What lie that you told had the biggest impact on someone’s else life?

Question

Laura Zweig · Accepted Answer

"My grandmother suffered from pretty serious dementia before she died. She was regularly trying to evacuate the people from her assisted living facility, because of alien invasions. One day my mom calls me, BEYOND her wit's end, because the assisted living facility is fed up and would love to evict my grandmother, but they can't get her calm enough to do so. I think about it for a minute and I tell my mom to tell my grandmother that my sister, who worked for the government at the time, has negotiated with the aliens and they've agreed to leave us alone. My mother was horrified and wanted to be offended for a moment, stammered, and then said "hold on I'll call you back". So my mom calls the assisted living facility and tells them to put my grandmother on the phone. She tells her what I told her to, and Grandma immediately calms down, tells everyone it's okay, the aliens have agreed to leave us alone, and never saw another alien invasion again... "

Vanessa Vogel · Answer

I convinced my kid brother that a local Army Ranger battalion trained at our farm. I found a picture in a book a few years ago of some Army Rangers exiting a helicopter during a training mission. The helicopter was in a field that happened to have a treeline identical to a treeline on my parents' farm. I took a photo of the picture and lined it up so that it looked like I had taken the photo of real Army Rangers, and not stolen it from the book. I showed it to my brother and convinced him that Dad was allowing Army Rangers to train in our fields whenever my brother was gone. I forgot about it. Then, after I went away to college, I got a phone call from my mom and dad. They were flipping out. They'd found the photo stored on the camera and questioned my brother, who insisted that yes, it was our farm, and those were real Army Rangers. They were really confused and angry as to why this would have happened without me telling them.

Cyndi · Answer

When I was in kindergarten, I lied and accused my music teacher of grabbing my arm and slamming it back down on the table. I said it because I was terrified of him and wanted to be removed from his class. I was only afraid of him because my older sister, in high school already, told me he was mean and would hurt me (just to scare me because she was my older sister and an asshole). They did an investigation and everything and he was nearly fired. My dad had threatened to kill him at one point. I finally ended up telling the truth during one of the final interviews. I still think about fucked up it all was and how I almost ruined a man's life, and almost my dad's, too, considering he was on the verge of wanting to seriously hurt the man. I fear of having bad teacher karma because of it.

Christina Eisenhauer · Answer

"On my first day of high school, for the first time in all my years of schooling, there was another student in my school that had the same name as mine. I was over weight and afraid that when people talked about us, they would have to distinguish us somehow and I would automatically be known as "the fat juggling-monkey". In order to stop this before it started, I decided to start a rumor that the other juggling -monkey was gay. Sure enough people started saying, "has anyone seen juggling-monkey? The gay one?"  In those days, HS students were more immature in that they made fun of al that type of stuff. I feel bad because he became very shy and lonely. Juggling-monkey, if you're out there reading this...I started the rumor. I'm sorry "

Emra · Answer

Colleague didn't disclose to his second (younger) wife he had a vasectomy, in spite of her talk about raising a family. He had three kids from his first marriage and had no intention of fathering more. They were together for years, trying to have a child, before she found out about the undisclosed sterilization and divorced him.

RUTHANN · Answer

"I used to work for a tech startup with a service similar to Uber but using taxis instead. While training one of the new employees, a driver called in looking for help so I showed her how to look up his account and what not. The name was Mohamed Ali, I told her "yeah, it's the boxer and he's a very nice guy that was going through some financial hardships. He didn't pay taxes for years." I even pretended to talk to him after the call was over and told him I was a big fan. I doubt this chick realizes he's dead and will probably tell someone she helped him when he was a cab driver.  "

Morgan · Answer

Not me... a friend of a friend. He has chocolates that contained powdered psilocybin mushrooms. His housekeeper found the chocolates in his room, and put them in a bowl on the kitchen table when he was at school. His father comes home, sees the chocolates, and eats a few. A hour or so later, they are eating dinner, salmon. They didn't eat fish often. His father loses his shit, tripping hard and thinks he's having a stroke or something. They go to the hospital, do a shit ton of tests, nothing shows up. He's fine, but he still thinks he's allergic to Salmon.

Laura Traugott · Answer

"My sister and I were young at church in front of the place where there are a bunch of candles with saints on them and I think a car drove by or something but a shadow or something went across the wall and just the shape looked like a person flying by. My sister said, "Did you see that?" And I said, "What?" and she kept describing the shadow. Anyway, by my non-acknowledgement, she was convinced that it was an angel trying to give her a sign. She became super religious after that and married a super religious guy and they divorced because he would go on mission trips and never worked and they lost their house, etc. She is not religious anymore but I am not sure why I didn't just acknowledge it back then but I wonder if that incident caused her to kinda lose a big chunk of her life.  "

NILSA · Answer

So not me but my ex gf. She lied to me about literally everything about herself. Like, everything that I knew about her, wasnt actually true. She turned out to be a compulsive liar, and I found this out when her other boyfriend contacted me. Stand up guy, I am still a bit shocked a month later now though.

Oralie · Answer

A good friend of mine started getting sores down there. I went with her to a clinic, sure enough she had herpes. She was in the beginning stages of dating another friend of mine and I told him.  She got pissed and made my life hell for weeks. 16 years old, small private school, I had like 5 friends to begin with. So I eventually just folded and said I lied.  They ended up having a kid together before splitting up. He messaged me on FB apologizing for not believing me ... years after the fact.

Lea Schneider · Answer

A friend wanted to become get into show biz. He was super corny though. I told him to keep pushing, and that I enjoyed watching his movies (that he wrote, directed, filmed with an iPhone, and starred in). They were cringey. But I think a passion should be pursued. He went all out though. Sold everything and moved to a big city in his barely working Honda Accord. for more opportunities. A couple of years later he came back to visit. Picks me up in his Cadillac, takes me out to dinner. Gives me a nice watch and tells me I was the onky only person who ever told him to pursue his dreams. He doesn't act anymore except for occasional commercials, but now he has a small production company and a management company for new actors. I'm very proud of him and amazed that he made it

JAYMIE · Answer

My kids are 6 and 4 right now. At the 5 and 3 ages when taking my older to kindergarten we drive by a couple fields with cows in them. I started calling them oreo cows as i couldnt ever remember the real name anyway.  After a few weeks of this, i decided to start asking them questions about the cows. How many oreos do you think they make everyday? How do the cows make oreos? I only wish i could be there when they both realize that oreos are not shit out of some cows by the thousands everyday. Edit:Clarification.

HAYDEE · Answer

That they should apply for this job they really wanted, even though they were underqualified for the position. I didn't really think they had a chance, but I said I did and apparently that encouragement was enough to get her to apply and she eventually ended up getting the job.

Johanna Richter · Answer

I once got too excited when my friend let me borrow his copy of Tony Hawk: Pro Skater 2. I walked into my apartment complex's hallway, pulsing with energy, and tried to do a back-flip off of the wall. The way it happened in my head was awesome, slow-mo and flawless. What really happened was my foot went right through the wall and I fell on my ass. I scurried away into my room and told my mom what had happened - that the juvenile upstairs neighbor's kid had - in an enraged stupor - punched a hole in the hallway wall. A few weeks later, after the landlord had patched the hole, I saw those neighbors moving out. I believe they had been evicted.

Anja Werner · Answer

"During a long and boring journey I told my wife that not only do wind farms collect the energy but they also reverse and blow on the rare occasions that the earth needs to adjust its "orbital tilt" to rectify the shift in the seasons ( snow in March etc). She has little or none science and math so bought it and I spent the rest of the journey gently layering on the lie and expecting her to be shot down the next time she brought this up in front of her friends. U fortunately her potential new boss was very much anti wind farms and she tries to curry favour during her second interview by stating that she " preferred a bit of snow in April and was eagerly waiting for when she could have sunshine on her birthday (jan)" She didn't get the job "

Anabell · Answer

I was trying to get my GF to stop using tanning beds because you know, skin cancer. I jokingly told her they are powered by mini nuclear reactors and that's why people get cancer. Shockingly she believed me, stopped going and started telling her friends. I was more shocked to find out some of them believed her

Candice · Answer

"I had a friend who grew up in a Russian orphanage. Most of the time he was a huge asshole, but we all knew it came from this thug persona developed in response to severe early life trauma. Still, we liked to fuck with him. I don't know how it came up, but I convinced him that impotent means "you don't give a fuck." Technically true, but misleading. Now he goes around bragging about how impotent he is.  "

nynne · Answer

""It's ok, you're special in your own way!" "

Sophie Baecker · Answer

I told a prospective employer that I made more than double what I actually did. I got hired on at that rate. It's made a world of difference for my wife and girls.

Candi · Answer

My best friend still believes the lie I told her freshman year....1 in 8 people you meet is a serial killer. I dunno where I pulled this stat from, but it's been fun guessing who the serial killers are with her.

Ramsay · Answer

"I tell people I left the army due to a back problem - medical discharge. Everyone gives it the "that sucks but at least you got in for a bit and experienced this and that yadda yadda" Reality of it is I had a bad reaction to some medication and become horrendously depressed and suicidal. Brought up a lot of bad memories and now I just generally can't cope with life. I'm suicidal most days. It's getting better and I'm getting treatment but everyone keeps going on about how I've got it all going for me and I really just don't "

Nadege · Answer

My brother and I were both adopted. He is younger than me and was born in Romania. Growing up I used to tell him he was hatched in an big purple egg with dots. Well turns out someone from my parents church heard that I would say this and told him yes it was true. And he believed it for years until he found out where babies came from He is now in his late 20s, and I still tease him to this day about it. Last year around Easter a store at the mall had a huge purple egg with dots on it couldn't help my self to take a picture and text it to brother saying look look they finally found your egg!!

mary-ann · Answer

I cut class once in 5th grade. When I finally showed up after lunch, the teachers were not happy with me and wanted to know where I'd been. I knew they'd call my parents to verify, so I made up a story about a white van with a scary, bearded pedophile in it who chased me on my way to school, trying to abduct me. I thought it was a stroke of genius, probably because I watched CHiPS a lot. I was extremely wrong. The school called my parents and then the police. Cops interviewed me, asked other kids if they had seen this van, had patrol cars all on the lookout for a man and a van that only existed in my 10-year-old mind. I don't know how much money and manpower they wasted because of me, or how scared I had made all the teachers, students, cops, etc...but I bet my neighborhood was perv-van free...if only for a time.

Gian · Answer

""No, I'm not sure what happened." Carrying my best friends secrets, why he chose to end his life, is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life.  "

Martina Maier · Answer

"Organized a party and invited a lot of people. My friend had been hanging out with a girl who was new in town, I invited her too.  He was, and still is, short, chubby, hairy, rarely the smartest in the room, but an unimaginably kind and nice human being. She was pretty and hanging out in a group where guys heavily outnumber girls, I though she was using him because he had a car, just to drive her around.  That day he asked me if I thought he had a chance if he made a move on her. Smelling the defeat already, I told him "absolutely dude". At least he would get rejected and be able to move on instead of orbiting her.  It worked though, and they are still together almost 8 years later...he still thanks me sometimes for helping him make up his mind... "

Haley · Answer

When I was in grade 8, my little brother asked my what extrapolation meant, and I told him it was the act of defecating out a window and that in the olden days, it was standard practice for pilots as there were no facilities on wooden planes.  Didnt think anything of it until years later he came home furious. He was in high school math class and the question came up, so he raised his hand and proudly answered to the confusion of his peers. Whenever he got up to use the washroom for the rest of the year, people would tell him not to extrapolate.

Cammy · Answer

"This isn't my lie, but my coworkers husband who suffered from what they thought was some type of dementia and MS.  Unfortunately, her husband developed severe memory issue at the age of 26 and died when he was 41. He was in and out of hospice, nursing homes and assisted living facilities. In one of the nursing homes, an elderly woman with severe dementia would not stop yelling, "Jesus! Is that you, Jesus?! Jesus, answer me! I know you're there!" She'd do this for hours every day for weeks.  Nobody in the nursing home could console her or get her to stop. Finally, my coworkers husband had had enough.  Woman: "Jesus!! Oh, Jesus answer me!" Him: "WHAT?!" Woman: long pause "is that you, Jesus?"  Him: "yes! I hear you. Now go to sleep and stop yelling! You're fine!"  The woman never yelled out again... it apparently took another dementia patient and my coworkers husband lying about being Jesus to solve the problem.  "

Eloise · Answer

I've told this story before, but as a kid I told my younger sister that the Easter bunny came through the drain. I thought she'd find it magical, like Santa.  She found it horrifying. We stopped having egg hunts.

Dennie · Answer

"When we were kids, i used to watch the animated Batman series with my little sister after school. One day I casually mentioned that I created Batman, and she got very excited. She told her first grade class at school the next day, and the teacher told her that wasn't true. She didn't believe anything I told her for awhile. She's 30 now and I still get "this isn't another I invented Batman thing, is it?" when I tell her things. "

Annett Brandt · Answer

I told my niece and newphew the only way to make the ceiling fan turn on was to hold your arms out and spin in a circle. The fan itself is remote controlled, but the light turns on at the wall switch. Let's just say the remote is well hidden.

SABRA · Answer

Both of my kids, 25 and 16, think that I don't believe in owls.

viktorija · Answer

In the mid 1980s my father convinced my mother that the St. Louis arch was a McDonalds advertisement, we were moving to St.Louis from the east coast. My mother told all her friends this. Pre internet. St. louis was fly over country. She found out the truth after moved and felt like an idiot. My father never let her live it down.

Vassily · Answer

Gave a fantastic reference for a former coworker, who was forced out of the company due to visa issues. Midway through the reference, I realized that they thought I had been his boss (his actual boss did not like him, and decided he was not worth the trouble on a visa) He got the job and is doing very well at his new company, and he now has a work visa for the next 6 years.

Berget · Answer

I once spread a stupid rumour that a kid in secondary school had his front door stolen. Turns out some kids thought it funnier if it was stolen. So at a party at his one weekend, theu unscrewed the door from its hinges and took off with the door and left it in a field.

Maia · Answer

I told someone that I was in Foster Care with as a teen.......that I believed that she really could become a physician someday. This was a girl who many people regularly called a stupid idiot or worse. I told her that because I didn't want to be mean, not because I actually believed what I was saying.  18 years later, I found her on FB and found out that she is now an oncologist. We talked and she told me that once I told her that I really believed that she could become a doctor, she went balls to the wall and didn't stop until she got there. She says that I was the only person who encouraged her about this until she made it to college.  I think that was the best lie that I ever told.

JONNIE · Answer

That I was just going to my parents for the night. I did not actually go to my parents. I went straight to the airport and flew several states away so I could dump him and he wouldn't be able to find me and then convince me to come back to him.  Haven't seen him in 6 years. His mom still tries to message me on Facebook to try to get me to go back to him.

Grissel · Answer

My first boyfriend left me for another girl for whom, for some reason, virginity was really important. She would absolutely not date a guy who wasn't a virgin like her. I kinda knew her and she asked me if had sex with my ex. I did, but I told her we didn't. I could have crushed any chance of them being together if I had said the truth. They eventually got married.

Gussi · Answer

"Had a Jamaican friend in high school who drank apple juice with lunch religiously. I told him that I had seen a study that found that prolonged consumption of apple juice throughout a life time led to male lactation in African American populations.  We worked a summer job together and had a black boss that found the joke hilarious. He wet the nipples on a t-shirt and chugged some apple juice in front of this friend. The friend's eyes got huge  he knew what it meant. We went to different colleges, but stayed in contact.  Two years later, I get a call from him reaming me out. He apparently shared this "fact" with a friend and was laughed out of the room. He had stopped drinking apple juice for two years. I feel a bit bad, but the guy didn't even look into it, just took my word on faith. He knows better now.  "

Nicole Sanger · Answer

Fourteen years ago in college, I lied to a friend that this guy liked her. And then I told the guy that my friend liked him. BAM! They started flirting heavily that night and now they've been happily married almost ten years.  ETA: WOW, this blew up! To answer questions, yes I confessed! I think I told the girl about a week later. Neither one minded and they thought it was funny. On the night of the lies, I talked to the girl first  if she had said she wasn't interested, I never would have talked to the guy about her. Looking back, I took a huge risk because I didn't know either of them very well, but we were all drunk and it seemed like a brilliant idea at the time. It is a little like Much Ado, one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. I had actually just finished a huge term paper on why Beatrice and Benedick were a superior couple to Hero and Claudio so it's entirely possible that I came up with the idea from that.

Theodore · Answer

"It won't impact her until someone finally calls her out on it, but I told my sister that futons were invented by a native South American tribe called the Futoni, and she's been sharing this "fact" with everyone. "

Hannele · Answer

I'm pretty skinny, and I had just moved to a new school. A kid who was overweight told me he wished he was skinny. I told him I used to be fat and that I started running, exercising, and being more careful about what I ate, and lost a ton of weight. He looked like he hadn't heard that kind of encouragement before. I moved away shortly after. Saw him a few years later on social media and he lost the weight and looked great!

aminah · Answer

"Not totally a lie, but my friend got a tattoo in French when she hardly knows the language & it's supposed to say "live life" but the conjugation is slightly wrong & says "lived life" & I have never told her "

durita · Answer

"I was buddies with my next door neighbor. He was always complaining. About work. About girls. He died suddenly at 26. I met his dad when he came to clean out his apartment. Dad and I hung out, and I told him some fun stories about his son. Before we parted, he put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye, and said: "tell me...was he happy?" I looked him straight in the eye right back, smiled, and told a string of happy lies. "Yes! He was excited about his latest work assignment! He was kicking ass playing squash at the gym! He had a crush on a new girl and was hopeful about her!" He smiled sadly and quietly said "Thank you." Best lie ever.  "

Madelin · Answer

"Twelve years ago, I was talking to a girl at a bar. It became quickly clear that she bored the hell out of me. I happened to see an acquaintance out of the corner of my eye. I called him over and introduced him to "my really interesting new friend." Five years later they married. They remain happily married to this day.  "

What lie that you told had the biggest impact on someone’s else life?

Cathe

Claribel

Clotilda

Daniele

Denyse

Evvie

Florina

Glynda

Jayne

Jessica