Lie Like a Rug

When it comes to lying I'm generally a pretty forgiving person. If I call you on it and you fess up, no harm, no foul.

If instead of a lie I discover that you just embellish or exaggerate as part of your 24/7 lifestyle, I'll just ignore everything factual that you say. We can have dinner, go to a movie, even hang out, but I won't be using you as my phone-a-friend lifeline when I'm on Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

And then there are the people who lie and insist they're telling the truth even when faced with the facts. People who have invented who they are, from their age to their education, to where they grew up, went to school, number of times they've been married, or hooked up with your best friend. I even know a guy who had an All-America football trophy made up for himself, even though he was never an All-America. I don't think there's even a trophy for it. The one he got made looks just like a gold version of the Super Bowl trophy. And it's proudly displayed in his family rec room.

Those people are dead to me. Or near death.

I had a friend who had the same last name as a famous movie star. He said they were cousins. I found out that the movie star had been born with a different name. Liar. But, instead of just confronting my friend about the lie, I got creative. I set up an elaborate ruse to convince him that my mother was unexpectedly pregnant with twins and I was going to have to leave school to come home and help her take care of the new babies. I even threw in a whole thing about getting back with an old boyfriend on the sly, which was problematic since I was dating one of my friend's fraternity brothers.

He was so flipped out that he called me and said we needed to talk. He even offered to take me to lunch at the fancy restaurant usually only frequented by the faculty.

After enjoying a great meal, which, in retrospect, made all my fabrications worth it, he finally confronted me with what he'd heard about my mother and my old boyfriend. I listened to him go on and on about how important it was for me to stay in school, followed by what did I think I was doing to his fraternity brother by dating my old boyfriend behind his back? 

Finally, I just said, "I figured if you could be cousins with a famous movie star, my mother could be pregnant and I could be getting back with my ex."   It took him a minute to process that, By the time he realized what I'd done the lunch bill had been paid.

As paybacks go, not very nasty, but it still felt good, especially getting a chance to escape from the usual college cafeteria food.

Then there was the guy who used to tell me to call him when I was out in LA. Everytime I called, he claimed to be out of town.  After the fourth time, a lightbulb went on and I realized he was lying. 

So I had a girlfriend call him and pretend to be an editor wanting to interview him for a job. She invited him to dinner at a nice hotel. That meant he had to drive about forty five minutes, find some clean clothes to wear, and shave his constant three day growth.

Did I mention he was always late to everything? Well, the interview was no exception. We were all there ready to confront him. But, he was so late, we ate dinner and decided just to leave. We instructed the maitre d' tell him the editor couldn't wait any longer and she was gone. He finally showed up and went crazy trying to track the her down.

That one got nasty when, a month later, I told him what we'd done.

A couple of years ago a guy contacted me online, after seeing my picture plastered all over the People Connection page.  He was one of a jillion IM's I got because of that photo, mostly from guys who started out, "Hiya sexy."  He, on the other hand, was polite, intelligent, said he was a college graduate and, after I asked, claimed to be in his twenties. I should have known something was wrong because he didn't gag when I said I was in my sixties.

To make this long story short -- after a few things he said triggered my LIAR LIAR alarm, I used one of the many trusty search engines available to internet users and discovered that he was married and in his sixties. Na na na na na.

Here's one tiny example of how he outed himself -- he said his mother told him he looked like Audie Murphy. Audie Murphy? Is there any guy in his twenties who has a clue who Audie Murphy is, or was? First of all, wouldn't a mother with a twenty something son tell him he looks like someone LIVING? Audie Murphy, sheesh. Heck, even most people my age haven't got a clue what Audie Murphy looked like.

A couple of years ago I wrote an entry about a reality game I want to do -- one contestant against ten people on the internet. If the contestant can figure out who the only real person in ten is, he will win a lot of money.

Each week, the contestant chooses one internet contact to be eliminated. If he eliminates everyone except the real person, he gets a huge pot of money. The people on the internet get money for fooIing the contestant into thinking they're real as long as they can.

I thought it would be fun to have men impersonating women, old guys pretending to be young guys, gay pretending to be straight, fat pretending to be thin. Everybody but the real person has license to lie, lie, lie.

My internal lie detector just got a recent tune up. I think I am ready to be the first contestant.