So, I have this one friend who has been known as a compulsive liar since back high school. She has made up a lot of ridiculous and contradictory things over the years, and subsequently lost a lot of friends, but the lie that stands out the most has got to be the ever-evolving account of a Saturday she spent at a guy's house.
Not that I actually asked, but at school on the folllowing Monday she was eager to assure me that 'nothing happened.' And I was never the type to care about other people's sexual escapades, so I didn't pry. But later that week she told another friend that they'd had sex 'like twenty times.' I only came into the conversation towards the end of it, so was given a summary of what I'd missed, but apparently there were a lot of details provided. Discrepancies like this were pretty common for her, so at this stage nothing about this really stood out from her 'normal' behaviour.
Not long after, the girl and I were both in attendance at a birthday party, when a game of 'I Never' was suggested. On their turn, one of the guests declared 'I never...took it up the bum!' and lo and behold the girl in question takes a drink. Amidst the laughing, she admits it was on the Saturday with the guy but is quick to justify, saying 'it was his idea!' Again, whatever.
When she found out that another member of our friendship group had had sex in the shower, the girl who lies a lot claimed she had also had shower sex. It had alledegely happened on that fateful Saturday, but she had just forgotten to mention it to anyone before, despite having given many people a detailed play by play. It seemed obvious to me that she was just tailoring the story to suit her audience, whether it was to impress of just to fit-in. It made sense that she had originally told me 'nothing happened' because, unlike a lot of our peers, I had never had sex with anyone.
But once it was made clear that the guy had no interest in ever seeing her again, the account of the one day they spent together took another turn. She informed me that since they did anal when she didn't really want to, that was 'technically rape.' I really don't want to seem insensitive about this, or like I am trivialising the act of rape. Honestly, I feel horrible not treating it like the most violating thing imaginable to happen to someone, by referring to it so flippantly in this context. But...what can I say? She lies, it's what she does. And this genuinely seemed like an 'I could get him in some trouble' ploy rather than a 'I've realised that I was taken advantage of' type of thing.
Fast forward a few more weeks, and she had decided to incorporate her rape into an asiagnement for our art class. She let me look at her sketchbook, where she'd written a poem about how it had happened. Despite my skepticism, I did not call her out on anything and just tried to be supportive. Anyone who knows compulsive liars well knows that questioning these people doesn't make them suddenly own up and accept reality.
When I brought up the poem to a mutual friend, they told me that the girl had actually shown them the spot where it had happened—behind the garden shed, in the girl's own backyard. But in the poem, she specifically stated that it happened against a tree, in the woods, close to the guy's house. And, to clarify, she definitely was claiming that this was a one off incident and not several seperate encounters. She'd always been know to lie for attention and sympathy, but this was truly a new low.
When I asked another of the girl's friends which version of events they had gotten, out of curiosity, they told me that the girl had claimed that the guy drugged her meal and that she woke up tied to a bed in his house. I probably could've gotten other iterations of the story, had I felt the need to ask more people. But I decided just to put it out of my mind, because nothing good would've come out of it. I didn't know how to help her lying habits, and to be honest, I still don't.
After having written all of that, I'm not sure that this actually fit the brief of being the most 'cringeworthy' of her lies. Maybe I should have just gone with something else, like the time she told my mum that she met Gok Wan at Westfield, and he told her she was a size 10.