So for about 4 months now, I have been dating this wonderful woman. She’s incredibly sweet, and very caring. I feel like I am a better person just for having her in my life.
But there’s something that’s been eating away at me, and it’s getting impossible to ignore. She often tells me things about her life which just don’t seem to add up. For example, she says she’s the CFO of a company, but also handles marketing and social media. At the same time, whenever I check Steam during the workday, she’s playing The Sims for hours. It’s a small thing, but it doesn’t really line up with the image of a busy executive.
She’s also mentioned knowing a long list of extremely impressive people. An astronaut who actually went to space. A Formula 1 engineer. A millionaire who lives in Monaco and watches the races from his yacht. A British Airways executive who owns several classic exotic cars. I’m not someone who gets suspicious easily, and I know some unusual people too. But when you hear that many big names, it starts to feel unlikely. you know?
And I don’t feel great about this, but as a test I told her a made up story about a friend of mine who used to make up wild connections to important people, and how I always knew he was lying, and said how I would have liked him even if he didn’t have any of that, but struggled keeping him around because of the lies. I hoped she might reflect a bit. Instead, she just laughed and said something like, “Yeah, who even knows that many people like that?” The irony didn’t seem to land.
Throughout our dating history, we have talked about our interests in things. I’m big into sports, in particular football. And so this morning I told her about some of my prized possessions, a signed shirt by Ronaldo, a signed shirt by David Beckham. She then casually tells me how at some point she worked for a company that was ran by a big football fan, and he got Lionel Messi to come over. And her and Messi have had some small talk during that.
And again, I am not overly proud of this, but that is kind of the straw that broke the camel’s back. Because I know Messi doesn’t speak a lick of English. It just felt like she wanted to one-up me for some reason.
I’m kind of fed up, I really dislike the situation that I am in, but I am not very confrontational. So I don’t know how to handle this. I feel like the most useless adult because I can’t figure out what the best solution is to this situation.
TL;DR My girlfriend is lying in an attempt to seem more interesting, and I don’t know how to address this. What can I do to to make it clear that she doesn’t need to do this?
Comments
it sounds pathological at this point.
Do you know the name of the company she claims to be a CFO for? Try digging into that. A lot of companies nowadays especially smaller and digital ones have fancy titles for their employees, but what usually matters is the profit margin. And if it turns out to be a lie, try asking why she feels compelled to lie.
But from my experience (dated a compulsive liar for 2-3 years), it stems from a lot of insecurity and mental issues. I’m not saying we shouldn’t date these types of people, but from my experience it ends up becoming mentally and emotionally draining, I ended up damaged and empty. Because if they lie about simple things, they can lie about the bigger things: money, monogamy, family, hiding a history of violence, etc — which I eventually found out they lied/hid so much about.
You need to start shamelessly escalating and see if she makes bigger lies. If she says she knows Beyonce, say you and Beyonce go to the gym together. Then she’ll either go even bigger or call you out, at which point you go, okay, but you too
Trust should be the foundation of any relationship. Her need to constantly impress might come from insecurity. Open communication is key; talking to her about it might just work. And remember, you deserve the truth, not an exciting fiction.
Call her out on her lies – ‘Bullshit. Lionel Messi doesn’t speak a lick of English. Stop lying. Why do you feel the need to lie?’