only completed high school. Oh and yes she knows every rapper, mogul, and lived with some hmmmmmmmmmmmmm okay. Usually its their kling-on relative she’s doing you get the picture but don’t dare confront her and say its not true because “your just a hater” lol. Some people I could go on but she is definitely one of a kind and god please lets keep it that way.
My sister is & has been a compulsive liar for as long as I’ve been alive. I am about 10 years younger & although my life is what some would consider on the boring side, I’ve had some really wild experiences. I’ve met plenty of musicians & other celebrities, partied with a few, but we most certainly aren’t good buddies on a first name basis. I was able to travel around the eastern US & went to southern California at 18, had a grand time being a “Dead Head” & going to many concerts. Because of my life experiences, my sister sort of hates me but always tries to “one up me,” even now. Whatever I become interested in, she claims to know more or have such an outrageous experience that I wonder if she realizes how much rubbish she spouts off. As an example, when I became interested in the occult, she claimed to be a high priestess of a large coven that would meet covertly. When I became interested in the paranormal & ghosts, not only was she psychic & a healer, she had a “portal” to the “other side” & her home is extremely haunted. It’s been interesting & I wonder if she’ll ever give up on this crap, as we are close to middle age.
I’ve had friends & acquaintences that had told so many unbelievable lies & claim to have such extra-ordinary (I forget how to spell it correctly) lives & have a neighbor who is a 40 year old man who lives with his Mummy & I swear every thing he has told me that I could investigate has all been lies. I am bewildered why someone would feel so compelled to tell perfect strangers lies & exaggerate things to the point of being a bizarre fairy tale. What’s also horrible is when you call one of these folks out on a proven lie, that they go ballistic & try to cover with even more lies. Anyone know what fuels this sort of behavior?
I used to work with two compulsive liars. One was really into showy, dramatic lies. Before the age of 18, he’d been kidnapped and held hostage in a bathhouse for a week. He’d had a girlfriend as a teenager (and this was rich, since he was the most stereotypically woman-hating gay man I’d ever met) and they had a child together, but both girlfriend and child had been tragically killed by a drunk driver. He’d survived a brain tumor. He’d been a heroin addict and drug dealer to celebrities. Despite these “travails” he managed to get a premed scholarship to college, where he had a recurrence of his “cancer” and had to give up his “promising career as a geneticist”. Of course, when I knew him all he did was smoke weed, but hey, he’d had a “really hard life”. Haw haw.
The other dude was generally less dramatic, but he lied compulsively and continuously about things which made no sense and didn’t even matter. He would leave work to “go to CVS and buy a soda”. He’d come back with a 7-11 bag and potato chips, but insist that he actually went to CVS, but see, he ran into these friends and one of them had a bag from 7-11 and they insisted he trade with them… etc. Just bizarre and obvious lies that he nonetheless stuck by no matter what.
I was friends with a guy in school who my little circle of friends all knew as a complusive liar. Lets see…when we were 13, I noticed he wasn’t at his bus stop down the road from me. When I asked him if he missed the bus that morning he told me a car full of girls picked him up. I didn’t think to ask him how many girls we knew had their licenses at that age and drove to MIDDLE school.
He was telling me about this great new R/C car he just got, but when I asked to see it suspecting that he didn’t have it, he told me “ummmm, maybe later”
The biggest thing was his “‘69 Chevelle” that he owned in another town. Again, we were too young to have our licenses and good jobs, but this guy just happened to have a classic muscle car that strangely none of us ever saw. And then one day he announced that he sold it “for the right price” whatever that meant.
Don’t get me started on the one-upping thing. He was the king of that crap. My buddy and I joked recently that if we were able to get him and these two other guys we know that like to ‘one-up’ people all in the same room together, the universe would implode.
I enjoy the people’s stories of compulsive liars they knew so much, I feel compelled to share my own, mostly because I knew her when we were young.
In middle school, this girl I knew said her nanny-type-thing had gotten them into a car accident. For a month, she walked on crutches around the school, even. She, more significantly, said her sister had broken several bones and needs like skin grafting and surgeries and stuff, but the thing is, my mom was the school nurse at her sister’s school. And she didn’t miss a day. In fact, she wasn’t the least hurt. The sad thing was, a couple weeks after the “accident”, she had the balls to come before the school and thank everyone for their prayers and support. I don’t know how she did it, or how much truth there might’ve been in the lies (eg, how do you come to school every day with crutches and fool your parents or nanny? hmm..). No clue what she’s up to now. Hope she’s gotten out of the lying.
I think the deadest of giveaways — aside from the “whatever we happen to be talking about, I’ve done a way more interesting version of it than any of you” phenomenon — is the “secret missions all over the world” meme, which was a mainstay of a hilariously compulsive liar some friends and I used to know. He claimed at one point to have a massive cache of anti-tank weapons (I think it was) stowed for him in Labrador by the “Canadian Defense Council.”
I was reminded of him by a woman I ran into over the holidays. At first her backstory was that she was a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who somehow got into a career as a successful horse-trainer for the rich and famous, which… okay, fine. Could be. But she subsequently seemed to contradict this backstory by claiming that her family was heavily connected with upper-echelon Canadian politics and had brokered a peace deal with Muslim guerrillas in Indonesia (or was it Malaysia?). Hmmm, alarm bells…
There was a Saturday Night Live semi-permanent feature where Jon Lovitz was an all-out compulsive liar. Very funny. What added to it was that he was the president of Liars Anonymous or something. He would go on speaking like this (I’m making the example up): “… and I didn’t perform the assignment because I went to Superbow… to the tennis championship! And I was there watch… playing at the court! With, uh… with John McEnroe! Yeah! And I won! That was the firs… the third championship I won! In a row! Yeah, that was it, it’s true!” And so on. Fantastic.
I have known way too many people compulsive liars. When I was 18 or 19, I encountered some guy who spun tall tales like this but I naively swallowed it all. When the truth came out, I admit I was utterly shocked. After a couple of more experiences with people like this, I became terribly cynical about people. in general I still am. What’s worse is that I have become psychotic about editing myself when I talk. I go to great lengths to make sure that I am not even exaggerating slightly when speaking about something I’ve experienced in the past because I don’t want to be anything remotely like such people.
These days, I am less likely to believe someone when they tell me about that time they had dinner with Tori Amos on the moon, especially if they’ve previously dined with Bob Marley on Venus. If, after knowing someone for 10 minutes, I learn that s/he has also scaled Mt. Everest with Mr. Marley and Ms. Amos while tripping on Peyote that they purchased from Sammy Hagar’s aunt, then that is all I need to know to terminate my acquaintance with that person. If something seems too ridiculous to be true, it probably is.
Many of these compulsive liars are probably sociopaths. I read a book called _The Sociopath Next Door_ (I can’t remember the author’s name but we’re really good friends and we used to play rugby together while I was working on my 3rd doctorate at Harvard). The author recommends giving people in your life a three lie maximum. That seems like a pretty good rule of thumb. However, I tend to err on the side of caution when someone I’ve just met feeds me a story that tests the bounds of credibility.
I worry that people think this is me. I was a groupie for a while (partied with Billy Squier, Robert Plant gave me a shoulder rub, danced with Robin Zander), I was a flight attendant, I was in a band, I’ve probably had 50 jobs. I’ve just got a lot of experiences, but IT’S ALL TRUE!
I know four compulsive liars. Two family members, a friend, and an ex partner. There basically just sad people who have no lives and have to invent an imaginary world to compete with people who actually do things. I find it funny and extremely annoying that they think we are stupid enough to believe them. They’re rarely good liars and always trip themselves up. My friend told me she owned her house- doesn’t, that she was married – never was, has been to Canada, never been out of Europe, that her son was born there. Recently we were going to watch a DVD and she suggested Hitchcock’s ‘Marnie’ and I nearly pissed myself laughing. It’s about a compulsive liar.
This kid would come up to me in high school and show me pictures of anything from fighter jets to huge tidal waves. He would tell anybody who listened to him that he flew this jet and landed it on a carrier in a hurricane, and how he surfed this 70 foot wave off the coast of Australia. He also was a professional diver but quit to pursue his training in the air force, played guitar for twelve years (and couldn’t remember what kind of guitar he had other than an electric fender), rebuilt an old mustang by making his own parts, and knew everything about what anybody was talking about. He accomplished all these before the age of 16.
I had a friend like that when I was 11. He used to try to tell me about all the adult women he had slept with. We were fucking 11 years old, both of us. He also tried to tell me that one of the Backstreet Boys was his cousin (for some reason he like the Backstreet Boys, and thought that this would impress me). I haven’t seen the guy in like 8 years, and the little bugger still owes me 12 bucks.
Oh. My. God. How many of these ARE there? I’ve known two, and the last one…The rich lover who died of a terrible disease in the early 90s (after swooping him up in Des Moines, Iowa and touring him throughout Europe), but leaving him a very glamorous apartment in Paris (exact district unknown) and occasional access to the private Jet…The stories that began with “When I lived in Florence and studied painting…” (not a word of Italian) or “When my lover and I were in Israel during the Second Intifada….” And the freaky thing was? I WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO NOTICED! I’m sitting there trying to explain to my shrink that there’s this guy, and every word he’s told us about himself is a lie, and he’s manipulating us all and plotting against me (long story), and I’m realizing as I’m saying all this that I sound like a total, freaking paranoid nut-job. Until a year and a half later, when everything blew up, and yeah, not one true word ever, manipulating that entire group of friends, and plotting like hell against me. And man — the lies that came out in the end? Worse than even I had thought…
When I first saw this page I thought it was an article on my boss.
It’s got to be some kind of sickness. I’ve known two serious compulsive liars. One was in a band I used to work with. Several times we would bust him on his stories. Once he told us that his dog had swallowed a bee, then needed to be taken to the vet. We asked his wife about it and she didn’t know a thing! The other guy was the stranger one, though. Seemed that he felt other people’s lives were more interesting, so he would invent stories to make his life even more interesting than that. Only problem is that the stories just couldn’t be believed. Like the time he claimed to have painted his coach’s Porsche black “with that black candy spray paint they use on cakes” then the coach freaked out because he “hated black Porsches”. Jeez – I don’t think so.
A guy I knew years ago did this. I’ve actually forgotten his real name, because we all ended up calling him Vladisvostok: we had to meet early one morning to work on a group assignment – making idle conversation, I said that it was pretty cold. His response? “You want cold? I was in Vladivostok last year, and that was cold! You’re all pussies if you think this is cold!”
I knew a guy like this where I used to work. We called him the “Ninja Astronaut,” because of all the things he claimed to have done before joining our measly little company as a salesman.
My favorite was the time he claimed to have spent in Brazil cage fighting. You don’t get much more fat and out of shape than this guy.
I had a friend like that.
First he boasted of partying with movie stars.
Then he claimed to be a drug dealing mastermind (the job bagging groceries at Sav-On was just a cover)
Last time I spoke to him he claimed to be doing top secret missions (and warfare) all over the world.
Oh god, I volunteer with this man. His stories to date have included the time he “drove around in a convertible with Wayne Gretzky after the Edmonton Oilers won the Stanley Cup” the fact that “Nelly Furtado is a close, personal friend of his and she did a private concert for he and his girlfriend before it came out in stores”, or maybe the time he “Got kicked out of the Vatican for sneezing” (this coming after a fellow volunteer and I were discussing the dress code there..when he had never once mentioned going to Italy). And my personal favourite being “playing guitar on stage with Aerosmith”.
He is always a delight to talk to.
ahhhhhhahahhaha… mountain goat lol.
My favorite compulsive liar was a woman who was also a blatant plagiarist (and a forgetful one at that). We listened to a guy tell a story about his motorcycle wreck one night, then a couple weeks later, “CL” retold the story to someone else as though it were HER motorcycle accident. She’d forgotten that I had been there for the original story.
I drew the line when it came to me, though – she recycled my childhood experience of a tornado hitting our house as her own — right in front of me. But about halfway through, she realized that the story she was retelling was mine… it was quite fun to see her try to finish it. That was the end of that acquaintance. I never hung out with her again.
I used to work with a guy like that – no matter what story you were telling, he always came up with one to trump yours. For example, if you said you had just came back from climbing Mount Everest, he said he did it last year. Blindfolded. While carrying a ladder, so when he got to the top, he was just that much higher up than anyone else. It was annoying as hell, and gradually my co-workers stopped telling any sort of stories around him until he left…