I think it would be important for you to be able to retain some measure of reality in all this make-believe. As long as you can do that your continued friendship might help boost his confidence, specially if he can be made to see that you know he is lying and that he doesn't need to lie to be assured of your friendship.
If, however, you find your own grasp on the truth becoming unsettled you may need to withdraw.
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You are never going to get away from the lying. Some people just do it. Impress on your friend that lying only leads to upset and mis-trust. He will appear a lot worse when his pathetic lies are proven to be lies than he would if he told the truth in the first place. It is a perennial problem especially among gay young me, probably because they find the truth difficult to face, so the replacement for truth is complete fantasy. If he is your friend, stand by him, don't tell him he is a liar, but support him in what he says that you know is the truth. Good luck, Gxx
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Well today I confronted him about his so called job as a security guard. I said how legally you need to have relevant qualifications and a license to become a security guard. He was really sure that I was wrong till I showed him a few trusted websites about it. He then went on to say hes in the security team and watches the cameras, not sure if that is still included in the law or whatever but I know it's still a lie. A few weeks before he was mentioning how he was a proper security guard. He said a few days a go that he had work all evening the following day and lo and behold he's on Facebook all night. I said to him lying doesn't do any favours and he had ago at me about how I was presuming stuff. During the whole conversation he was incredibly fidgety and you could tell the junk he was making up. Seems like talking doesn't work. :confused:
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http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2001/12/contents
The above link is to the Private Security Industry Act, 2001. This is the legislation that creates the requirement for security personnel to be trained, licensed and provide an enhanced disclosure from the Criminal Records Bureau before undertaking certain activity. It also sets out a number of offences which are committed by companies who allow certain activities to be carried out by unlicensed personnel.
Monitoring CCTV is one such activity for which a security officer must be licensed.
The Security Industry Authority (S.I.A.) is the controlling body of the private security industry and responsible for regulating it's personnel. To borrow from their home page;
"The Security Industry Authority (SIA) is the organisation responsible for regulating the private security industry. [They] have two main duties: The compulsory licensing of individuals undertaking certain designated activities and to manage the voluntary Approved Contractor Scheme."
Link to SIA site Home
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He has low self esteem and lies about being a supermarket security guard? That must be some pretty low self esteem!
If you really think self esteem is the problem, why not do some stuff to boost it for him. There must be some things you can do together which will enable him to shine and you to praise apropriately. He needs to feel he's good at something; since you've taken the trouble to post here I'm sure you can take the trouble to be imaginative.
Of course, as I learned when I was in the SAS, some people just lie for the sake of it.
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If he's like any of the people I've met who can't stop lying about things and making shit up (and based on your posts he fits the profile pretty neatly) especially when it involves lying through their teeth to good friends and/or family, then he'll never stop. It seems to me that for many of these people they stop thinking rationally about the implications/future consequences of their lying; they're focused on getting the reaction they want out of people immediately. It almost becomes a habit, a compulsion that they don't even realize they're indulging anymore, if they ever did in the first place; they may just be lying so much they start to believe their own lies, or maybe they just feel subconsciously that keeping the illusion going is less detrimental to their psyche than the potential shame of owning up to their dishonesty. I might be wrong in this case; I've never met the guy. You could certainly try calling him out again, but I've got a feeling you'll keep getting the same results. I would just leave it until his house of cards collapses around him. It may sound harsh but in my experience some people are simply beyond the level of help you can be expected to give as a friend.
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I've had more than my fair share of these sort of people in my life and now I've had enough! No more.
A guy who told me with conviction that he was a reincarnated ancient egyptian god and that a medieval seer had predicted his coming and that he would be the saviour of man-kind.
A guy who told me he was epileptic and prone to grand mall seizures but couldn't remember the name of his meds that he so depended on! That one backfired one day when he wasn't at his flat as arranged to meet me. He wasn't responding to his phone and I feared the worst. I flagged down two passing Policemen who forced his front door in light of what I told them when they too couldn't get a response. He'd gone out and not told me!
More recently I allowed a guy I worked with to live with me because he told me his step-dad had been violent towards him, thrown his mother down the stairs, beat him regularly with a baseball bat and had now forced him to leave his home.
To cut a L-O-N-G and very drawn out story short, he caused so many problems involving but not limited to theft, shop lifting, drug abuse, having sex with an under age girl he told us was 16 but who turned out to be 14 (He was 24 at the time - turned 25 this month), sudden mood swings, attention-seeking behaviour and a few more issues that I was glad when he left.
I'll probably post about that - when I'm able to write without exploding.
So yes, I've had it up to here with liars and attention whores!
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*Update* I think he realises I'm on to him because he's scrapped that lie and he said he was fired. Thanks Vigilias for the facts, I thought it was true. I will prepare these for the next confrontation. He spoke to be about it earlier saying how the supermarket told him he would be a full security guard, Hmm its an extremely well known supermarket I doubt they would break the law. The confrontation I spoke abut earlier was strange, because we are so close I could tell he was breaking up, he was shaking and making up some really unbelievable stuff. It's a shame because we do have a good friendship which is going to be inevitably ripped apart by him trying to make himself look good. Sad. Very sad.
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Perhaps time now to give him a break.
You always knew within 99.99 recurring percent that he was blurring the edges between fact and fiction, and with a little research you've proved it, but I don't feel there's much now to be gained from making him feel any worse.
If you want to continue his friendship you need to relax it a bit otherwise he may feel he's alienated you too much.
Yes, let him know that you know the truth but let him know also that he doesn't need to lie to you or feel the need to impress you.
I've had a few people in my life who told me pretty fantastic things about them selves, one guy told me with conviction that he was the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian god and that a medieval seer had predicted his birth, a short painful and unhappy life but that he would be the saviour of man-kind. I used to worry about that guy! If he was challenged, no matter how appropriately, he would become very indignant and refuse to speak to me for hours or days.
Sometimes, and this is important and should perhaps be gently impressed upon your friend, that lies can sometimes back fire.
Someone else I knew told me that he was epileptic and prone to grand mall seizures in which he could involuntarily injure himself. One day I arranged to meet him at his flat but when I got there he wasn't answering the door. He wasn't answering his phone either and I thought the worst.
I flagged down two passing policemen who gained entry to the communal area of the flats and then forced his front door. The police don't muck about if they think someone is in danger and the entire door frame ended up having to be replaced.
He wasn't at home, he had gone out and not told me!
I always suspected that his epilepsy was a lie. He couldn't recall the name of his meds that he was dependent upon and had to take every day. He told me that he sometimes displayed behaviours which were simply a side effect of the drugs and that as he had once become so depressed he tried to take his own life with an over dose of his drugs, his GP now insisted that he visit the surgery to be injected with the meds.
One time when I stayed over at his flat and shared a bed as friends, he warned me in advance that his drugs sometimes made him sexual in his sleep and that if anything like that happened it would just be the drugs. Hmmmm... He did get sexual in bed, and I completely refused to respond. His warning was a sort of excuse to "Test the waters" and allow his ego to remain intact if I didn't respond.
The following morning he seemed to take his time getting dressed and he slept with only a smile! I mention this only because it gave me the opportunity to observe that he didn't have an I.V. needle mark on his body!
Silly boy!
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he needs your help m8... he;s prob told so many lies he's not sure anymore who he's said what to !! he has low esteem and im guessing some other probs(maybe his home life) that he's feeling the need to invent stuff to still be apart of your lives, maybe instead of calling him out on the lies - help him get rid of them and back in the good books with people..ie,, just get him to tell your friends he's not working now instead of lying about security stuff, if you exopse him to everyone as a lier then that will be worse for him if he's having other difficulties as well - its will be the harder route to take but give him a hand to stop the lies matt
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My good friend is a compulsive liar what can i do?
