1. A Lifechanging Lie
Told my employer that I was Jewish. Not Jewish. Had to research all the holidays, pick a temple to be a member of, etc.
Had to get a new job.
2. His Very Own Olivia Wilde
I’m the kind of person that always leaves my shoes tied and just slips them on. I’m dating this girl for a couple months and then one day my shoe gets untied but I’m too lazy to retie it. It really bothers her and she insists on me tying it. I really don’t want to bend over and do it for some reason. It was around the time when Liam Neeson got his shoe tied by Olivia Wilde and I was crazy jealous because I really liked Olivia Wilde since watching House.
She eventually asks me “Don’t you know how to tie your shoes???”. In my head I’m seeing Liam Neeson getting his shoes tied by Olivia Wilde and how badass it looks. So I say “No… I never learned how, you can’t tell anyone…”
To this day, when my shoe gets untied in public she will pull me off to the side away from other people and secretly tie my shoe. For some reason it makes her happy and it’s the sweetest thing ever. I can’t understand how she would even tolerate a grown man who doesn’t know how to tie his own shoe! I’ll never be Liam Neeson cool, but I’ve found my Olivia Wilde.
3. Lies About Not Having Children
I work with a number of women (and men for that matter) who all have children. When we all first started working together they asked me if my wife and I have kids – I said no. I have zero interest in hearing about their kids or talking about mine.
So years later I’m the guy without kids and it’s wonderful. My boss who I’ve known for 18 years actually knows my son and doesn’t care, he actually thinks its funny.
Son is in his mid 20s and has been out of the nest for years to technically I don’t have kids, just an adult son.
4. The Lie That Caused A Heart Condition
In an ironic twist of fate, I used to tell people that I had a heart condition, and that’s why I took pills daily (it’s actually Prozac).
Found out about a year and some change ago that I do, in fact, have a heart condition.
I lied so hard that I retroactively gave myself a heart condition.
5. The Drunk Liar
I dislocated my knee dancing like a maniac whilst drunk in January. Ended up on crutches for three weeks. Told everyone at work I did it bending down to grab something from the freezer because I didn’t want them to think I was a drunken maniac. People at work are still shocked that I dislocated it so ‘easily’ and keep saying how unlucky I am and bringing the sympathy. Now I just feel like a fraud.
6. The Christmas Lie That Became A Family Story
My aunt would send us Christmas presents a month or so early every year and they’d sit under the tree just asking to get peeked into. Usually it was pretty boring stuff. So one year me and my brother both got this same exact size small box that felt completely weightless. We couldn’t tell what it was from the small holes we made, nor by shaking it or anything so we decided one of us had to open it up completely, find out what it was and wrap it back up. Well…turned out to be a crisp $20 with a bunch of tissue paper wadded up around it. We were dirt poor so $20 was like $1,000,000. We didn’t want to wait to spend it either so we carefully extracted each of our $20’s and rewrapped the boxes.
Now comes the lie. Mom would want to know where we got this money…she knew we had no money and no way to get any money so we came up with a plan. My brother was to take the $40 and when we got to Wal Mart, he would go to the bathroom and when he came back he would say he found it on the floor and in the Christmas spirit he will graciously split the money with me allowing us to spend our $20 freely. Everything worked perfectly.
Except my mom gushed about it to anyone who’d listen and STILL occasionally brings up our amazing luck finding $40 at Wal Mart that time. It’s proof of the magic of Christmas! See, Santa is real! Almost 25 years later it still gets mentioned. She’d be crushed to know the truth so the lie lives on.
7. Thirteen Year Old Lies About Age, Goes To College Early
When I was 13 I was playing world of Warcraft and someone asked me my age. 13 was so young so I lied and said I was 14, cause that meant I was so much more mature. Well I kept playing wow, with the same group of people, and 4 years later they thought I was 18.
Someone started asking me how my applications to college were going since I was that age. Being caught in the lie about my age I played along and asked for advice. I played along with the advice which resulted in me actually putting in a college application to a university and…. I got in. As a high school junior.
So to keep up this lie about my age I now had to finish high school quickly so I could actually go to this university that accepted me. Great part is that I was able to do this by overloading my spring semester of “Senior” year high school with online classes (yay Florida online high school). I managed to graduate high school a year early and went to university a year early to keep this lie going.
So here I am, at a university 1000miles from my home state, finished my BS and am now doing a masters, all because 14 sounded way more mature than 13 on a fucking video game.
8. Toddler Lies About Why He’s Crying, Earns Swim Lessons
When I was about 5 I remember being in the bathroom and brushing my teeth. My mum was there and berated me for something. Later, being a sensitive child, I was crying in bed about it. My parents came in all concerned and my mum asked: “was it because I yelled at you earlier?”. Embarrassed at being caught out so easily I said ” no.. I’m sad because.. Because I can’t swim”. Soon after I was taken to swimming lessons. I hated swimming.
9. A Lie Of Jurassic Proportions
Here is a lie I told in first grade. We had to do a report on a dinosaur, and we were each assigned a different dino to do a report on. We each were supposed to stand in front of the class and give a report. Before I could go, another girl in my class went and did a report on the same dinosaur my report was on. Instead of assuming that the teacher just handed out the same dinosaur to multiple kids, I assumed that I messed up and did the report wrong, so I threw it away and started crying before recess. My teacher came up to me and asked why I was crying, so I told her it was “because my mom has breast cancer.”
To be fair, I did have a really vague memory of someone telling me my mom had cancer. My dad had cancer when I was very little, and I think it was just a dream, but I partially believed it. It didn’t make me cry though. It was the report that I was upset about.
This lie didn’t last long, when my teacher gave my mom a get well soon card, and my mom confusingly explained that she did not have cancer.
10. Professor Liar
I am a professor and many times I will tell personal stories in an effort to demonstrate tough concepts. About half of these stories I made up at some point.
I don’t remember which ones are real and which ones are lies. So I just go with them and don’t worry about it.
11. The Coward
That I am allergic to bees. I was so scared of them in grade school and junior high, that I convinced everybody that I am allergic so they don’t judge me when I run from bees.
12. Tuna Casserole Forever
When I was a little kid, I told my mom I really liked her tuna casserole. I was just trying to be nice and pay her a compliment since she seemed like she was having a bad day.
Pretty much every time I go to visit her she has some tuna casserole waiting for me. I don’t actually like tuna casserole that much, but it’s such a sweet gesture that I don’t have the heart to tell her to stop. This has been going on for over thirty years now.
13. American Pretends To Be Scottish, Convinces Aussies
A couple years ago, I went to a bar in a town I didn’t expect to be in very often, and I decided to don a Scottish accent and make up a back story for a fictitious version of myself.
Now, I doubt my accent would have fooled someone actually from Edinburgh, but by the end of the night I had a group of Americans and one bemused Australian chatting with me about the things that make the US a strange place to visit from abroad. Shots were bought, back slaps given, and a good night had; I thought nothing else of it.
…until I was dating a girl from the next town over, and she took me to her favorite bar. That bar. We walked in, someone greeted my by my “name”, and I did the only thing I could do — cheerfully donned my fraudulent accent, explained that my business trip had been indefinitely extended, and spent the next twenty minutes furtively explaining to my date that I wasn’t a con man, just an ex actor with terrible impulse control.
14. American Pretends To Be German
For some reason when I was a younger kid, I really really wished I was German. I do have a very German last name, but I’m really only like 5 percent German. But I would always tell people I was 100 percent German. (I would say both my grandparents on both sides were straight from Germany, so both my parents were 100% German). It didn’t really go as planned, and whenever we would learn about the nazis in history people would stare at me, and the teacher would even ask me for my insight on it. One time when German exchange students visited our middle school for a day, I was assigned to be their tour guide because they would want someone “like them”. When high school rolls around, all my friends assumed I would take German as my language class. So since I was the “german girl” I did. Hence me learning German and now constantly being asked to speak German to people to prove that I’m German. I’ve also studied German customs and culture just so people believe me. Fuck my 12 year old self for having such a weird obsession with Germany. edit: wow I wasn’t expecting this to blow up. It’s mind-blowing how many other people have made up fake races/nationalities.
15. The Lie That Protects
This is a lie with a happy ending and I’ll take it to my grave.
Background – My mother is a very emotional person and there are 5 boys in my family. So she doesn’t get to have a lot of emotional moments that she gets to share with her kids. We mostly just make fun of her (in a playful way) and everyone moves on. She has cried at every big, medium, and small event in our lives, and I love that I have a woman in my life that cares so much about me and my siblings.
Background 2 – I was an ass hole of a kid. But I am actively trying to make up for the patience my parents had for me.
Story – My parents are almost empty nesters and live in Colorado, last year by complete mistake all of her kids found jobs/school in Utah County, Utah. We all live about 20 minutes from each other, completely on a fluke. My mother decided she wanted to take up on one last road trip, so we flew in to Colorado, and she drove us back home. It doesn’t sound like too much, but my family is poor and it was a very nice gesture. Plus there are places on the way we always used to stop at, like the Little America Hotel in WY. And the Grand America brunch buffet. All of this is far too expensive for my parents so on the way I discreetly called and payed for everything, or would sneak out during a meal to “go to the bathroom” and would slip a waiter a card.
At each stop the staff would play along and mention how the room had to be changed so they gave it to us for free, or how a kind stranger payed for our meal. And I was never caught. My family’s appreciation for the amazing people of the midwest was too much for my mother and she broke down to me and told me how she had no idea how she was going to pay for our trip but she did it anyway because she wanted to be with her boys one last time before we were all too busy, or she too old. She then told me how she prayed for help and God gave it to her.
I am not religious, but my Mom is and there is no way I’m going to tell her the most spiritual experience she had had in a long time was her sneaky son.
Love you Mama.
16. The Bear Attack That Wasn’t
I have a horizontal scar on my stomach from a surgery I had when I was a baby. For some reason in elementary school I would tell everyone that it was from when a bear attacked me.
I’m now almost 30 and people I went to elementary school with still recognize me in public as that guy that got attacked by a bear.
17. The Embarrassed Liar
When I was younger I walking home at night and the street lights were off, I got scared and starting running, knocked myself clean out on a lamppost. Someone walking their dog found me and called the ambulance. I was that embarrassed when I woke up I told the nurse I was mugged (I was 12). My parents turned up at the same time as the police. I gave a description that sounded a lot like gonzo from the muppets and police were searching the area with sniffer dogs. Thank Christ nobody was arrested and I still haven’t told my parents.
18. The Lie That Came True
My brother had a girlfriend with a younger sister my age and they all came to watch me play baseball once. I was pretty smitten with the younger sister and so after the game I started bragging about how I played guitar. My brother laughed in my face and said I had got a guitar but it had been collecting dust for months and I’d never have the patience to learn an instrument anyway.
I was so embarrassed by being called out and doubted, I went home, told my mom I wanted to take lessons again, and here I am 20 years later still playing guitar every day.
19. The Lying American
I am currently studying Chinese in Beijing. My Chinese isn’t that great and listening is by far my worst skill. So I will often get asked questions that I think I understand but don’t. For instance, I was asked if you can haggle prices in America and I told the class you can. Since I am the only American in the class, nobody knows any better. All my lies are small, and completely accidental, but there are so many of them. If anybody in that class actually goes to America they are going to be in for a big surprise. And if any of them spoke English they would know I am not an 18 year old from a small town with no buses, trains, or taxis, who doesn’t know how to properly use a fork and knife.
20. Trapped By A Trick
When I was a kid, I got the bright idea to put a knotted cherry stem under my tongue, and then show my sister an untied stem and magically tie it in a knot in my mouth in seconds. Fast forward about 20 years my entire extended family thinks I have this weird ability to tie knots with my tongue… it’s a complete lie. At this point I refuse to do it, and get, almost defensive when people bring it up or ask to show it again. Pretty sure I got the idea from the Simpsons or pete & pete and now has stuck with me as a curse.
21. San Diego
When I was interviewing for a job in college when I was 21 (that might lead to something after college), one of the interviewers was the manager of the department. A real grade A-douche. I could tell right away from the interview that he was so full of himself. Well, he was just grilling me (I’m talking about like a $11 an hour job) and making sure I fit the job description. At one point he mentioned that he had just come back from San Diego. I asked him how it was, because I was there last year and it was awesome. He goes off on a tangent about it, he warmed up to me whenever I would pretty much repeat whatever he said and adding in “and the weather is just perfect.” Ended up getting the job, and for the next two years I had to pretend I had an imaginary trip to San Diego because every once in a while he’d always bring up how he wanted to go back.
I’ve never been to California.
22. Eating Poop
I used to teach outdoor education in the Rockies. We would get inner city kids from Denver out there on school field trips for three or four days, and teach them the way of the wild.
The place where I taught had elk and deer wandering all over the place, so there were piles of poo everywhere. One of the gags that my colleagues and I always pulled was to hold a Milk Dud in our palms, reach down and act like we were picking up a piece of cervine butt solid, show the Milk Dud to them and eat it.
It was all fun and games and “ewwww…” until one kid got too excited about it and actually ate a poo.
23. The Yogurt Thief
A girl I lived with two years ago thought I was stealing her yogurt out of the fridge. I told her it couldn’t have been me since I’m allergic to dairy, and now I still can’t eat dairy in front of her or anyone from that friend group. She made me a dairy free cake for my birthday – the guilt is eating me alive.
24. The Last King Of Rhodesia
This lie broke. It shattered but its a great story. My chiropractor (great bloke, not great English, fairly gullible) lived with my drinking buddy at the time and one night with my last name being Rhodes, we decided to convince him I was the last of the ruling elites of Rhodesia in exile in Australia since the rise of Zimbabwe. Even set up a blog (which got me in so, so much trouble when a racist took it over), slipped in Leo DiCaprio’s accent from blood diamond occasionally. All was going well, I’d go get my back fixed spin a yarn about a semi-made up land and laugh all the way home, this went on for months. And then my mum invited my chiropractor (lets call him Patel) to a family barbeque. First thing he said to my mum, “So how DID you get out of Rhodesia?” And a laugh went out so loud and so far, even obi fucking wan felt it. I was not the last King of Rhodesia, just a guy with a terrible sense of humor when drunk.
25. The Snake Bite
I once told people I had been bitten by a venomous snake to get out of work for a few days….I had already called in sick a ton of times and just could not face them if I did it again. I am young and in good health, there is just no way even an old frail person is ill as much as I am calling in…. so yes snake bite. They knew I kept venomous snakes and I thought “this is a great idea.”
Turns out they were fascinated and wanted to see so I had to wrap my foot up in a huge bandage and hobble around for weeks…. luckily I was moving to another job I actually didn’t hate a few weeks after that. I didn’t have to deform my own foot or actually let one of my venomous bite me so that I would not get busted…I was not far off doing so!!
26. Blaming Razali
I shat in a rock pool.
We used to go camping in an idyllic beachside location with huge tides (~10m). When I was 12-13 we went for an explore and swim in the rock pools, I was away from the group and needed to poop, so I did. My parents were of the alternative persuasion and nude a lot of the time, I thought they would be fine with the naturalness of the thing. Wrong. 10 minutes later the group circles back and notice the huge stunned mullet. I was smirking until I realized that the sounds coming from them weren’t laughter, but angry shock. Led by my father saying, “who shits in such a beautiful spot?!” Totally taken aback, I suggested the short round friend Razali. Everyone believed me and it has stuck ever since.
Even till today, almost 20 years later, the family brings up the time Razali shat in the rock pool.
27. Abducted By Aliens
My sister has told our family that she was abducted by aliens. She says that that they come and take her once every few months and perform experiments on her. My parents found her an abduction support group and she has to go to meetings once a month. This has been going on for 7 years now. She told me that she was going to tell them initially it was an April Fools Day prank but she let it slide a little too long. Now look what happened.
28. The Accidental Engagement
I had a coworker tell me he got married on accident. It was Christmas morning and he bought his girlfriend a ring as a Christmas present. They were both sitting around the tree and when she opened it she started to cry and said “well are you going to ask me.” Thats when he realized what he had done. He got down on one knee and asked her to marry him. Moral of the story, don’t ever buy a ring for a girl unless you are planning on marrying her.
29. Pretending To Be Dutch
When I was a kid and playing on xbox live with people from all over the world, I used to put on this dutch-sounding accent when talking to new people, partly because I didn’t like how my normal accent sounded, especially when hearing it back, and also because I was/am weird. I met some good friends throughout the year or so that I did it. I’m still in touch but no where near as much as we used to be, we’ll have a Skype call every now and again, and even after 6-7 years, I still put the accent on to them. Obviously with us being good friends, I also lied about an awful lot of background things. It’s like I created this other person. I never intended for it to go like this, but I could never tell them I’ve lied about my accent, which stemmed in to a bunch of other things… and even now after all these years… I’m the dutch guy that has only ever spoke english. It goes much deeper but, that’s basically it.
30. The Titty Twister Monkey
My now wife and I were dating in college in the early 80’s. One night we went out to a party where she proceeded to get black out drunk.
The next morning I asked her if she remembered the little organ grinder monkey giving her tittie twisters. She didn’t believe me at first so she asked my roommate. He was always on his game and confirmed it without hesitation. He even added to the story a bit.
All 100% complete bullshit. No titty loving monkey to be had.
Fast forward 30+ years. It’s now a family legend. She tells everyone about it.
Parents/siblings/children/friends have heard the story dozens of times. It invariably comes up at every family gathering. People hearing it for the first time howl with laughter because she has the rap down cold by now and delivers it with skill. Those that have heard it repeatedly just cringe and roll their eyes.
I’m the only one (besides roommate whom I haven’t seen in 20+ years) that knows it’s all bullshit. I’m scared to tell her the truth, so I wrote her a sealed letter and put it in my will.
31. The False Jew
Was a poor kid who went to boarding school for high school. After getting there, nearly all my friends were Jewish … so I said I was, too. This was 16 years ago. Most of the social circles I’ve been in since have had some sort of relation to the people I was in high school (and college) with so the lie just kind of stuck. I’ve even been the token Jew in many of those circles.
Funny part is that last year I got drunk and tried to explain this to three of my closest friends. They simply did not believe me. The next morning they were like “You got so drunk you tried to convince us that you’re not Jewish.” and I was just like, “ehhh …”
32. The Vegetable Lie
Someone at work, who is grungy, a chain-smoker, and never washes her hands, made a carrot cake and was asking people to try it. I told them I was allergic to carrots. I love carrots. To this day whenever I order or bring a salad to work I have to have it with no carrots.
33. The Threesome Baby
My daughter was accidentally conceived in a “threesome” when our friends birth control failed.
We just told everyone that we got a surrogate because my wife wanted to focus on her career. No one actually knows that our friend didn’t want to get an abortion so my wife and i decided to take the baby in as if she was ours.
It actually work pretty well, in the past 4 years since, my wife has been promoted and is making $$$ while i stay home with our daughter. My wife sometimes says that she accidentally had her cake and ate it because she now has a daughter and her body is still the same.
34. Walking Dead Liar
Everyone I work with thinks I watch The Walking Dead- I haven’t viewed it since Season two. Now I find myself reading the synopsis of episodes the day after they come out just to perpetuate the lie.
35. Said He Didn’t Know What A Potato Was
My girlfriend (who let me tell you is only my 2nd girlfriend of all time) said I am “invited to dinner” with her and her parents. I was very aghast, nervous, and bashful to be invited to such a situation. But I knew it must be done.
I met them nicely, I should tell you, and it started off in a good way. The idea slapped my mind that I should do a comic bit, to make a good impression and become known to them as a person who is amusing.
When I saw that baked potatoes were served I got the idea that it would be very good if I pretended I did not know what potatoes was. That would be funny.
Well let me tell you: backfired on my face. I’ll tell you how.
So first when the potato became on my plate, I acted very interesting. I showed an expression on my face so as to seem that I was confused, astounded but in a restrained way, curious, and interested. They did notice, and seemed confused, but did not remark. So I asked “This looks very interesting. What is this?”
They stared at me and the mother said “It’s a baked potato.” And I was saying “Oh, interesting, a baked….what is it again?”
And she was like “A potato.”
And I was like “A ‘potato’, oh interesting. Never heard of a potato, looks pretty good.”
And then they didn’t see I was clowning, but thought I really did not know what is a potato. So I knew I would be very shamed, humiliated, depressed, and disgusted if I admitted to making a bad joke, so what I did was to act as if it was not a joke but I committed to the act of pretending I didn’t know what a potato is.
They asked me, VERY incredulous, did I really not know what a potato is? That I never heard of a potato. I went with it and told them, yes, I did not ever even hear of a potato. Not only had I never eaten a potato I had never heard the word potato.
This went on for a bit and my girlfriend was acting very confused and embarrassed by my “fucked up antics”, and then the more insistent I was about not knowing what a potato is was when them parents starting thinking I DID know what a potato was.
Well let me tell you I had to commit 100% at this point. When I would not admit to knowing what a potato was, the father especially began to get annoyed. At one point he said something like “Enough is enough. You’re fucking with us. Admit it.” And I said “Sir, before today I never heard of a potato. I still don’t know what a potato is, other than some kind of food. I don’t know what to tell you.”
Well let me tell you he got very annoyed. I decided to take a bite of the potato, and when I did I made a high pitched noise and said “Taste’s very strange!”
That is when the father started yelling at me, and the mother kept saying “What are you doing?” and my girlfriend went to some other room.
Finally the father said I should “Get the fuck out of his house” and I said it was irrational to treat me like this just because I never heard of a potato before. Well let me tell you he didn’t take that kindly.
Now in text messages I have been telling my girlfriend I really don’t know what a potato is. The only way I can ever get out of this is for them to buy that I don’t know what a potato is.
I wish I never started it but I can’t go back. I think she will break up with me anyway.
36. “I Don’t Like Porn”
When I first started dating this girl I told her that I don’t like porn.
Flash forward 6 years, we’re married and watching an episode of “Friends” where one of the girls thinks her boyfriend doesn’t like porn. My wife turns to me and says “well not ALL guys like porn! You don’t like it, right?”
Me: “That’s right, honey. It’s not for me.”
37. Told Everyone He Was Married
At, work, for whatever reason, when I first started I told a girl that I was married…I was never married…It got so out of hand that I actually bought a fake wedding ring….The whole hospital thinks I’m a husband…I’ve had friends call in pretending they’re my wife….It’s so crazy out of hand now that I think I would be fired if the truth came out.
38. The Text Flirt Surrogate
I was hammered when I first met my fiancee. The next day a mutual friend gave me her number. I was a little nervous to text her believing that I had made an ass of myself the night before.
My best friend’s girlfriend took initiative and started texting my fiancee from my phone. They texted for over an hour and then she handed the phone off to me.
My fiancee still talks about how she thought I was cute and funny when I first texted her, and I have no clue what was said.
39. Faking A Southern Drawl
Joining the military out of high school, I spent four years in Texas. During the last few months of my time I began talking to a girl that’d I’d had a big crush on in high school. We texted and used Snapchat, and she finally called me on the phone. I was very, very drunk when she called, and I thought it’d be funny to use a southern accent, which she found to be irresistibly attractive. Long story short, I’ve now been home for about four months and seeing her at least twice a week. We get along great and everything is going perfectly except…I have to pretend to have a southern drawl whenever I’m around her.
40. Auditioning For Harry Potter
In the UK there was an meant to be an “open call” for Harry Potter auditions. But due to the fiasco over the director of the first film it never happened. However I’d still sent my letter off as suggested by the tv show Blue Peter who announced it. I never heard back but for some reason my 11yr old brain was really pissed at not getting a chance. When I started secondary school people kept telling me how much I looked like Harry Potter (the illustrated one the books showed, not Daniel Radcliffe, because at that point the news hadn’t broken yet). To this day I’ve no idea why I just went all in and told my school mates I’d gone all the way to the final auditions. When Daniel Radcliffe was confirmed everyone asked me what he was like so I told them he was horrible lol (yeah, pre-pubescent me was jealous at all!!) I kept that up all through secondary school until we left just because it was too embarrassing to admit otherwise.
And no, I haven’t met Daniel Radcliffe.
41. A Friend Will Lie For You
As a kid I had a large mole removed which then popped it’s stitches leaving a quite sizable scar. When asked about it, I tell people my best friend stabbed me with a steak knife around the age of 11 in his garage. Best part is, to this day he’ll tell the same story. My wife doesnt even know the truth. That’s what friends are for. 
