Seniors, what motivates someone to tell outlandish lies?

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Patti

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There's a young man at work, very lovable character who tells the most outlandish lies each day. Most about second jobs he has, flying planes at the Air Force base making $3000 a month (his glasses are thick , I doubt that he is a pilot), or getting offered an $80 an hour/70-hour a week job as a mechanic for a local car dealership (but he will keep his cart-pusher job too). Other stories too. I look forward each day to hearing a new story. But at the same time wonder why someone wants to tell such stories that ruin their credibility. Have you ever worked with someone like this?
I don't laugh at that kid. He is lovable enough. Figure anyone who lives in a fantasy world has a reason but haven't figured it out yet. He has friends (girls) & see them come up and give him a hug every day or two.
 
We used to have a guy where I work who used to brag all the time about being a cage fighter. But he looked like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. I've seen some of those cage matches on tv and all the fighters I saw looked pretty rugged. This guy looked like he couldn't walk a mile let along run one. He would tell the most outlandish things. Someone got to checking on him and found out he'd been fired from just about every job he ever had because of his lying. I don't know why they do it. It has to be pathological somehow.
 
Some people want to embellish their lives if they think it will cause others to pay attention to them more. This is why they tell outlandish stories that most people find hard to believe.They may think their life is boring when it really may not be to others. Poppy
 
fear that he is not good enough to be accepted, some would say low self esteem, but it is deeper than that. It is a desperate desire to fit in and a fear that if people knew the real person it would never happen.
 
I have come across a few young men like this. I think that some of them must have very fanciful dreams as they sleep and then, on waking, decide to tell their dreams as if they are fact. However, along the way, as these people tell their lies other people are deceived and are hurt, sometimes very badly. It is amazing just how plausible some young men can be and seem to get away with these things for a long time.

One, known to me personally, has been caught out and I now, seriously think he must have a mental problem. He has deceived 3 girls and hurt them badly, each over a period of several months, and none of his immediate family had a clue about any of it or of the existence of the girls. Can a sane young man do that to so many people?
 
My Dad told me once that everyone tells their own story their own way....and that everyone does the best they can to get through a day....sometimes resorting to doing harmless, foolish things to help them do it. Dad said that best thing is to be tolerant and kind as possible.....that one never knows just what misery in private life a person is trying to overcome.

Yes, I have worked with folks like that. I tried to do what Dad said.....just listened and pretended to believe.

Once, even listened with apparent complete sympathy to a co-worker who told me that his temperature was 140 degrees for nearly a week while he was in the throes of the flu......though I knew danged well that he had gone to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.
 
Don't get me started! I use to run around with a Methodist preacher when I was about 20 and he was 28. We were both single at the time. He was everything exciting during the week, CIA, FBI, fighter jet pilot, under cover agent, and no one knew he was in fact a preacher! He would rather climb a tree and tell a big one than stand on the ground and tell the truth.
 
I used to do the same thing when I was young, I bs'd everyone at work, I told my boss I played golf every Saturday, when I fact I couldn't even hit the ball. That's just part of being young, you work in allot of dead end jobs, and just want to move on to something better and make something of yourself.

He isn't doing any one any harm, just ignore him if it bothers you.
 
I think they are just so displeased by their "real lives" that they just have to make up lives for themselves that they WISH were true!

I have known quite a few compulsive liars. The type you mention is not out to hurt anyone--they just need to feel like they are better than they are.

The ones that I can't abide are the people that lie to hurt others. I was married to one of those and finally got up the courage to divorce him, only to get sucked in to a relationship with another one some years down the road. You think I would have learned? Afterwards I was just too gun shy to try to make a relationship with anyone else.
 
Attention..i have a sweet friend and if the story isnt exciting enough she will add to and take away from..i stopped confronting her years ago...she had a rough life growing up...i guess some scars never heal and we do what we do to get by...
 
the answer is: the reaction they get from other people

Some people have learned that their non-interesting life is too boring even for them so they elaborate, they pour themselves into what they see in the movies or read in books to appear to be interesting and when others respond that encourages them to continue. Really they do spend time on putting their stories together. When you look forward to those stories you only encourage him to continue. Yours is a childish response, a response to someone telling you a bedtime story. You could try growing up, and even tell him you understand why he tells exciting stories but that maybe he should get to doing that kind of job, write a best seller book or write and produce a movie. These days that is possible. Stop babying the guy and point him in the right direction.
 
Compulsive liars are usually narcissistic little scamps. They don't care about credibility, they care about feeling above everyone.
I've known more then just one; they're harmless unless they start making up lies about other people.
 
Two friends of mine, grown women, are incapable of telling a truthful story. One of them, if she is speaking, she is prevaricating, the other one tells stories based on truth, but she must always embellish and expand the incident.
 
It sound like my nephew, his wife once confided in me the only thing she regrets about her wedding day is the fact he never wore his army officers unifrom, he was never an officer.
 
Our local club had one who claimed he was at one time or another the following..........
A Lion Tamer.
A Russian Interpreter.
Made friends with wolves.
He seemed to live in a world of his own.
We named him `Walter Mitty' after the Danny Kaye character.
It all seemed harmful until I overheard him telling some wheelchair bound people that he was used to being in a wheelchair.
I had to intervene before he took it too far as the only time he had been in a wheelchair was when being taken for an x-ray after a fall.
Enough is enough.
 
Our local club had one who claimed he was at one time or another the following..........
A Lion Tamer.
A Russian Interpreter.
Made friends with wolves.
He seemed to live in a world of his own.
We named him `Walter Mitty' after the Danny Kaye character.
It all seemed harmful until I overheard him telling some wheelchair bound people that he was used to being in a wheelchair.
I had to intervene before he took it too far as the only time he had been in a wheelchair was when being taken for an x-ray after a fall.
Enough is enough.
 
It must be hard not to laugh when someone is so obviously full of it.
I would find it very hard to trust somebody like that as they can't even face the truth and the real world themselves.
 
It must be hard not to laugh when someone is so obviously full of it.
I would find it very hard to trust somebody like that as they can't even face the truth and the real world themselves.
 
He's in a fantasy world Patti, it must be difficult not to laugh in his face and take him to task over it.
No I haven't met anyone quite like that but I have met the tedious type that has done just about everything and so much better than me.
 
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