People Are Sharing When a Lie Snowballed Out of Control and Became "This is My Life Now"

I am so late to this, but I have the BEST Story. About 8 years ago, on my girlfriend's 20th Birthday, We went out to the bar drinking. I didn't get really drunk, but I drank enough to be comfortable in a bar that I dislike. Anyway, we go back to my apartment around 2-3am, and go to bed.

The next morning I woke up for work, and I really didn't feel like going in. I had a crappy job (I was 18) and I didn't really care about it. To top it off, it was raining, and I walk to work. So I call in sick to work. I wasn't too hung over, mainly just tired and lazy. The secretary answered and said, 'ok, feel better', or something along those lines. Not two minutes later, my boss calls me, and says since two other employees called in before me, I better get a doctor's note, since I am going to miss work, and then he hung up the phone. So instead of sleeping in, I got up and headed to the hospital to pickup a note. I didn't have a doctor at the time, but I had heard you can just a ER doctor $10 to get a note explaining your sickness.

So I took my girlfriend's car to the hospital, and went to ER. I said my stomach hurt, and suggested that I probably had food poisoning. The nurse asked me if I had diarrhea, and I said that I did not. At this point she started poking just to the right of my stomach. Hard. "Does that hurt?" Uh, yeah, of course that fucking hurts. you are stabbing me. She diagnosed the issue as my appendix, and handed me a chart and sent me down the hall. I didn't care, I just wanted a note and to go back home to bed.

So over the next couple hours, I had a few tests done, including an ultrasound, where four nurses/doctors studied my appendix to decide if it was inflamed or not. they decided it was, and started giving me morphine for the pain. They then told me I would have surgery that day to remove my appendix. I had never had surgery before, nor had I even broken a bone, and for some reason craved that attention... anyway I went along with it, and got juiced up on morphine. I stripped down to a robe and hopped onto a bed. That day the hospital was crazy full, so I was actually just lying on a bed in the hallway, which was pretty crappy, but whatever. I was going to have surgery! My Girlfriend and Parents showed up, giving me some more needed attention. It was glorious!

At one point the doctor that was going to do the surgery came right up to me, and said, "Something seems really fishy about this! Your white blood cell count is too low to be appendicitis...." I told him I just came in because my stomach hurt, and I don't know what is wrong. He left for a while, and when he came back he apologized, because my appendix did look inflamed, and it was probably legit.

Anyway, They did surgery about 12 hours after I arrived (10pm) and I called work the next day to tell them what had happened. My Boss sent flowers, and an apology card, and paid for me to take the next 4 weeks off work...and I got a Bad-Ass Scar.

Username: sippingonalightbeer

I didn't do this but I am related to someone who did, we'll call him Mike.

After a crushing divorce (no kids involved), Mike was completely distraught. He went from a handsome 6'2" confident 30 year old man to a husk of his former self.

I had no idea divorce could change someone as much as it changed him - his esteem and sense of self-worth were crushed. His ex-wife was a cruel woman who did some horrible things we only learned about afterward.

Mike was always an upstanding person. Honest, helpful, generous, very loyal to his family. Even though he didn't recognize it, there was a line up of women waiting in the wings to date him. Sadly, he was feeling too depressed and useless to see this.

One day, Mike was at a bar with some friends and he met a woman. For whatever reason, he told her he used to play basketball on the European basketball league for some German team.

Now, this honestly wasn't a stretch since Mike was tall, very athletic, and had been given a scholarship to University to play basketball (a knee injury ended his run.) What was a stretch was Mike having a LOT of money from his time as a pro player and planning to build his own mansion and retire at 30-something.

I think it was shitty but I get why he did this. He was lonely, didn't think he'd ever see this woman again, probably just wanted to feel important and he fell back on the "what could have been" of his past. He probably thought he could have one night of feeling special.

The problem is he did see her again, and again, and again. They actually really started to like each other. Before you knew it, they were dating for a year - and the *entire* time she thought he was some former big-shot millionaire pro basketball player.

His actual situation was that he was living at home, jobless, and 50k in debt. The loss of job and debt can be credited to his ex but that's too much detail to get into here. He played off living at home by saying he was there waiting for the details of the new mansion to be finalized.

This woman he was dating came to weekly family dinners Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. for over a *year* and somehow he managed to steer her clear of his lie. I remember one time when we were at Christmas dinner and another family member mentioned they were learning to speak German.

The woman was interested, she said to Mike, you know some German too, right? Everyone looked at him like "wtf?" and he laughed saying "Not enough, just what I've picked up in movies, haha." He played it off and nobody really understood her reference and she didn't really seem to care.

It's not like speaking German is a requirement for playing basketball. I think back on that now and consider how terrifying those moments must have been - there were so many that only make sense in retrospect.

One family gathering she sits down and has a long conversation with another lady and she outright talks about Mike's past and future goals. The lady she speaks to just
nods her head politely thinking "Is this the Mike I know? Is this guy really famous?

This can't be right, can it?" But being somewhat new to the family (1 year) and knowing he did go to school on a scholarship she thinks *maybe* there's some truth to it. Later she asks Mike within earshot of others and *again* he manages to deflect. Pure terror for him, I'm sure.

Eventually, one day, while Mike is at work (new job), she's at his parent's place (where she spent considerable time - entire weekends) and she casually says to his Mom something about him being a millionaire and how long it's taking for his new house to be built. It all comes crashing down.

While Mike is at work his Mom and his girlfriend are having a long discussion about how Mike is 50k in debt, never played pro ball, does not own a big piece of land, and will most certainly not have a mansion in the near future.

Imagine Mike's emotions when he gets a call from his *mom* to tell him that his girlfriend just left the house furious because she found out that his lie finally got figured out. Imagine his mom's reaction to find out he'd been dishonest for so long. That totally wasn't his character.

That woman went on to make Mike's life a living hell for a good 2 years after. She. Was. *Pissed.*

It was so fucked up. Like I said, I know why he did it and I can understand how hard it would be to find the right time to say "Baby, I'm nothing like what I said I was, you still like me though, right?"

I can only imagine how stressful a full year of family interaction was - constantly wondering if she'd say something to out you, or your family would, or whatever.

Still can't wrap my head around that one. I'm sure I left out some juicy details too - it was just crazy.

Username: StumpedByPlant

I'm late to the party and this is a long one.

I have no idea why I said this, but it ended up creating so much unnecessary bullshit. When I was slightly younger (maybe 18/19) I pretended I was allergic to Pineapple.

I have absolutely no idea why but that's what happened. The lie spread to colleagues, friends & family. I fucking hate pineapple anyway so it was easily avoided.

Fast forward a year or two and I'm at my best friends new girlfriends house as she's invited me for dinner to meet her.

My friend greets me and tells me dinner is waiting. Thai Curry. I ate one bite and holy shit was it awful. It was more like coconut soup with a few bits of raw chicken floating around.

To keep the peace and being the pathetic human being I am, I lied and said I was allergic to coconut. I pretend to struggle breathing for a few minutes and then made my excuses and fucked off home.

Fast forward another couple of years and now everyone knows me as the guy allergic to pineapple and coconut. Yeah. That guy. At this time I'm working in a small team of L&D trainers.

We arrange a Christmas night out and one of the girls suggests meeting up at her new flat for drinks before hand.

I happily oblige being the social fucking God that I am. I show up around 8pm and am greeted with a cocktail. I'm drinking and drinking, not really noticing what was happening.

My friend then realises that I'm happily swigging away at a fucking Piña Colada. 'No!! BLATCHER21 WTF ARE YOU DOING? DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DRINKING??'

I then clock on to the fact that I'm drinking two ingredients that I have previously suggested would kill me.

Everyone stops, the girl is in tears thinking she's killed me. What do I do? Of course I grab my throat and start huffing and puffing.

I make my way (alone) to the toilet to throw up and figure I could say I was fine and we could go on with our night.

Oh hell no. 5 minutes later and a fucking ambulance has arrived.

Someone has fucking called an ambulance. My world is crumbling around me, eroded by my lies.

I hear commotion and the paramedics asking 'where is he?'. I do the only thing I can do at this point.

Close my eyes and pretend I've passed out. They come bursting through calling my name.

Long, long story short I'm completely awake and conscious but still pretending I am out cold.

I'm lying there awaiting some sort of injection or tube to be forced down my throat when I decide to 'wake up' miraculously 'dazed and confused' asking where I was.

The paramedics try to continue assuming I was still about to suffer some sort of major reaction when I stand and up look around at the many concerned faces and try and get away with something along the lines of 'whoa guys that was bad but I'm fine I'm fine'.

Everyone now confused and staring at me I slowly walk myself out and run away when I can no longer be seen (I'm 25 at this point (a grown fucking adult)).

At the next working day I told my colleagues I had been smoking so much weed recently that I didn't want the paramedics to detect it because I'd be fired. (I've never smoked weed in my life... That's a whole different story).

Username: blatcher21

My wife thinks I have another kid. I don't.

Short version of the story. When I was 16 my girlfriend got pregnant. It was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for me, and it didn't end well.

I was eventually told that she'd been cheating on me and ANOTHER guy was probably the dad, which was confirmed shortly after birth.

I haven't spoken with the mother since I was 17 (I'm now 39).

A number of years later a cute girl and I were half-stoned, half-drunk and trading stories about how shitty our life was when I started talking about my ex, who had been screwing around on me, and who became pregnant.

Wanting to embellish the story up a bit, I made up a lie about how the paternity test confirmed that it was mine, how she ran off back east to live with the baby when it was born (not a total lie, she really did move back east shortly after the birth), and how I have no idea where my daughter is or how she is doing.

The story garnered me all sorts of sympathy and got me laid, which was the goal.

Fast forward three more years, and I married that half-drunk, half-stoned girl. Been married to her for 13 years now, and we have two kids together.

She still thinks that I have a third kid out there somewhere, and that someday some young woman is going to come knocking at our front door looking for her long lost dad.

And it gets even worse.

My wife, thinking that she wanted to be honest with our children, told them one day that they have an "older sister who they might get to meet someday."

My young son mentioned this to MY mother, who predictably went apeshit bananas.

My parents, of course, knew about the pregnancy, had just retained a lawyer when the baby was born and they knew about the paternity test...but they'd never actually SEEN the results.

I'd received the confirmation myself and they never questioned it when I told them that the test showed that I wasn't the father.

Caught in a lie between my wife and my mother...I lied to my mother. I told her that the test was negative, but that the test had been done on the OTHER guy and verified HE wasn't the father.

I was. I told her that I'd lied to her because I was a scared kid, and that when she vanished I thought it would just "go away".

My mother, of course, wanted to hire a private investigator to track my ex down (she still had many of the various legal papers from the pregnancy with plenty of identifying information for her), and it was everything I could do to talk her out of it.

I ended up having to get very forceful about it, telling her that she had no right to impose those kinds of changes on my life. It worked, and she backed off.

So, today my wife thinks I have a long lost kid, my mother thinks she has a lost grandchild, and half my family thinks I'm a terrible father for not tracking my child down, for lying to my parents, and for not "being a father" about it.

Fuck. Throwaway for obvious reasons.

Username: dumdumdad

Might have to turn this account into a throwaway. Oh well.

Pretended to be a woman in an MMO. I was 14, and I've always had an impressive set of hidden talents for writing and acting.

I "roleplayed" a female older than I was who liked this MMO, and I did it very well.

This was before everyone used mic systems like Teamspeak, Mumble, etc, so it didn't require any weird voice modulation software or sampling.

I kept the act up for years, joining and helping to build a major guild on the server, became an officer of it.

I never used my assumed gender to get handouts or anything like that. I believed in the role I took, took it to heart.

It was pretty much the perfect guild for me - a middle ground between the hardcore raiders and the casual family guilds.

I was highly respected and met a lot of people that I genuinely enjoyed the company of on a constant basis for several years, and shared in their trials and tribulations.

People that, if I met them in real life, I would consider close friends because of our history in this game.

I cared about these people deeply, but I was trapped in this lie that began as a stupid experiment in my ability to be manipulative... which came to a head when the guild arranged a meet between the longstanding members, all of whom were at least on a first-name basis (there were two marriages between guild members while I was there as well, who met each other through this guild and the game - real ones, not that in-game bullshit).

My absence was noticed and lamented, as there were a lot of people that wanted to meet the persona I had created.

I made "her" so real, faults included, that to everyone around me she was real, and at times I believed my own lie.

I couldn't go.

All of these people in one place, they had a wonderful time, the guildleader hosted the party and it was a huge thing.

I couldn't go, because of the fucking lie, and I couldn't bring myself to drop it.

The last thing I wanted to do was hurt these people by breaking that illusion, and I didn't.

Most of them have left the game, but many still have characters in the guild that will never leave it despite not playing anymore.

They're still in contact with each other, close friends, keeping in contact via a forgotten messageboard and eventually facebook, when that became a thing.

I hate that lie... lemme emphasize, **hate** that lie, but it'll die with me and my regrets.

As someone who doesn't make close friends easily, the cost was incalculable.

Almost unbearable. It taught me a lesson, though: there are real consequences to seemingly innocent experimentation, and to seemingly harmless manipulations.

Username: Safewordharder

I posted this before but here we go!:

In 2009 I was working a dead end job, living pay cheque to pay cheque, and my then girlfriend (now-wife) and I were constantly struggling with the stress of financial difficulty and I could never get a job in a industry I wanted to work in.

Fast forward to Easter 2009, I was sitting in the passenger seat of our little car, while my wife was driving.

We got T-boned on the passenger side, that crumpled the entire side of the car and banged me up pretty good.

I managed to get out of the car check on my wife who was fine, I started to feel a minor throbbing in my leg, but quickly composed myself and ran over to check on the other driver,

he was fine (it was a big truck) but he was pissed he hit us and immediately admitted blame (it was pretty clear since he ran a red).

So we sort out the towing exchange information and I go home.

That night I get a frantic call from my brother, he always calls asking for help, I don't even remember what it was for, but I was like "Look man, we were just in a bad car accident, and my leg is really feeling fucked up, I can't help you."

My brother was totally stunned and told me that I need to go to the doctor. I was mostly exaggerating, my leg was just bruised up and I didn't want to go out and lend a hand.

Next day my leg is a bit stiff and I started to feel a bit lazy, so I called into work saying I'm having trouble standing up after the accident.

They say no worries, work from home and take it easy.

So I do, I spend the day playing WoW and eating old chinese food.

My girlfriend came home and I was really just feeling lazy and I make this big scene of not being able to walk easily to help out.

She immediately takes me to the doctor, and despite protesting they send me off for x-rays.

Which while they are waiting, the nurse suggests that I start looking into a lawyer since this was a MVC.

I don't know what I was thinking, but I just went along with it, and started faking this injury, the x-rays came back negative for any breaks but there was a possibility of a dislocation that righted itself, so I just said, yeah I think there was a sharp pain during the impact.

Anyways, I went on short-term disability, my gf was forced to carry the weight, I went on long-term disability and started going through physical therapy, which I faked my way through.

Now, fast forward 12 months, I'm done faking I've "recovered" from my injury I'm at a party with some friends who introduce me to this guy who heard my story and my "struggles" he was so impressed by my perseverance he offered me a salary job, nothing crazy something like 45k a year but when you've been working retail, it's huge.

Then came a settlement, that was worth over 90k which my gf and I used to buy our first house.

Fast forward 4 years, I'm extremely successful making over 100k (with commissions), been promoted multiple times and got married and literally owe it all to being a lazy shit who faked a sick day following a car accident so he could pvp in WoW all day.

My entire life is based around a single lie, but even to this day sometimes I get out things say my leg is acting up...

Username: feelinglessthrowaway

In Vegas for a bachelor party. I was 21 or 22 at the time. Got wasted. Made a bet with a friend while we were out at the club: "If you're wrong, you have to pretend to be British the rest of the night."

I lost. I was British.

Met a girl, who started talking to me because she overheard me saying some bullshit to my friends in a British accent. She thought that I was British. I went with it.

I slept with said girl. Had to wake up hungover the next morning and continue to be British. She said that we should hang out again that night. Sure. Meet said girl, and she's brought all of her friends - who all think that I'm British.

So I'm British again, but around more people. My friends are dying every time I talk. One tried to be Australian around the girl's friends, but was called out for being a fraud.

My fraudulence continued to go unnoticed. Had to answer all kinds of questions about my life and childhood. I had never been to the U.K.

Fortunately, I was an English lit major, and also watched a 3 or 4 British movies. Mostly Monty Python. Thus, I was more or less an expert on all things British.

I got tired of doing the accent. So I started saying deliberately incorrect things about England to see if someone would call me out (more fun than randomly admitting it).

Turns out that 21 year old American women are too dumb to know a fucking thing about England, so they were incapable of pointing out my bullshit.

I like to think that, to this day, 12 years later, there are girls out there who think that the British invented tea and only drink it on Wednesdays, that Cromwell was a benevolent leader who gave out free pheasant to the impoverished Irish, that James Bond was written by an Indian guy, and that the only reason that Brits are known to dress nicely is because it's illegal to not wear a tie on weekdays.

The accent took over my mind so completely that, when a guy in line at that restroom said something to me (in a very clearly English accent), I instinctively responded in an English accent.

He got excited. I realized what I had done, but just went with it. He introduced me to his friends (mates).

They mentioned that they couldn't pinpoint where I was from. I told them my mom was American and I lived half my life in Maine (bullshit), and that's why I have a strange accent. They went with it.

Brought the Brits back to our group. So now I had British homies. My friends couldn't believe it. I've entered British Level 5,000. So many level ups in so short a time.

Fucked that girl again. Even talked dirty to her. Didn't know how to talk dirty Britishly. I said "I've come" instead of "I'm coming."

Thought that the present perfect made dirty talk sound more British than the standard present continuous. I laughed at my own bullshit. The British are coming, indeed.

I admitted to her the next day that I wasn't British. She didn't believe me, and refused to accept that I was American. So fuck it, I was British for another half a day.

Thanks Maggie, for the good time, and for believing in me. That's when I realized that I really could be anything that I wanted to be.

And more: thanks for the feedback. Honestly, the story is a lot crazier and more convoluted than this, but it would take a book to write it.

I even had a Mrs. Doubtfire restaurant scene moment where I had to oscillate between British and American on the same casino floor. I wish I still that girl's phone number just so I could call and be like, "Hey! Remember that English guy you fucked in Vegas 12 years ago? Well, about that..."

I even imagined a scenario where I unknowingly got her pregnant, and when the kid asked her about his dad, she'd tell him, "He was a charming gentleman from England, sweetie. I received a letter saying that he died at Waterloo."

And morer: Guilded! (I mean gilded. FU autocorrect). Thousands of upvotes! My most responded-to comment ever! Obligatory: Thanks for the gold.

Oh boy do I have a good one. It gets long - tl;dr at the end.

(Obligatory not me, but saw it happen with my own eyes.)

I used to work as an admissions counselor for a professional school (think PA, med school, nursing, etc.). As a counselor who knew all the students in our program rather well, I was in charge of marshaling them for the graduation ceremony.

It’s quite the ordeal - they do the typical graduation stuff, including waking the stage, where they also receive a special pin signifying the profession with their initials engraved (this comes in to play later), exit the stage and go into the hallway to take a professional photo, then return to their seat.

So this particular ceremony we’d rehearsed the day before with the faculty, had all the pins lined up in alphabetical order on stage, left the ceremony location with the room locked tight.

Next day when we’re checking everything over for set up, we find one of the pins missing. Just disappeared from the middle of the pin board. We’re baffled, and tell the student we’ll order her another one.

Fast forward an hour or two and we’re halfway through the ceremony. I get a call on the walkie talkie asking me to come to the photo area.

There was a student there requesting a picture because she showed up late to the ceremony and would like to just get her diploma, take a picture, and leave.

Only I know that’s not right, because I checked all the students in and everyone was there. Huh. Weird. So I head to the photographer and by the time I get there the girl is gone.

Photographer says she was insisting on getting her diploma - problem is, we don’t do live diplomas because they aren’t ready for graduation. Students get empty tubes and receive diploma in mail later.

Our students know this. Clearly something is fishy. Photographer says she went ahead and TOOK A PICTURE with the empty tube anyway. I look at the photo - NOT one of our students.

I don’t recognize this girl. She isn’t even in our special regalia that our discipline wears at ceremonies - she’s wearing a regular black graduation cap and gown. She’d even given the photographer the name of one of our students.

The clothing company representative who we rent our regalia from hears this conversation and calls me over.

He says someone had tried to order a gown that hadn’t been on the list we’d given him, so he’s cancelled her order. But he had her name and credit card information. He gives it to me, and I try looking her up in our system and that’s when the real fun begins.

Turns out this student was previously enrolled at our University (never in our professional program, though) and had failed out several years before.

I check the photo again - she is wearing a University ring that you can only get after completing many hours of coursework.

She failed out before then. I also notice that on her gown she is WEARING A PIN. THE KIND WE GIVE OUR STUDENTS. THE KIND OF WHICH WE WERE MISSING ONE THAT MORNING.

How does she have a University ring? How did she steal the pin? Why did she want a nursing diploma? WHO IS THIS GIRL?

So I put my millennial skills to work and search her on Facebook. Y’all. This girl has listed on her profile that she is our student. She’s checked in to our location many times over the past years and has even checked in to graduation that day.

She has a profile picture with a major University landmark, and her MOTHER has commented on it, “There’s my beautiful daughter and future [title of our health profession]!”

She has multiple posts that make it seem like she is one of our students.

This girl is living a web of lies.

This is getting super long, so I’ll cut to the end: we turned her in for theft, police track her down. Turns out she’s been lying to everyone - her roommates, her family - about being in our program.

She’d leave the house every morning in scrubs and go to work as a medical tech. She stole the pin that morning when maintenance unlocked the doors.

She got the ring by stealing her roommate’s student ID and claiming that she was ordering a replacement for one that had been lost.

She was going to take the diploma and tell her family they’d given her the wrong one by mistake. ‘

She told them the ceremony was closed to families so they wouldn’t show up. She had NO REMORSE for any of it.

Since she was an adult, I have no idea if her parents even know to this day that she never graduated, is not a licensed medical professional, or that their tuition money was pocketed.

She didn’t even have to return the ring she didn’t earn because technically she bought it outright.

She did return the pin, but since the value was <$50 nothing ever came of the theft.

Username: deleted

Been lurking for years. Created an account just to post this

I was in 1st grade, my mom let me and my twin rent Mega-Man for the supernintendo for the weekend .

Long story short we couldnt beat it (no save points/check points back then).

MONDAY MORNING.
I couldnt bring myself to walk away from it. I told my mom the first thing that came to my head to get out of school.

"It hurts to pee", not knowing then would would snowball into life changing events.

She seemed worried for obvious reasons and told me to stay home. Not knowing that she would be making an appointment for the very next day. I thought I got away with it.

TUESDAY MORNING
Shorty after waking up my mom asks me "How did it go this morning" I still have yet to beat the game, so i went with my previous response "it hurts to pee"

In the Doctors office later that day, after some creepy old lady told me to drop my trousers, I realized i had fucked up.

(FF>>)THURSDAY MORNING
Another awkward visit to a different "penis" doctor. By then I realized I have gone to far and id be in heaps of trouble if i told my mom i was lying so i just went with it.

FRIDAY
It was pretty good, by then i have already beaten and forgotten about Mega-Man, my mom let me go back and rent 3 games for the weekend, I got to eat whatever i wanted for breakfast and lunch as long as i just had broth for dinner.

I was all about it, I didnt know what broth even was i reckon maybe just vegetables or something. I was on top of the world.

SATURDAY MORNING.
I woke up to my mother telling me "good morning" I was very confused seeing that it was still dark outside.

She told me that we were going to the special "penis" doctor one more time. I remember going to the hospital, and thinking that it was so much bigger than the other doctors office.

I was checked in and was lead to a room behind the big swinging doors, and was given a dress for some reason and a shower hat to wear. I was very confused.

Until my mother told me that this is a hostpital gown and a hair cap to be clean, and that the doctors where giving me surgery and going to fix my penis so it didnt hurt no more.

I decided then to come clean, I told my mother "NOOOOO, It doesnt hurt to pee" to which she replied " its ok son dont be scared".

My heart sank for the first time in my life I tried to come clean to the point "I just wanted to beat Mega-Man, it doesnt hurt i was lying" she told me "to be brave" .

I kept shouting "No NO NO" crying as the lead me off in a bed on wheels.The nurses telling me "everything will be ok honey" I tried to tell them between my sobs and gasps for air that "it doesnt hurt, it doesnt hurt im lying" had they put a mask on me and tell me " it ok just count backwards for 10 like a champ"..................

When i woke up needless to say.............. it did hurt to pee. The most razor sharp burning hot sensation coming from my piece , that I have every felt in my life to this day.

It sucked, I had unnecessary surgery just to beat a shitty game. ( they told my parents that my urethra was too narrow and that was the cause)

Now im off to work, Ill talk to yall later if any one has questions

Username: SonofJen

I made a joke that a judge told me I could beat involuntary manslaughter in a self defense case if I enlisted for 6 years.

When I was an 18 year old, unemployed student about to graduate highschool, I was having dinner with my family and my stepdad's work associates.

They were all super typical old rich white Floridians: They had part ownership of golf courses and hospitals, loved to fish, and loved to talk about themselves.

I didn't particularly *care*-I was just there so my stepdad could present the whole happy family company man image, and it was free Panera Bread.

So I'm wearing a hoodie that says "Aperture Laboratories" on it because, yeah, I'm that guy, my whole wardrobe is printed t-shirts with dated pop culture/video game icons.

And this real old dude shakes my hand and sits across from me, and we're at the end of the table so we can't hear any of the important conversation, perfect for a one-on-one sidebar.

He manages the highway ambulance call center. He owns part of a hospital. He swings under par and knows Arnold Palmer. He makes a shit ton of money and his kids are all doctors and stuff.

"So, 'Aperture Laboratories,' that sounds pretty prestigious."

It was like one of those scenes in a movie where the protagonist pauses imagines two different options, the truth and a lie, and he sees the lie going somewhere terrible but chooses it anyway. "Yes sir."

I proceed to spend the next two hours regaling him with the exciting world of metal and ceramic medical experiment equipment.

A small start-up company, I was a salesperson/communicator for a group of guys that designed and produced different size needle gauges, equipment housing, staging boxes, stands, and tools, mostly for stylized versions of common equipment (like making microscopes with arms shaped like the hospital logo),

but occasionally we got orders from college students, research centers, and hospitals that had designed or had begun designing new processes or tools and didn't know how to produce them.

"Yessir, when 3D printers started getting big, we were worried, but that technology has a few shortfalls.

Plastic can't be used to make cutting surfaces, for example, and it can't hold various chemicals. Working with steel, iron, copper, porcelain, and other material gives us flexibility autocad and a printer don't have."

It was about this point that my mother (who had been sitting next to me the whole time, and spouting similar but closer to reality bullshit to another woman) overhears the crap I'm making up, and she gives me this look of *"What the fuck are you talking about?"* but decides not to say anything.

After dinner, she took me aside and told me to knock that shit off because if I end up looking like a liar/idiot, it's going to make my stepdad look bad.

And then this guy wanted to know more about my company.

So I made a fake website (I think I used weebly or something) with a hamfisted logo (I can't photo edit worth anything) and suuuper generic buzzword-filled nonsense product descriptions like you'd expect from the sketchiest possible kickstarter post.

Fast forward ~year or so, the MEPS station tells me I can't tell anyone that I'm in the military while travelling because opsec and terrorism or whatever. Alright, I know just the lie: I'm Jack Lastname, travelling to San Antonio on business with Apperature Labs.

I shit you not, the woman on the plane next to me is the fucking niece (or daughter or grand daughter or something) of the old guy from that Panera Bread, and he's told his country club about the young buck medical equipment specialist working for good ol' stepdad.

I'm pretty sure my stepdad is getting a new job soon, though, so I can stop maintaining my lie and move on to my true fake identity: Jack Lastname, Dog Food Wholesaler Rep (I tried that on my way out of San Antonio and the fucking woman on *that* plane was best friends with a house pet food wholesaler).

Because of my job in the AF (Contract Specialist), it gets easier and easier to lie about the whole metal/ceramic company thing because my real day job is all contract clauses, blank purchase agreements, legal junk and obscure case history; the fib started as being part of the design team,

then (when more qualified people were hired to replace me) getting forced into sales/HR because I was better at communicating engineering terms to customers and translating customer requirements to the design team, and now I'm the one-man company contract law expert and officiator of sales.

Girlfriend sent me to Burger King with a long list of requests. I'm talking $30+ of stuff for just the two of us. "Don't let anybody give you shit. If they say something, you can tell them it's pregnancy cravings." Didn't expect it to come up.

Cold, late night in February, I make my way over quick, breeze past a local homeless dude chilling outside BK on my way in. Apparently I missed something he'd called out, I heard him when he walked in behind me though.

"Hey, RED. Don't pretend like you can't see me. I'm not a piece of shit. I deserve some respect don't I?" Fair points. Dude continues going off, then the dude in front of me in line (only other customer in the place) turns around, slowly shakes his head in disapproval repeatedly saying: "You don't do that, kid." This goes on for another 5 minutes.

Skeleton night crew is not prepared to deal. Eventually Dude #2's order comes out and they both walk out but post up outside. I shakily place my ridiculous order and wait, hoping they'll leave. Order's up, there they stand.

I wasn't fully anticipating a beating, but in the event of one I'm basically fucked. For one, I can't fight. Running's more my style, but not with two fistfuls of BK and a handle of vodka in my backpack. So I walked out apology-ready.

"Hey man, didn't mean to disrespect you, I'm sorry. My girl at home's pregnant, I was in a hurry to get her some double cheeses extra pickles, you know?" I just wanted some extra insurance. Wasn't expecting him to apologize too.

"Every day, man, it's like I don't even exist. Just snapped, it's not you, it's everyone."

He explained that he'd been thrown out of BK for sneaking drinks, and just needed to complain to someone about it that night.

Mostly though, he wanted to know about my girlfriend and the baby. He's a father too, three boys and a girl. It had been awhile, he was missing them.

Obviously, the lie in this story, my girlfriend wasn't pregnant. But the dude was into it, the questions kept coming and the story kept rolling. We're not quite 3 months in.

We've got a good amount saved but it could be better. No gender yet but I'm getting the feeling it's a girl. We can't move for at least a year, but I want to give them a yard.

No beating. Don't think there would've been one at all, this guy had a lot of heart. Instead, I started seeing him everywhere. I mostly walk around my town or take the train to other parts of the city, no car.

And my hair makes me pretty easy to spot. I'm now stopping and chatting with this dude at least twice a week, updating him on my fake life, sharing my cigs with him and listening to his stories.

Doc said it's a girl! (Haven't even been to a hospital in years). Girlfriend needs to quit her job soon, I've gotta step it up at work (student, jobless at the time). Managed to quit drinking, man (no such luck). All these lies.

Spring rolls on by and the weather's finally nice. I know my girl's gonna want to walk to dinner at a local place (been grubhubbing or running pick up for her for months). She does not look at all pregnant, I've gotta break it to my second-life confidant that there's no baby.

Ran into him one day with his whole posse, can't share now. A few days later I found him alone outside the local head shop.

"You guys have your damn kid yet?"

"Man, I didn't want to mention it cuz you've been with D and the rest of your crew these past few times. We...lost the baby. My girl's alright, but, yeah, it's over. Not our time yet."

Yeah, not my best moment.

He looked saddened but also told me I'd get another chance, when I'm older and more ready. And, as fate would have it:

"D. Man. He OD'd in the BK bathroom yesterday. Fucking junk got him."

We had a brief, somber conversation about death. And just like that I'd gotten out of it.

I don't see him much anymore but a few weeks later he did see me and my girl out together and I introduced 'em. He gave me a lot of advice about what to avoid in fatherhood, and to just bear down, get shit done and not let it things fall apart.

This was all last year, saw him about a month ago chilling curbside by the bus station. He killed a nip while we caught up but according to him he's stayed clean of everything else. I think I believe him because he never asks for cash. Just likes to chat.

I was always extremely bad at math.

My Asian parents were always disappointed how I wouldn't do well in math competitions. As in like 1 problem right out of 20.

Very slow, had to use pen and paper for things like multiplication. Mental math was possible but physically hurt my head.

I played chess, and was only about as good as the average class A player, but I eventually won the state championship with psychological tactics against a player 300 rating points above me.

I had built a fake reputation that I was good by playing at an old chess club often against very old and senile opponents with floored ratings (when you reach a certain rating during your life you can't fall below it, even if you get old and suck afterwards).

I made a crucial mistake in the final round, but before I put down my queen (which I would have lost in two moves), I made a decision to slam it down and grin like a madman at my opponent.

I asked him in the most menacing voice "would you like a draw?" while he was startled and when he asked why, I said it was because "that's all I need to win. And if you draw me, you will get second place.

But if you lose, and you WILL lose, you won't even get third place." He took it right away while he was still too flustered to see my blunder.

I bullshitted my way to the state debate championship on a nuclear weapons topic by abusing appeal to emotion with lay judges. I used the imagery of Schindler's list on judges I thought were jewish, knowing full well that my argument was fallacious.

I found other ways to get into science that didn't require as much math by studying things like exploratory bioinformatics. I annotated genomes of viruses that nobody had bothered to look at and found things in them.

Eventually I started winning competitions in science too, because exploratory bioinformatics was guaranteed to always be publishable and generate new data in science.

Because the unexplored data is just sitting there and you don't need to be einstein to just copy paste some atgc sequences into a program online.

Somehow I had managed to win all these competitions while being totally shitty at math.

My school had a rigorous set of math classes. I wanted to avoid failing. So I signed up for night classes at Harvard to substitute at my high school for credit (because everyone knows that Harvard classes are easier than high school) for calculus. I aced the Harvard class.

Then I failed the AP calculus exam because Harvard apparently didn't teach series in their intro calculus class so I was left holding my dick in my hands for half the test. I didn't put that AP score on my application, just my shiny meaningless Harvard A grade.

I applied to Caltech for college. Somehow, I got in. I guess they thought I was good at math.

Everyone in my life besides my family thought I was good at math because of it.
I let them all keep thinking it too.

At caltech, they have a freshman entrance aptitude test for math, to gauge how much help you need in math. If you fail it, you get placed into a special math section.

If you FAIL fail it, as in scoring like a 10% out of 100 rather than a F at 50/100, you get placed into a whole special class and are basically one of the idiots of the school.
20/200 people per year are in that remedial class. I was one of them.

Because I was a moron, I decided to become a bioengineer instead of a biologist. I slaved for 5 years to graduate because I kept falling complex analysis and vector field differential equations classes.

But eventually I graduated. And I did learn the math, and the quantum, and the relativity and particle physics.

I remember staying up for days in a row staring at a single problem and not being able to solve it for the whole week while my classmates would do the whole set an hour before it was due like it was nothing.

So yeah, I made a college think I was good at math when everything I ever did it won was due to subverting the system and finding the easy way in. Ended up being good at math afterwards for real.

For reference my IQ is only 98, which is below average intelligence.

One time before my obsessive responsibility compulsion began, I was calling in sick to work. I think I just wanted a day to myself, really.

All through high school I was a Ferris Bueller style responsibility dodger, and was exceptionally comfortable thinking on my feet to avoid class, responsibility, and attachments in elaborate, improvisational ways that friends often encouraged because they seemed zany and fun.

I'm not a sociopath, no matter what this story might indicate, but imagine if Ferris Bueller was played by Dennis Reynolds and you would be in the right ballpark, because looking back, there was a level of mental illness at play in my wacky games that were only possible enough to pull off because I had such a blindspot for any reason that I should be afraid of failure.

I called work with zero plan in my head about what I'd say. I felt thrown off my game when a grumpy manager answered, and said "If you're calling in today, you better have a damn good reason. I'm swamped, what do you want?"

It was 5 in the morning or something, and that's just how he answered the phone, without even asking who it was on the other end.

My immediate response?

"I'm so sorry... I just found out that my friend Dustin killed himself." I don't know if it was the stress hitting me over the size of my lie and how it would ruin me if it was not believable, but I started crying for reals.

There was no answer from the other side of the phone and I was openly sobbing... so I doubled down. Through choked tears, I shouted, "He shot himself in the f---ing face!" And then I let the crying take me over again.

"Oh, man... is this... Walter?"

I had a half eaten bowl of cereal next to me that I planned kn finishing after I got out of work. I carefully walked it to the bathroom and splashed the contents into the toilet bowl while making violent pukey sounds. "I'm so sorry, I just... I haven't been able to sleep all night. I feel so sick...." (crying and dry heaving intensifies)

"Please, Walter, don't apologize. Take at least a few days before you even think about coming back." I think maybe he was compensating for how he answered the phone now, stammering and piling on his own guilty feelings.

I started crying harder. "I can't afford to- I'll just, I'll be in tomorrow, I just need-"

"I'll give you a bonus to make up for a week's worth of pay, at least. Easy. It's done. Get some rest, and let me know Sunday night if you'll be in next Monday or not. We'll figure this out."

"Oh my God, thank you so much. Buh-bye!" Or something like that, I don't know.

The boss was usually a grade A jerk. I think that, whether it was born from a genuine place or not, he became a much better employer that day... from the compassion and the way he measured himself.

That being said, I hated the job and almost everyone who worked there, so I started out with no problems lying to them.

It was home to a work force of a small high school's worth of people, and I had 3 good friends out of all of them.

Maybe it was the depravity of committing suicide to an imaginary friend, or the genuine concern and kindness I ripped from my employer, stolen under false pretense, but I felt immediate shame... and I was/am not one to feel much of that particular emotion.

It was amplified when everyone in the entire place became aware of my excuse for not coming into work. I was showered with love and affection to the point of actively hating myself, but I could never tell them. I received homemade food, cards, phone calls and love. It was a strange mix of awful and wonderful.

My 3 friends, and band mates, knew immediately that something was up, because none of us knew a Dustin. I told them and they thought it was hilarious.

IIRC, one of them leveraged a day off to spend with me from the ordeal because he was worried for my well being and thought it'd do me good.

This was formative for me, in learning that my hijinks were getting to be both more juvenile and progressively darker, but also I learned that I'm uncomfortable with involving others to the extent that I might be walking the line of emotional abuse...

and the few hundred employees that the angsty spitball version of myself hated actually grew into a person who loved people, and gave the befit of the doubt more often, judging far less critically than I'd done before.

One of the main games people liked to play during lunch at my high school was a free-for-all variant of dodge-ball we called "Dead Man." It starts with a kick-off so everyone rushes to get the single ball.

Whoever did the kick-off was bad at it or I was just standing too close, and suddenly I was seeing stars and fell to the ground.

He and several others rushed over to make sure I was okay; I uneasily got to my feet, said I was okay, and walked off as they awkwardly resumed play.

I was fine. Nothing was wrong with me, besides a big sore red mark. I had had a bit of a rough day though, so at this point I was just kinda miffed at life—the day I had had, then getting slammed in the face.

I sat in a chair in the hallway and just stared off. A girl walked by and said "hi" and I didn't respond, just kept on staring. At first it was just because I wanted to be left alone.

Then when she came to see if everything was alright and someone else walking by noticed I wasn't moving, I decided to hold it, see if I could act like I had head trauma, make that kid feel really bad about smashing me in the face.

More people came by to see if I was okay and soon there was a crowd of like 15-20 students around. One girl started rubbing my hand, trying to get me out of it.

The class clown walked up smiling and went **CLAP** really loud and really close to my face. I don't know how, but I was able to hold it. "Oh, he's not joking," he said with a nervous laugh.

I was. I was joking. I could've moved at any moment, I was completely aware of what was going on. I don't know how I was able to keep from blinking or flinching for so long, but I was trapped.

If I moved and showed I was okay, I would be mocked or insulted.

A couple teachers had gathered, I might get in trouble! I couldn't let them know it was a prank (right? That's what you would call it at this point, a prank?).

When they called 911 was when I decided I had to ramp things down. A few minutes after the call I first blinked (someone yelled, "he moved!"),

then slowly moved my hand, then blinked a few more times and turned my head as though I was waking up.

The people who had kinda spread out drew close again to see if I was okay, and I just kind of mumbled at first, then asked what was happening and said that I felt weird.

When the paramedics arrived they asked a few questions, had me track a pen they held, felt around on my neck, and asked if I needed a ride to the hospital.

My parents had gotten to the school by then (yeah, I must've held unblinking for a long time! I didn't have a clock in view while staring so I'm not really sure *how* long) so I declined.

They asked my parents some more questions and left.

Pretend my name is Mike. For many years following that incident (I know because I visited often), if one of the basketball or volleyball players gets hit on the head or someone really slams their head on the desk while reaching for something, the teachers would joke and say something like, "Ooh, he got Miked!" I bet some teachers still do...

I haven't told anyone except you random strangers.

Username: HolyRamenEmperor

I made up a child in order to sell cookies.

In my office I ran a little snack store and Maude, a single mother who worked down the hall, asked if I would re-sell a huge amount of Girl Scout cookies (Maude that year had decided to just buy out her daughter's quota to get it all over with.

She now had boxes and boxes of cookies in her garage.)

So we started offering Girl Scout Cookies for resale.

Sales were lackluster. I'd tell everybody they were for Maude's daughter, but Maude was quiet and worked for a different department and nobody really knew her or that she even had a daughter. So that didn't count for much.

I went online and found a picture of a girl scout who was wearing glasses like mine. She had red hair and a not perfect but still cute little smile.

I printed out her picture and stuck it up above the cookies. I began telling people she was my daughter and asked them to support her.

BAM! Sales went through the roof! People didn't know I had kids (I didn't. Still don't. I was single (at the time) and gay). Quickly people started asking questions and somehow the answers supplied themselves.

Her name was Ariel--A name from "The Tempest." She was NOT named after the mermaid (she HATES that movie).

She lives with her mom who is a Marine Biologist (we'd had a disastrous and very short honeymoon: She'd wanted to go dig drainage ditches in Kenya, and I'd wanted to go to Disney World.) Ariel wants to be a Marine Biologist like her mom. . .

Sales were through the STRATOSPHERE!

Details about my Ariel kept emerging: I call her "Button" and we do this thing where I playfully tweak her nose. She's at the stage now where everything I like isn't cool.

She refuses to watch "Return of the Jedi" and won't read "Harry Potter." She never came to our "Take your Child to Work" day because her Mom's job was way cooler.

My coworker got into the act and we pretended that her kids sometimes had play dates with Ariel. I went on a rant once which ended with "So help me, if she loses one more retainer. . ."

It was amazing fun. I thought for sure everybody knew I was joking, but it turns out some people really believed me.

One day Maude came in to refill our stock and saw the picture. She got a funny look on her face, and came back in fifteen minutes later.

She'd printed out a picture of her daughter (unfortunately kind of awkward and dumpy and without a cute smile). She put a sign up about these being her daughters' cookies and put it up over my little Ariel.

Sales plummeted.

Eventually I put Ariel back up and we quickly sold out of cookies.It was amazing. The power of a cute red headed spokesgirl worked for Wendy's AND my little snack shack.

I did not keep the lie going. Once the cookies were all sold, I did let everybody know that Ariel doesn't exist. All the same, I sometimes wonder what my little Button is up to. She's probably in college now.

EDIT: I want to assure everybody that Maude's name is not her actual name.

Username: hpotter29

Three years ago I was being badly bullied in school, and I was getting severly depressed. I woke up one day and had a bad case of the flu.

My Mum and Granddad took me to the doctors, and I just got told to stay in bed and take pain killers until my immune system got its ass into gear. I was ill for a week, and subsequently I missed an entire week of school.

When I was feeling a lot better, but not cured I came to the realization that I didn't want to go back to school, and endure the bullying that I was getting. Besides I was enjoying laying around doing fuck all with my life.

I don't remember exactly how I came to the decision to fake this illness, but I pretended to my parents and family that I had lost the ability to walk.

I've always been a fantastic liar and deceiver, and I felt/feel no regret or guilt for doing it. I faked barely being able to stand on my own two feet without support, and for a couple of months I didn't go to school, and my Mum was too busy with work, to take me to the doctors.

Plus I made up a story that I hated hospitals after three of my teeth were taken out. My stubbornness, coupled with my Mum's lack of free time ensured that I had loads of free time.

When my Mother was at work I frequently played on the Nintendo Wii to make sure my muscles in my legs didn't actually degenerate through lack of use.

Eventually I got sick and tired of this routine, (even with accounting for my introverted nature.) and I 'NEEDED' to socialize with people my age again.

So I asked my Mum to go the hospital so I could get some crutches so I could go to school. She agreed and took me the next day.

I stumbled into geography class limping with my crutches much to everybody's surprise, and all my classmates were in shock. I told them I may not ever be able to walk again, and I enjoyed the sympathy and attention from them.

This charade continued for a month. However my Mum was getting tired at my lack of progress recovering, and took me for an appointment at the hospital with my Father.

I was adamantly against this, but I ultimately had no choice in the matter. After a boring recap of how my illness was going, and how no doctors could figure out what was actually wrong with me I was 'captured.'

My Mum had agreed with the GP when I was outside eating with my Dad that I should stay in hospital indefinitely until they could figure out what was wrong with me.

I protested and detested for what seemed like an hour, and after my Mum saying that I am definitely going to stay in a hospital ward against my own will I flipped my shit and made the slowest ever get away hobbling through the corridors of the hospital with my crutches, unable to run because of the charade I was putting up.

The doctor tried to stop me at the front entrance, but I struck him in the shin with my crutch and limped out. My parents eventually caught me in the parking lot, and I was dragged back inside by several security guards.

The good folks at the hospital had now decided that I had some mental illness, and they thought I believed I couldn't move my feet, and it was all in my head.

Probably because of my violent outburst, and because my parents described me as apathetic with my interactions with people.

Which is true I suppose, I don't love my family. They're good people, but I just don't love them.

Anyway I was kept in the children's mentally handicapped ward for a week, which pissed me the fuck off.

Only after making my Mother cry by telling her she's a heartless bitch for keeping me locked in a prison, and attempting multiple break outs, while telling the hospital staff to go shove their fingers where the sun don't shine,

while trying to jump out a window 14 floors up because I was so fed up of being trapped in a hospital ward for a week with nothing to do did they finally let me out.

I went back to school the day after I was released, and my mood quickly escalated back to normal levels.

Only after the doctors suggested I be moved to some sort of home for suicidal/severally mentally fucked up children did I think enough was enough.

A week after the letter arrived, I was playing a game of Halo with my Dad where I faked a miraculous recovery over three days. I got out of my chair and slowly walked to the kitchen, and faked joy and happiness at my ability to walk again.

I returned back to school, and everybody cheered when I walked back into class. I was no longer bullied and hated, and during the summer holidays I promised to improve myself by grooming myself better and improving my social life.

I did, I still compulsively tell small white lies, but I stop myself from lying about important matters...

Conclusively one lie to keep me out of school because of bullying escalated into costing the NHS thousands of pounds, not walking in public for six months, and being listed a possible nut case.

Username: throwaway96q

I've always been scared someone might find out, so here's a throwaway story that is a little bit serious and uh, about porn.

We got internet access when I was 10, circa early 2000s. I was a curious kid, so when someone said "Porn is bad, don't look at it", I of course looked for it, usually sneaking on at night.

I searched, fruitlessly, for examples beyond the splash pages that blared "GET YOUR FREE TRIAL TODAY SPECIAL OFFER NOW ENTER CREDIT CARD INFO" in huge obnoxious font over equally obnoxious pictures of unattractive women with giant fake-looking breasts and men with incredibly large penises that stuck out at weird angles.

The pop up advertisements that ensued were for everything under the sun: gay friendly! Farm porn! Etc.

I searched for "free porn" in an attempt to figure out what this was about in as many ways as possible. Farm porn seemed like a joke, because seriously who would do that, so I searched for "free farm porn". I found out about hentai, and searched for that, discovering that it was not the kind of anime I watched on TV.

Searching for other words I didn't understand like masturbation resulted in way too many (in retrospect, kind of creepy) blogs that were mostly thinly-disguised advertisements for sex hotlines, and occasionally cautionary pages warning teenage boys not to stick their junk in vacuum cleaners. I tried downloading videos that never seemed to open, and finally gave up.

During this time, however, I did not search for things like "how to clear history", or "how to delete cookies", as I did not know those existed.

I also did not know that some of my downloads were in fact putting viruses on the family desktop, and that the files (with names like "BIG TITZ") were often sitting in the recent downloads folder for anyone to see.

Once I figured that out, I stopped downloading things, but checked obsessively to make sure they were all gone.

One day, the recent downloads folder showed something like "schoolgirl in black tights gets a surprise". Huh, I thought, I don't remember downloading *that*, or even looking up anything about schoolgirls. Being a schoolgirl myself, that would have been too weird.

Not thinking, I called my mom over and said "There's something weird on the computer!" She looked at it and quietly said, I'll ask your father to fix it later. When I checked again, the files weren't there.

Another day, my mom called me over to the computer. She was typing something into the search box and with a funny expression asked me about a page she found on there, sakura something or other, which turns out to be one of the hentai pages.

"Do you know anything about this?" she said quietly. I panic. I lie: "Oh, it was a TOTAL MISTAKE, I was searching for something, and thought that was something else so I clicked on it! I wasn't looking for *that*. You don't think I'd search for porn, do you, mom?" I quickly ran to get my Cardcaptor Sakura tapes.

"This is the sakura stuff I'm into, they're about a 10 year old girl who does magic and has a stuffed animal and I'll watch them with you if you want-" She says, no, that's okay, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Later, it occurred to me to search for how to delete the history on a browser, and I finally get everything cleared. I decided that porn is overrated, and and also expensive, and mostly dumb.

Eventually we got another computer, because my dad's job required him to be online a lot and I threw little kid fits about not being able to play games when I wanted to.

I stopped throwing fits when I was older and noticed that my parents had enough to deal with without me fussing.

They were fighting all of the time, it seemed. I never understood where it came from, but it got worse and worse.

My mom put on a lot of weight out of stress. My dad started hinting that he'd move out, and spent increasing amounts of time on the computer when he was home.

Once, I found a crumpled note by the computer from my mom to my dad, reiterating that she absolutely did not want to have sex with him even if he was threatening divorce for not doing so.

Apart from the grossness of realizing my parents were still doing it, I was embarrassed to have found such a private conversation, and threw it out.

One day I took a walk with my mom after my parents had argued and my dad stormed out to his car, peeling out of the driveway in a hurry that seemed to indicate he wouldn't come back anytime soon. I admitted I'd found her note. "Are you really going to divorce?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said. She told me how things had always been rough, but that they were worse when he started spending more time on the internet, and she found out he was looking at porn.

"He got into some really... weird things. Unhealthy. It was too crazy. You were just a kid."

I remembered the files I'd asked her about once. "Do you mean those-" I said weakly.

"Yeah, and there was other stuff besides the things you'd shown me. He told me he didn't know how it got on the computer, but there was no way..." I watched my mom try not to cry.

"There have been many, many other problems in our marriage. But this was the biggest lie, and it was hard to trust him after that," she said finally.

I thought of admitting my decade-old lie, telling her that probably all that porn she found was just me being too curious for my own good, but wasn't able to muster the courage.

Besides, what if some of it was actually something my dad did download? I didn't even want to think of him watching porn about schoolgirls, even if they weren't actually close to my age. But what if it was all my fault?....

My parents still share a house, these days, but barely speak to each other. They work enough hours that they barely spend time with each other. When they do, the atmosphere is tense.

Username: throwawaythe15th

When I was 15, some dorky kid named Robbie's dad bought him fireworks, he bought them for Robbie, because Robbie didn't fit in, and he was always buying him things like dirtbikes, cool clothes and fireworks to help him fit in.

Now, let me just add that Robbie was 12, the same age as my little brother, I was taking Mikey (my little brother) around trick or treating, because my lazy divorced dad was too high to get off of the couch to take him.

We didn't have costumes, I believe he just got white face paint for a dollar at the dollar store, and made himself into a skeleton by just drawing on his face. We didn't care.

So me, Robbie, Mikey and another kid Dez wound up trick or treating, and I ended up watching these kids because all of our parents were such dead beats, Robbie's dad just gave a 12 year old a backpack full of fireworks, and a mickey of fireball and literally told him to go have fun.

11pm rolls around and we are finished collecting candy, there are no more kids in the streets, it was a halloween on a week day, so everyone was basically in bed.

I told the kids that I was tired, and it was time to go home. We were walking through this small park, I was ahead of them a little bit, and all of a sudden I heard someone yell "WATCH OUT!"

I turned around to see Dez holding two roman candles IN HIS HANDS as they shot through the air in this park.

He was waving them around, shooting them all over the place.
I had no knowledge up to this point of any fireworks...

All of a sudden, the one firework explodes from the bottom, and the roman candle shoots a fireball at his feet.

He then drops both of the roman candles to the ground, and bolts. The roman candles begin spinning around and shooting like a Russian-roulette spin-the-bottle.

I'm ducked behind a tree, yelling at these stupid kids when I hear "OH MY GOD! THE TREE!"

The goddamned hedges behind me are engulfed in flames, within ten seconds the flames are 8 feet high, and sweeping this park from one side of the hedges to the other.

We run. This park is on FIRE, the whole park engulfed in flames.

So I start running and knocking on doors, but it's halloween at 11pm, people think I'm some late ass trick or treator and they just ignore me.

So I go house to house, banging on doors until someone answers.

"We don't have any candy left."
"No, um, the park right there is on fire..."
"Oh my god..."

The guy runs in and calls 911, we were actually down the street from the fire department, but in all the commotion I hadn't really thought of it.

Along with three fire trucks, a couple police cars show up.

The police officer asks us questions about the fire, if we saw anything etc. It dawns on me, that these people don't think that the kid with us did it, they think we just came across it.

The officer asks if we saw anyone near the scene, Robbie quickly jumps up and says "yeah! a guy in a white hat!"

A couple minutes later, the firefighters had put out the park, which was destroyed. We heard the officer call in on his radio "Yeah, white hat." and we heard "WE GOT HIM!" called back on the radio...

I still feel terrible, the guy with the hat probably didn't get into much trouble, there is no way they could have pinned anything on him, and they never asked us for any written statement or otherwise, so I'm sure they let him go.

I never watched those kids again. Dez, the kid who burned down the park, ended up in prison a couple years later when he was 16 for shooting up someones livingroom.

He got out of jail after four years at only 20, skipped parole, landed himself another 11 months in there. 9 months after getting out the second time he was back in for trafficking weapons.

Maybe if someone had corrected him when he was younger, he would have turned out differently. But he went from foster home to foster home, and all of our parents were drug addicts.

He's still in prison, still think about him from time to time.

Username: [deleted]

When I was 16 my friends and I got caught shoplifting at a Shell Gas Station. It was a bottle of Vault soda and a few candy bars.

I put them in my backpack. The cashier held us there while the manager came out to talk to us.

One friend really had nothing to do with it so we told the manager to just let him leave and he had no idea we were gonna do that.

The manager decided to not call the police but call my dad instead.

He asked for my dad's number, so I gave him my cell phone number instead and put my phone on silent.

He left a message explaining to my dad that they decided not to call rhe police but they're banning us from the store, and let us go.

We got to friend 3's house and told him what happened, and having the deep voice that I have, I decided to call back pretending to be my dad.

Worked like a charm and got off scott free.

A week later, me and a different friend decided to walk into a CVS and steal energy drinks. It was like 85 degrees and I was in a trench coat. Red flag already.

We stole the stuff and we're walking out when these two hulks from loss prevention came out and called to us, my friend who was 19 decided to run and got tackled to the ground.

We were brought in the back and spoken to by the manager, I did the whole shtick from Shell but when they couldn't get in touch with my dad, they decided to call the cops.

A cop came and frisked us and asked me my name, I gave him a fake name and kept with the fake dad's number thing. It was now getting late in the day and I didn't know how to get home just in case they let me go.

They took my prints, took my picture, and kept me in a cell. I called my uncle from the cell and told him I got arrested and to come get me.

My uncle was furious and when he got there he asked for me but used my real name which confused the police and confused my uncle.

My uncle left and went to the station the next town over, but I didn't know that. The cop came in and asked me what my real name was, so I told him and he got fucking pissed at me and my friend for lying to him.

My parents were called and came down to the station, my dad was mad as a hornet and my mom was crying.

She knew that I was hanging around with druggies and thieves but couldn't prove it.

The cop took me aside and explained to me that I'm not getting any younger and to lie to an officer was an offense but he was willing to overlook it since he saw that I had a good family, he told me to stay out of trouble and stop hanging people like my friend.

It ended up with me getting charged with shoplifting and having to go to court and pay like $60.

My friend was charged with shoplifting, obstruction of justice, and possession of marijuana and unprescribed pills and ended up paying like $500 or something. All because of my stupid lie and addiction to stealing.

Edit: Some say my uncle is still searching every police station in America for me.

Username: [deleted]

I pretended I could see Ghosts.

This is completely ridiculous but my S/O Is terrified of the unknown and I discovered this when we were 14 years old (Im 21, shes 22 now), being the crafty hillarious fucker I am,

I decided one night to look around her bedroom frightened, she asked what was wrong and I told her I could see a victorian dressed girl at her computer who was pointing and laughing at us, so we hid under her covers and she made me check to see if "it" was still there.

Im pulling my best poker face and shes paranoid to all hell but I assure her its nothing to worry about and we sleep it off.. in a different room.

My mistake here was not telling her I was joking.

Fast forward a few months we are up the town center (mall) and are walking past a run down area that is attached to some flats,

we both noticed out of the corner of our eyes that a door had swung open leading into the flats (I assume somebody had just quickly made their way inside),

I ignore it but she automatically jumps to the conclusion that we actually live in a Hannah Barbera Cartoon and theres ghosts and ghouls round every corner.

Being the clever bastard I am, I play along..

"Did you see it!?"
"See What?!"
"The Figure going up the staircase!"
"No! Did it open the door!?"
"Yeah Look! Its closing now!"

And she quickly noped out of the town and went home, with me on her tail, still not explaining that i'm a filthy liar.

I felt my ruse had gone a little too far so I decided to come clean.. sort of.. sort of not,

This is where it gets really stupid, instead just admitting i'm a liar and her telling me i'm a cunt, I decided to lie some more.

Yes, I went to see a Psychic... ???

I fabricated a story about how this Gypsy lady did a ritual involving feathers and glass and cards and other crazy shit to make it so I couldn't see the ghosts anymore, it was completely retarded and I assumed she would call me out on it.

But she didn't.. she accepted this as gospel, young and naive and we never spoke of it again.

Untill about 2 months ago, we were in a McDonalds Drivethrough, a fox was eating from discarded bags and dragging them off into the darkness when she turned to me and she said, completely out of the blue.

"You cant see ghosts can you?"

I just looked at her, dead in the face and said.

"No, I cant, Am I in trouble now?"

Im an asshole, a prick, a liar, a dickhead, a knob, a wanker, a fuckwit, assbandit, cunt... Lovely british words and I laughed and laughed which wound her up more and more untill she had got it out of her system, and then she laughed with me and we drove home.

So, Im a Liar..

Except this, this is true.

Im sorry Baba.

Username: NalrahPlays

Throwaway, and no one will ever read this so I'll tell my story (although it doesn't exactly fit the question but whatever).

Grew up with a single mom, I don't remember much about my dad ever being around, he left when I was a baby. My older brother though, had a much harder time with my dad leaving, and grew up with a lot of abandonment issues.

I was a smart, well-mannered kid, teacher's favorite, didn't get into trouble, happy and outgoing, tender, compassionate, blah blah.

My older brother was pretty cynical, tended to act out a lot, got in trouble more, as he grew older he got involved with drugs and slacked in school, etc.

So I'm in 5th grade when this all goes down. I'm not sure what possessed him to do it, but for whatever reason my brother wiped his ass with my mom's face towel. So she goes in to wash her face in the morning and wipes my brother's shit on her face.

Obviously she's horrified and pissed, and gets us all together (my brother, myself, and my younger sister) and asks who did it.

We all deny, of course. Now it was getting close to Christmas, and my mom being at her wit's end with trying to figure this out (probably not even to punish, bless her heart, but just figure out why psychologically one of her kids would do that to her), threatened to take away Christmas presents from *all of us* if whoever did it didn't fess up.

So I confessed. To something I didn't do. My reasoning in my little, innocent, 5th grade mind was something like, "I'll cover for my big bro, and make sure we all still get Christmas presents." I didn't understand the gravity of what happened, but it ended up being one of the most pivotal, crushing and horrible decisions I've ever made.

Over the next... 6 years-ish, my life became ~~a living hell~~ pretty miserable. My brother realized, "Hey I basically have carte-blanche to do whatever the fuck I want, and little bro will take the blame."

He continued to shit on towels (I still don't fully understand why he chose to do that), download porn on the family computer, make long-distance phone calls that cost a LOT of money, all kinds of stuff. Every time, without fail, I would be accused, then deny having anything to do with it.

But because I had confessed to that first incident, it was assumed that it was me. No matter how much I denied it, I always ended up eventually breaking and saying I did it, and taking whatever punishment. It would take days or weeks after each time something happened, for my mom to warm up to me again.

The worst part, to be honest, was getting picked up from school, happy to see my mom, and she would be sullen and silent, not saying a word to me. My skull would start to burn with the knowledge that it was about to happen again.

I would ask, "What's wrong?" *knowing* in the back of my mind that I was in for an awful few days. Nothing could ever convince my mom that it was anything different than what she believed it to be.

My brother started masturbating into towels and sheets in the linen closet. That's how I had my first 'sex talk', I didn't even know what semen or masturbation or orgasm were, and my mom was asking me about all this shit I didn't understand, and I remember being so confused.

I remember my mom mentioning a few times that she had even talked to some close friends and family about it. So I know there are at least half a dozen friends/aunts that believe I was doing all this horrible stuff.

When I was a junior in high school, my brother got arrested for theft. Several months later, the night before he was supposed to show up in court, he went on a drug-induced burglary spree. He ended up in jail for 6 years.

The night he got arrested, I remember feeling SO thankful. So grateful that it was *finally* all over. I was so excited to explain everything to my mom, and re-enact this moment I had fantasized about for years, where I would tell her and she would cry hysterically and beg me to forgive her, and I would give her a hug and tell her of course I do, I don't blame you, I just want to have a good relationship with you.

Well that didn't happen. I told her all that stuff wasn't me, that my brother had done all that, and that I had confessed the first time because I didn't want to lose Christmas, blah blah.

She basically told me I was lying (again, ironically), and that there was "no way" it wasn't me. It finally dawned on me that all these incidents had so badly eroded her trust in me, that short of my brother confessing, there was no way she would ever believe me.

So I wrote my brother a letter in prison. I basically said, 'I love you, and I want to have a good relationship, but I feel distant from my own family because of all that happened.

I forgive you, and I want to move on from this.' I didn't even ask or compel him to tell my mom, although I hoped he would. He responded back saying essentially, 'I don't have a clue what you're talking about, sorry you feel that way, blah blah' denying the whole thing.

Which I thought was really stupid, because why even deny it? Of course we both know what really happened. Well the next day, I get another letter from him basically saying, 'I'm so sorry, I was a piece of shit back then and it was evil, and I'll tell mom, but if you're ok with just waiting til I get out of prison, I'll tell her then, I don't want to overwhelm her.'

Well fast forward five years, he gets out, doesn't tell her. It's been like five years since he's gotten out, and he still hasn't told her.

I'm never going to push it, because I think it's something that should come from him, out of his own desire to make it right.

But at this point, I'm pretty sure my mom will go to the grave believing I did all that, and created all the distance between us that we've struggled with ever since.

Anyway, that's my story.

Username: triedtosavexmas

My first year teaching high school, I was at a very rough inner-city school where there were essentially no consequences for anything, and your ability to enforce discipline was more or less dependent on your rapport with the kids. If they liked *and* respected you enough to work, there was a chance they'd work. If not, forget it.

My kids that year liked me, but they didn't respect me - because I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. Any teachers here will have a bone-deep understanding of that feeling. So - the kids didn't work, but at least they weren't starting fights or setting anything on fire.

Near the end of my first year, I had accepted that I had more or less in terms of being, y'know, an actual educator - one who teaches the kids to do shit that will someday improve their lives - so when the kids would try to steer me off track from my lessons, with increasing frequency I'd let them, because having genial conversations about life was preferable to pleading and cajoling and harassing them to do work they weren't gonna do anyway.

So one day, I'm trying to explain what a compound sentence is or whatever the fuck, and this kid says "HEY! Mr. Figgis! You got any tattoos?"

I have no idea where this came from - to this day - but instinctively I sighed, started to rub my face with my hands, and replied, weakly, "yes." (I didn't really)

Kid sort of looks at me, wondering what the hell just happened. "How many tattoos you got? I never seen 'em on you."

"Just, uh... just the one."

"One? What is it? You got a chest piece or something?"

At this point, everyone in the room is at least halfway listening.

I say "look, guys, I was very young. I was a completely different person. I don't want to talk about it."

"How old you was?"

"I was sixteen."

"How you get a tattoo when you was sixteen? Your boy get one of those kits off the internet?"

"I mean, it was my friend, yeah, but - he - he didn't have a kit or anything like that."

"How he do your tattoo then?"

"Look, guys, I really don't wanna talk about this. It's not relevant to who I am anymore. Can we please move on?"

"NOnononononono Mr. Figgis please! How he do your tattoo?"

I make a big show of being pained and uncomfortable.

"He did it with, uh. A guitar string. He dipped it in pen ink and poked me with the sharp end."

At this point, every motherfucker in the room is listening. All phone have been put down for perhaps the first time in the whole school year.

Original kid, awash in newfound reverence, asks, hushed: "So...so what is it?"

I shut my eyes tight. "It says 'THUG LIFE.'"

The class EXPLODES. "THUG LIFE?!? THUG LIFE??!? AY YO, FIGGIS GOT A THUG LIFE TATTOO?!?! WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!"

So of course they ask to see it, and I tell them it's at a semi-circle at the base of my neck and I'm not going to take my tie off to show them, but if they try their hardest for the rest of the year I'll show them on the last day of school.

The kids don't try any harder, of course, but eventually the last day come around and they've all forgotten. Or so it seems, until this one super shy kid says "Hey, Mr. Figgis, can we see your Thug Life tattoo now?"

Now, this kid was one of the rare few who actually did his work, so I tell him sure, come back after lunch.

The kids go to lunch and I go running down the hall with a Sharpie in my hand, looking for anyone who can do Old English lettering. Eventually I find this tiny blonde special ed teacher and she does a bang-up job in five minutes.

The kids come back from lunch and shy kid asks to see my tattoo. A crowd of kids gather around. I say "alright, FINE," and momentarily jerk my collar low enough for them to quickly see THUG LIFE.

It's fucking silent. Shy kid says "wow...you really did change a lot, I guess. That's pretty cool." Before the end of the day, every student in the building, even the ones I don't teach, know that I'm the young English teacher with a "THUG LIFE" tattoo.

And now, every year, I can overhear new students whispering to each other, "yo, you got Thug Life, yo." Every year, I make the same deal to show the new group of kids on the last day of school. And every year, I run down the hall to have my tattoo reapplied.

I've started thinking about getting it for real.

Username: [deleted]

This isn't a lie that I actually started. It's more of a rumor about me that has spread so much that it's now a defining point of my life.

It all started long ago during the night of Junior Prom (like Senior Prom only smaller). I took a nice girl, fun to be around but not the brightest, we both played lacrosse so we had something in common and the night went swell.

At least the dance part went swell. The dance went to about midnight, and my date had planned a post-prom party since her parents were out of town.

A solid amount of our mutual friends ended up at her place and we started getting turnt. It was typical high school stuff, Fireball, shitty beer, and a lot of kids acting more intoxicated than they actually were.

My date and I, on the other hand, were actually pretty shit faced, and we eventually started doing the dirty.

(This is when it all happened: the eight finger farce, the eight seconds down under, the manifestation of the death grip) We were making out on the couch in her living room with a dozen or so other people in the room. The alcohol took what little shame I had and completely obliterated it.

Before I continue you have to understand three facts about the situation:
I'm an ass guy.
She was wearing a dress.
My hands are the human equivalent to big meaty claws.

So there we are hooking up on the couch. The other people in the room either don't notice, or are just ignoring us.

(We weren't really doing anything unusual) I don't remember how we were positioned, or how long we were on the couch, but after a little while my hands began to wander.

Again, everything is fuzzy but I assume I was reaching for the booty.

At this moment two of my friends glanced over at us and used their Sherlock-esque intuition to make an observation that would change my life: since they could only see my two thumbs, my eight other fingers MUST be taking a special journey.

Now this may not seem like too big of a deal, people do weird shit all the time right?

Fingers are meant for experimenting right? Well apparently this situation was unfathomable to many of the kids at my school.

So as the rumor mill worked its magic my close friends started asking me about it.

How did you got all eight inside? What did she do when you inserted them? And as the weeks went on people I knew less and less seemed to be asking me about it.

How many fingers? Did she return the favor? Soon it seemed like the entire school knew about my eight finger incident, and it became my defining feature.

When people started approaching me about it I responded with denial, even though I didn't really remember I couldn't believe I did anything like that.

As time passed I just reacted with indifference, and eventually acceptance.

Everyone knows about it now. When I go to college will my roommates find out? Will my future wife joke about my fingers with me?

Will the epigraph on my gravestone read: His fingers wandered further than his heart?

I may never know what really happened that night. (and I'm not going to ask her about it) But I do know one thing... I am the eight finger phantom. And I am alone.

Username: dachezkak

Years ago, when I was backpacking across western Europe.

I was just outside Barcelona, hiking in the foothills of mount Tibidabo.

I was at the end of this path, and I came to a clearing, and there was a shallow lake, very secluded, and there were tall trees all around.

It was dead silent. Gorgeous. And across the lake I saw, a beautiful woman, bathing herself. She was crying...

I stood there taking the scene all in.

The majesty of it all was too much for any one second. Everything in my surrounding seemed like they were meant to be this way, in unity. Eventually, the woman turned and saw me.

I held her gaze for no more than a moment before she approached me, wading gracefully through the water.

After rising from the water, she brought her face less than a hair's breadth away from mine before whispering in my ear exasperatingly, "Please, help me! There are men over there...who are...!"

I took off my clothes swiftly and handed them to her with my pack, telling her "put them on and hide here."

I then placed myself in the water and made my way as quietly as possible back to where she once stood.

When I got back over there, I heard someone call out "Hey! Hurry up! We don't have all day and need to be somewhere."

Me being a master of ventriloquism, I mimicked the woman's voice as best I could, saying "I think I need some help. Something's wrong."

One of the men came around the brush and saw me standing there in the water, covering myself up in a stereotypical feminine manner.

I started stepping out of the water say, still in the voice of the woman "There's something in the water here."

He looked at me, eyes widening and surprised, before pulling out a gun from a holster on his hip and shooting himself in the head.

"Hey! Hey! What's going on!?" The other man shouted as he rushed in to see what happened to see me still standing there in the same position I had been when the first man shot himself.

The second man gaped at me in much the same manner, then glanced down near his late acquaintance. "How long?" He asked me, solemnly and quivering at the same time. "13 inches." I replied, now using my own voice. "And yourself?"

As soon as the words left my mouth, the second man shot himself in the chest, right below his left collar bone.

He fell over, still very much conscious due to his poor judgement. "I knew it...we never stood a chance..."

He coughed up through a spurt of blood several moments later as I began wading back through the water. A smile touched my lips.

And that's how I met your mother.

Username: Special_opps

**TL;DR**: lied about making out with a couple of girls in HS, it later evolved to me being a cassanova, and then it made me be kind of a cassanova for a little while,

now everyone thinks im an asshole cassanova player douchebag even though im totally not but nobody believes me.

My lie started in highschool. when i started in HS i said that i had a couple of "second base" encounters with a couple of girls,

i didnt said sex because no one would believe me.

I wasnt hot, but even before i lost weight i was as funny and good looking enough as to be believable, so nobody called me out on my bullshit.

i liked that they believed me so gradually it eventually evolved to now and then saying things like: "i was casually making out with a random hot girl from another HS the other day" and some one would say "HOW?"

"Well, a girl i know that goes to that school invited me to hang out and introduced me, an well... confidence gets you a long way" and that sort of crap.

and i started acquiring this douche persona i definitely wasnt. and then i got an actual real girlfriend and we were happily dating for around 8 months

but i cheated on her with 2 different girls (dont know to this day why i let it happen, or how for all that matters), and suddenly i was even more believable.

so, my reputation involved having something to do with a lot of girls when actually i only had somethinng steady with one,

hooking up with another and drunkenly making out in front of everybody with another.

so i was this barney stinson level player in the eyes of my HS even though i wasnt even super atractive, all because of "Confidence" (Lies, actually).

After HS guys would invite me to hang out because they tought i was a player,

so i met a lot of girls even though most times nothing actually ever happen.

and the girls i knew would invite me to hang out in a friendzonish kind of way

because they thought i was a funny guy to hang out with, and because of that people would think i had a great record.

and because i "had a great record" some of the girls would hit on me to find out what the hell i had that made me so special.

so my record became an actual record.

so, now im 24 and everyone thinks im the Barney Stinson of my social circle with a record in the hundreds,

and that lie has affected me in very bad ways but its gotten to the point where i actually like the perks of being considered a player.

also, im so deep in it, no one would believe me if i said i only have had sex with less than 10 girls.

Username: JaviHP

I was once interviewing for a good troubleshooting job. I'm really good at troubleshooting, almost supernatural at it. Any way I was asked if I knew electronics (which I didn't) and I said that I knew it well enough.

He asked me one question about the subject that was directly relevant to the task.

It just happened that I sort of knew that component. I had to deal with one of them at a previous job.

I confidently told him about the *one* component that I sort of knew about. I then expressed annoyance and with disdain that "All jobs are now just card swapping. Nobody lets you actually *fix* anything anymore.

You just pull the whole card and send it off to a repair facility and ship back an new card that *might* be repaired."

BTW that is how just about *any* troubleshooting and repair is performed at just about *anywhere*.

It was also a good guess that someone good will complain about this even though a lot of cards these days aren't actually repairable in the field anymore.

I think they do it for the same reason I did it, to look smarter than they actually were.

Good enough for him. During the initial training on the specifics of the equipment they went over the schematics and which card did what.

Like a lot of jobs it was mostly just card swapping. I learned that shit cold.

With the schematics and other notes I was able to effectively troubleshoot, calibrate, and repair the damn things.

Hey, calibration just meant tweaking this thing until it said that thing and repairing just meant finding what card was failing and get another one.

Hell, the management was so intent that someone got the job first try they would send anything related to what you had diagnosed and actually wanted you to shotgun (swapping components until you get the right one).

I expressed exasperation that they did that and acted like it was poor practice and a matter of pride but I occasionally needed a shotgun shell every now and then.

My odd gift for troubleshooting and my ability to read schematics I was able to get it right answer and the companies insistence upon poor practice such as swapping good components for the suspected one as part of the troubleshooting (That was a bit much even for me) and shotgunning made it relatively easy for a card swapper like me.

I also knew people skills a lot better than most techs (from bullshitting my way through things many times before). Therefore customers preferred me over people who were actually better and would make a point of letting my manager (and their manager) how good I was

Many times they would insist that I was the best and ask for me by name. BTW techs, people remember how they were treated a lot more than they do the actual quality of the repair.

A PM can just be a bullshitting session with the customer and a good cleaning of the machine.

I have the ethics of an alley cat but even that is more than I can do. A bottle of a good cleaner and some rags are more important than a multimeter or torque wrench.

When the shit hits the fan you do have to know your shit. Make no mistake about that.

But again, reassuring the customer and remaining the calm one when they are freaking losing matters just as much important as the speed and quality of your work.

Another good tip is to practice explaining the details of your job with your spouse or good friends (who will put up with that) until they can understand things. This is HUGE. Make sure to do it in a enthusiastic way

Everyone thought I was good. Privately I had no idea what the fuck I was doing.

I knew how to do things safely without blowing myself and the equipment and how to troubleshoot but that was about it.

Within a year or two I picked up enough electronics to actually do my job properly and had a long and successful career.

Fake it till you make it. Fake it until you make it.

Actually, if I am being completely honest, I faked a lot of my former jobs the same way. Being cautious and able to read schematics plus good people skills took me a long way.

A lot of people still believe I am very good at several jobs when I didn't know a goddamn thing (at least at first).

Username: Laughing_In_The_Ash

This fits in well. From /u/weego from a post quite a while ago

Okay this is a bad one.

This was back in highschool. To make a long story short, my friend and I both guys and straight were both experimenting with our female friend. We were all virgins so just uhh.... trying everything out.

It began with making out and eventually she was giving us both handjobs for all of our first times ever. My friend shoots first and gets it all over her. She runs into the bathroom to go clean it up and is ostensibly going to come back in and finish me off.

So to set the scene we are both sitting on her bed with our pants off, me with a raging boner, him with a deflating one with spooge dripping out.

We hear a door close and ASSUME it is the bathroom door and then we see the knob turning and ASSUME it is her coming in but OH NO it is BOTH HER PARENTS.

What the FUCK????? is pretty much a thought going through all of our minds.

Her dad is scary. He is a big black dude who used to play college ball. Her mom is a white former hippie current bleeding heart lawyer.

My friend pulls a moment of genius or stupidity (still haven't decided) and says with a serious face "uh.... we're gay!"

And that either saved us or doomed us. Dad's rage faded. Mom's motherly liberal instincts kicked in and after letting us get dressed she made us coffee and has us talk out our whole situation.

Thinking on the fly we just went with it and told a big story about how we were gay but our parents were super intolerant but Laura their daughter was very cool and let us use her room to be together while she hung out in a separate part of the house.

They bought it all but the fucking worst thing is that they bought it too hard and practically adopted us as their 2 gay sons. We were family friends for years before this but from this point on they would always make sure to email us stuff about gay rights and whenever we were over they would mention or ask about new stuff happening in the gay world.

They bought me a CD of "coming out" music for Xmas that year. This was years ago and to this day they still think we are totally gay.

The side benefit of this is that we were allowed to sleep over pretty frequently so we could "be together" when in reality we were double-teaming their daughter.

...Okay since this seems popular here are some more anecdotes from what this lie has wrought.

I did get to see her mom change her bathing suit in front of me once because it totally doesn't matter since I was gay. That would have been a lot cooler if I wasn't bent over fixing my shoe for 3 minutes thinking about gramma and the Holocaust to try to kill my boner.

'Laura' was NOT allowed to date (yeah they were not so lenient with their own kids) but I got to take her to the prom and of course have free reign to keep her out all night because I'm SAFE!

They tried to hint to my parents that I was gay on more than one occassion and I then had my parents question me about this and there is no fucking good answer to that one.

I eventually told my dad the complete and utter truth and he laughed his ass off and now he goes along with the lie (our parents are ALL friends) and makes constant gay jokes and allusions in front of Laura's family. Thanks Dad.

I really love old action movies and they take that in the worst fucking way thinking that I am attracted to Arnold and Stallone and such and tell me that 'Kevin' will probably never look like that and every time I rave about a movie hero or something it hurts his body image.

We all watched 300 together once and it was just really fucking awkward.

I am still afraid that the Dad will find out and absolutely fucking murder the turders out of me if I say or do the wrong thing or we just get unlucky and have another walk-in.

Username: Achromatized

Might have to turn this account into a throwaway. Oh well.

Pretended to be a woman in an MMO. I was 14, and I've always had an impressive set of hidden talents for writing and acting.

I "roleplayed" a female older than I was who liked this MMO, and I did it very well.

This was before everyone used mic systems like Teamspeak, Mumble, etc, so it didn't require any weird voice modulation software or sampling.

I kept the act up for years, joining and helping to build a major guild on the server, became an officer of it.

I never used my assumed gender to get handouts or anything like that. I believed in the role I took, took it to heart.

It was pretty much the perfect guild for me - a middle ground between the hardcore raiders and the casual family guilds.

I was highly respected and met a lot of people that I genuinely enjoyed the company of on a constant basis for several years, and shared in their trials and tribulations.

People that, if I met them in real life, I would consider close friends because of our history in this game.

I cared about these people deeply, but I was trapped in this lie that began as a stupid experiment in my ability to be manipulative... which came to a head when the guild arranged a meet between the longstanding members, all of whom were at least on a first-name basis (there were two marriages between guild members while I was there as well, who met each other through this guild and the game - real ones, not that in-game bullshit).

My absence was noticed and lamented, as there were a lot of people that wanted to meet the persona I had created. I made "her" so real, faults included, that to everyone around me she was real, and at times I believed my own lie.

I couldn't go. All of these people in one place, they had a wonderful time, the guildleader hosted the party and it was a huge thing.

I couldn't go, because of the fucking lie, and I couldn't bring myself to drop it.

The last thing I wanted to do was hurt these people by breaking that illusion, and I didn't.

Most of them have left the game, but many still have characters in the guild that will never leave it despite not playing anymore.

They're still in contact with each other, close friends, keeping in contact via a forgotten messageboard and eventually facebook, when that became a thing.

I hate that lie... lemme emphasize, **hate** that lie, but it'll die with me and my regrets.

As someone who doesn't make close friends easily, the cost was incalculable. Almost unbearable.

It taught me a lesson, though: there are real consequences to seemingly innocent experimentation, and to seemingly harmless manipulations.

So, late to the party, but I think it can fit here.

I had a friend (not anymore for reasons other than this story) named Mike.
Mike was a cool dude, I mean, overall he was the normal popular guy, and a close friend at that time.

I'm French, and when you start High School in France, as a sophomore, basically no one ever fucked, because you're around 15-16 years old and so it's not that common (dunno about the states).

Anyway, sophomore year and all the guys in our group begin to show interest for girls, we got windows live messenger to chat and we talk about that together.

So I had this girlfriend from Canada I met on a chat or a blog somewhere, another guy had his girlfriend south of France, but ALL OF IT was from online exchange,

we never really saw each other girlfriends and we just talked on windows live messenger like without facebook and all the social networks at that time.

ANYWAY, we never really lied to each other, we just said we discussed with the girls

but Mike always wanted to top that with a little 'I touched her butt' or 'Yeah I kissed the most beautiful girl there is'. But we wouldn't really mind and believe him.

Mike was swimming a lot, and he went to this training camp one summer.

This is when it begins : after this camp, he told us this shady story about how he went to a party after training, in a building, where people were doing drugs and listening to metal music / sounds ok...

then he told us he went in a room near the living room, and that there was a girl in the room, fingering herself with pleasure, that told him to close the door. (I am loling just writing that).

He said the girl told him to come and FUCK her in the ass, just like that : REMEMBER we were around 16yo.

So mike tells the story to the group, like how he fucked this girl in the ass at the party, a party where he knew nobody, and couldn't even remember the name of the girl because "quote" he was drunk.

And so we're 18 now, 19, 20... AND HE FUCKING TELLS THIS STORY TO EVERYBODY AROUND everytime we go to a party. And here is me, 21yo, tired of this shit and this story we heard and heard again.

We all had real experiences with girlfriend then and we knew that NO girl in the world would be fingering herself at a party, waiting for you to open the door and asking you to fuck her in the ass : COME ON MAN.

So he tells this story one more time, to two girls and a guy, and I just say : 'Mike you know what, I'm sorry but It's been years, you tell this story but I just don't believe you,

I think you're lying'. Mike was angry and told me how I could say that after so many years of friendship.

Well, guess what, a month after he tells one of our common friends that he needs to talk :

He confessed that he told this lie about fucking a girl in the ass for so many years to so many people that he didn't know how to catch up without looking stupid.

Anyway, I knew it since the first time he said it, already told all my friends of the group at that time not to believe him : AND I WAS RIGHT WOOOOH.

Haha mike, dumbass.

Username: [deleted]

Okay, this is my proudest and most involved lie.

In junior year of college, a friend asked me what my spring break plans were.

I told her that I was going to Mexico. I had a bit of a reputation for fun-natured deceit, so she was dubious - I guess something in my tone didn't quite feel right to her.

Now, I really truly was going to Mexico with a mutual friend and his family. But I know an opportunity when I see one.

So for the next several minutes, I pretended that I was lying poorly about going to Mexico.

She eventually left the conversation pretty sure that I was lying.

Later that night, I'm hanging out with the mutual friend, and she approaches to ask whether we were really truly going to Mexico together.

My buddy caught on immediately, acted confused, and assured her that he was just going with his family. She was now confident that I had been lying.

I spent the next several days until spring break keeping up my act, pretending that I was a shitty liar but only ever telling her the truth.

I sent an email to most of our mutual friends saying, "If [friend] asks what I'm doing over spring break, tell her I'm going to Mexico",

expecting that one would "betray" me by telling her about the email -- which indeed happened. That kind of thing.

In Mexico, my buddy and I took and sent her several pictures -- all of which looked entirely unlike Mexico.

Like, me in the kitchenette of the hotel room wearing a bathing suit and a button down shirt, with my backpack conspicuously in the background.

Or a picture of the both of us in the ocean, but taken from so far away that you could never tell it was us.

Pictures that were engineered to look like we were half-assedly trying to keep up the ruse.

When we got back, in order to convince her that we truly did go to Mexico together, we offered to each independently answer really specific questions, like what did we do for lunch on the second day, etc.

We answered MOST of them correctly, but with the occasional slip-up.

After weeks of confusion, she concluded that we had both watched some vacation movie and were reciting facts from that to get a consistent story.

Anyway, it's been two years now, and I'm locked in. I can't undo the lie.

I have tried to eject by just telling her the truth... but I've been telling her the truth the whole time.

At this point I'm resigned to knowing that no matter what I do, she will always be 90% sure we never went to Mexico.

Username: Gredelston