I (25F) have been friends with this girl since we were 4. That’s 20+ years of friendship. We grew up together, and I’ve always tried to be a good friend to her. After school, she never worked or went to college. I tried to help—offered to do up her CV, encouraged her to apply for jobs, even told her she could apply for mine. She always made excuses and showed zero interest.
Fast forward a few years, I started a new job, told her they were hiring, and to my surprise, she actually applied. She got it, and now we work together full-time. The job even put her through college. At first I was happy for her, but now that I see her every day, it’s like the rose-tinted glasses have come off and I’m seeing the full extent of something I always kind of ignored: she is a compulsive liar.
She lies constantly—about absolutely everything. Some are weirdly specific and disturbing. Like, one time, she told a traumatic story in work that happened to my aunt, but she claimed it happened to her aunt. I’ve known her entire family for 20 years and knew this wasn’t true. When I questioned it, she panicked and changed it to “oh sorry, it was actually my brother’s friend’s cousin.”
She also mirrors personal experiences I’ve shared and tells people they happened to her. I used to suffer badly with nosebleeds and throat infections in school, had to get surgery. She now tells that story in work like it was her. I’m sitting there like… girl, I went to school with you. That literally never happened.
One of the most bizarre examples: for her birthday a while back, I planned this lovely surprise based around her interests. I paid for everything, and we had a really great day. She told me afterward how thoughtful and fun it was, how different it was to anything she’d done before. Fast forward a few months—I’m put in charge of planning a staff night. I suggest the same place because I remembered how much she enjoyed it. Suddenly, in front of everyone, she flips and says it was awful, that it was “shit” and she wouldn’t go. I was stunned. I just sat there like… what?
On another occasion I told her me and my partner were saving for a house and she suddenly claimed she had picked up another job with her uncle and would be getting paid two grand a day for minimal work and would be buying a house in no time, I want to laugh but also she’s deadly serious when she says these things.
She’s told so many wild, unbelievable lies that even people who barely know her pick up on it quickly. My coworkers, my friends, even my boyfriend all clocked it within a few encounters. I’ve always defended her in the past, maybe out of habit or loyalty. But now that I work with her and see her almost every day, I’m mentally exhausted. I genuinely don’t have the energy to keep responding with “oh really? That’s mad!” to another lie every 10 minutes.
She also gets extremely jealous if I get close to coworkers. This has been a pattern since school. We actually fell out for a full year in the past over her possessiveness and jealousy. Now I’m going on holiday with a coworker and our boyfriends, and I’m dreading bringing it up around her because I already know she’ll react bitterly or make up some ridiculous story of her own to compete.
But the final straw for me might be this: I had a serious and traumatic experience with a man known to my family who stalked me. I have a restraining order against him. My work is aware of it because I had to take time off for court. Recently, she started saying that a man we all know from our area (harmless, same age as us, quiet guy) is now stalking her. She says he “always seems to be around” and changes her walking route home ‘to avoid’ him. But here’s the thing: I often walk home with her and only then does she change her route—other coworkers have seen her walking her normal way when I’m not with her.
To me, this isn’t just lying. This feels like she’s mimicking my trauma for attention. And that crosses a serious line.
The hardest part is that she’s no longer just a friend—she’s a coworker too. I can’t afford drama at work. I don’t want to make my job harder or cause awkwardness, but I’m also starting to feel like I’m going to explode if I have to keep tiptoeing around her lies.
How do you handle a friend like this, especially when they’re now part of your daily work life? Is there any way to deal with this gently, or is distance the only solution?
Comments
I’d stop sharing anything with her. She isn’t really your friend. I would consider bringing it to HR confidentially that some ‘inconsistencies’ from her personal narratives is starting to affect daily work, especially when it comes to unsubstantiated accusations against people.
Currently the people being accused don’t work with the office, and granted, it’s not been proven definitively that she isn’t being stalked. But that kind of negative gossip could one day come into the office and cause big issues. If you have any proof of truths that you can bring to counter her ‘truths’ I would document as much as possible to show a pattern so it’s easier for HR to see how much drama she stirs. But only bring it up in a ‘well this could affect the office’ way, or else they will not want to get involved in inter personnel drama.
I would also start looking for another job, especially if HR is not planning on keeping an eye on her and putting her on some form of probation.
But in the meantime, keep on calling her out, indirectly. When she spins a tale of woe, nod appreciatively, and then say ‘wow! That exact thing happened to me/Martha/my cousin John! What are the chances! That’s so crazy!’ Nod, don’t elaborate, and then go back to doing whatever you were doing.
I think the best you can do is separate yourself from her. Make excuses, stay late, leave early. Start looking for another job. As you’ve said, others see through her bluffing easily and won’t trust her and you want to minimize that tainting you.
In some cases you can say something like “I don’t remember that” or similar to get some distance from her fabrications but it’s better to walk away or not comment.
It’s pretty clear she has some kind of personality disorder that has led to this behavior but it’s not my place (or yours) to comment on that.