A friend tried to get me into Amway. I heckled him and refused.
He asked me again and I was more serious this time. I said no, and threatened if he asked me ever again it was the last he’d speak to me.
He asked again. I said “remember how I said we wouldn’t be friends if you kept proselytizing that shit to me?”, to which he replied, “yeah, but lemme sketch this out to you because it’s awesome.” Like, he wasn’t sorry and he still tried to bring me onboard.
I left. Didn’t speak to him for 31 years. He died in COVID.
My dad has a friend try to talk him into amway sometime in the late 80s/early 90s. He had painted a pyramid shape onto cinder blocks in his basement to explain the revenue stream and everything.
He said no, but that friend ended up high enough in a payment chain that he’s still rich as sin, and my dad got to be one of the scant few that turned down what would’ve actually been a lucrative business venture in a pyramid scheme.
A friend of 8 years stole a few dresses from me while we were out on a trip. They weren’t necessarily expensive, just cute sundresses that I had bought after saving up some money with my first big job. After returning home, I texted her to get one back because it was the dress I wore on my first date with my (now) husband and was sentimental. I was willing to part with the other ones. Her response was “Since I already have it with me, it would be easier if I just keep it and not have to find a way to get it to you.”
We lived ~20 minutes apart. After that, I was ghosted. She continued to wear the dress and post photos online, blocking me so that I couldn’t see, but other friends saw and reported back to me. Safe to say she was not invited to the wedding.
Started a friendship with a classmate, he was bit of a know-it-all, we were discussing some esoteric stuff and he laid out his theory I said “ah that’s BS”, and gave my reasons. Then he got very uptight and ended our friendship there and then, and escorted me out of his apartment.
Very strange experience.
Edit: It’s one of those cases you recall and think “Was it me that were the stupid one there?”
On fools day he posted a picture of himself and a baby in Facebook with the tag “presenting my baby to everyone” I commented that congratulations for losing his virginity, that it took a while but it’s look like it was worth it. He blocked me and never spoke to me again. I tried to contact him a couple of times, we were best friends on primary school and keep in touch even after graduation high school, but we never talked again after that. I can’t even count the amount of times I talked about that with my therapist, until I just moved on. Hope he have a happy life.
I had a friend from high school that was a compulsive liar. we were friends for probably ~10 years and I never said anything because his lies were never hurtful lies. They were usually to entertain and were so obvious that any halfway intelligent person could spot them from a mile away. Fast forward to our early 20s and we’re working security together. When I drive him home after a shift one day he started telling a story about how some guys tried to rob him with a knife outside his apartment but he turned the tables and took their knife and broke the guys arm in the process before they ran off. I finally asked him “what really happened?” and he looked at me hurt and didn’t say anything. I later felt like a dick but his lies were growing in grandiosity to the point of offending some other people we worked with. A few months later he takes a shift with our supervisor who also happened to be a classmate and my buddy very intentionally fell asleep at the desk in the security office while using a second chair as a leg rest as the supervisor was doing a walking patrol of the building. Anyways, our supervisor came back and saw our buddy so the supervisor opened an emergency exit setting off the security alarm to see if he’d get up and respond. He did not. -That was my buddie’s last shift. The following evening he texted me with some false explanation for why he was terminated. My response was “Dude, you were recorded on 3 different surveillance cameras sleeping next to the table we all watch the cameras on.”
I didn’t know that was the last time we’d talk. Less than 6 months later he had a bachelor party and a wedding neither of which I was invited to.
It’s uncanny how similar your story is to mine: I once had a friend with a similar tendency to embiggen reality… he started with lightly embroidering his stories, but over the years the fantasy took more and more precedence until you weren’t sure what was left of reality. It happened so gradually none of us knew how to react, should we burst his bubble? somehow it always seemed too harsh a reaction. One day he came to visit and said the most awful lies about our common friends… I never saw him again. Last I heard of him he had wholeheartedly subscribed to fascist ideas such as eugenics, etc. He’s persuaded himself he is the most clever guy to ever live and he’s unfit to live in this world necause nobody understands his genius. He’s early thirties!
He sounds like the kind of guy who’d say they worked in the CIA or MI5. “Uhhh, people who actually work in those organizations NEVER tell you they work for those organizations. It is intelligence 101.”
Pathological lying and grandiosity are trademarks of psychopathic behavior also.
I’ve read similar things about lying being associated with anti-social personality disorders. Narcissism is also a common reason, but either way I’m confident he posessed empathy. I typically lean in the other direction that he was deeply insecure but also not the smartest. The stuff that offended colleagues (who were combat vets) was that he started making up stories about his time in the marines even though in reality he was discharged halfway through bootcamp. I asked him why he was discharged more than once and he gave me a different medical reason each time.
