Some people are really good at creating a social illusion. Near the end of my career things went south when they hired a direct section manager who had promised the impossible and lied her way to execs into the job.
The guy that hired her was new and not much better and so it took three years to get rid of her.
She’d talk 110 miles an hour in technobabble and if you didn’t know your business, she sounded fairly legitimate.
@RickiTarr My mom had to maintain her image her whole life which is understandable her father was chairman of the board of supervisors of LA county for 9terms.
Thing was it didn't work well for her especially in her first marriage which she left after four kids to marry the second Lebanese guy in the parish.
Huge scandal
He was one of the first litigation consultants, massaging truth, to help lawyers lie better.
So it was a perfect storm him massaging her image both convinced of its truth
@RickiTarr My mother would make up stories sometimes. She made up a whopper at my wedding, that I would cheer on my younger brothers at their swim meets, and say "you're not drowning, you're winning!" Some of my friends said "That's Joe!" because something like that wouldn't have been totally out of character for me, but it was completely made up, I was never at any of their swim meets. She was a kind woman, but she liked a good story.
@RickiTarr my experience mostly men, white men .
But sometimes women too.
Just make shit up to be interesting .
Just like William Randolph Hearst
In their own private universe .
And this is also the basic state of NPDs. Same radio as above .
@RickiTarr Yep. Years ago, a female colleague at a local college. Great verisimilitude. Took a while to realize what was happening. Compulsive liar. Creepy, sad, and disappointing.
@RickiTarr Two such people. The 1st ... just consistently redefines his reality. It's really quite stunning to listen to him tell about a shared experience - which never happened - and know that there is absolutely no point in telling him it's fiction.
The 2nd lied to herself so consistently that the effects were much, much more subtle and hard to winnow out until someone made her mad - and then you could watch the narrative shift to lies meant to protect her own ego.
Both were disorienting.
@RickiTarr Yes, my older sibling. Will say utter flat lies with a totally straight face, and I suspect often (usually? maybe...) doesn't recognize that it's a lie. It's needed to save face or CYA, so it IS true the moment it is said.
@RickiTarr The people I've known who lie a lot tend to do it to 1) ease a situation 2) make themselves sound good, or 3) make the story more interesting. The third group can be interesting - because they're like telling stories, they tell them until they believe they're true.
I have one friend in the 3rd category who you would think was just lying because her stories are insane, but so much of what she says turns out to be true that her craziest stories are only slight exaggerations!
@RickiTarr I had one coworker who was compelled to one-up any anecdote related by anyone. She was always telling absurd, exaggerated stories. I think she wanted to feel important and it was a reflexive thing… and that she thought it was a normal way to interact with people, despite a generally negative reaction.
@RickiTarr ummm that was me from about age 5-8. i just thought we were supposed to produce news to share every day 🤷♂️ it used to get weird when i didn’t have the receipts eg no i don’t have a new bike that i claimed to ride to school today, yes that is my old bike right there. or the teacher that congratulated my mother and grandmother on the arrival of my non-existent baby sister.
after about 8-9 i understood the difference and converted that energy into creative writing 😅
@RickiTarr There is a "fill in the blanks to make the story make sense" aspect to it that is pretty interesting to see. It really isn't lying, as most people understand it. They genuinely don't realize they're just making stuff up. Craziest Mad Libs ever.
I recommend this one, and any/all of his other books as well. Especially his autobiography. Did pretty well for himself, despite an amphetamine habit for a while.
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