Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To get so irritated when people pretend things happened to them that clearly didn't?

257 replies

CalamityKate · 04/04/2012 13:01

I was watching This Morning earlier and they had an email from a woman who trotted out the whole "Dug Up Rabbit" story. Of course Colleen and Ruth and Eammon had a right old laugh about it.

Which is lovely, but it didn't happen. It's an urban myth that's been repeated and repeated and repeated - often by celebrities on chat shows.

Snopes

It REALLY irritates me when people do this. Why lie? What on earth is the point of emailing a programme, pretending that something happened to you when it didn't?

I've seen it on forums too - people tell a story that is either clearly a lie (as in the Snopes example) or it just doesn't ring true and you just KNOW it's either completely made up or VERY heavily embellished.

I was actually tempted to email This Morning Blush

OP posts:
Proudnscary · 04/04/2012 13:03

Because celebrities have to think of interesting anecdotes in order to get on telly in order to flog their latest TV show/book/perfume/exercise video.

And because they are show offs and are usually quite adept at lying spinning the truth to suit their brand/own PR.

NoteSpelling · 04/04/2012 13:05

Some people just like spinning a good yarn I suppose.

BillyBollyBandy · 04/04/2012 13:06

I can go one up on that.

I had a friend who would pretend amusing things that had happened to you, actually happened to her. Or she was there when they happened.

Clearly you would know the truth and yet she would stand there blantantly lying in front of everyone. And you would sound the nutter if you started arguing with her - if that makes sense.

Bizarre.

Kayano · 04/04/2012 13:07

I believed the 'my friend knew someone who wanted to call her child Chlamydia'

My mil told me and a MW told her so I just believed it!

Until someone told me I was spreading lies and t was in fact racist.

I was Shock 'but mil said... But the MW said...!'

Was hugely Blush

peeriebear · 04/04/2012 13:10

My friend insists that her friend was the original 'quick cleanup before smear/loose stamp on handbag tissue/doctor retrieves stamp with an amusing quip' FOAF story. I have lost count of the times I've said "It's NOT TRUE, she passed it off as her story to sound funny!!"

EightiesChick · 04/04/2012 13:10

BillyBollyBandy I can relate. I knew someone who was told a story by a friend of hers about something that had happened to the friend. When she related it to me it was actually in the novel The Bell Jar. We were both quite startled to realise she's appropriated something from a story about someone's mental breakdown as if it was part of her own life. Not good.

Original poster
CalamityKate · 04/04/2012 13:11

I can understand why celebs make stuff up for chat shows.

What I can't understand is a plain ol' member of the public sending an email in to This Morning about something that never happened, just for the thrill of hearing 3 D-list celebs laughing about it.

OK, if you go on a parenting forum and post an anecdote that didn't actually happen to you, you might get a string of "LOL"s. But they're not yours, really, are they? It's the same as feeling proud of passing an exam when in fact you cheated on every single answer.

OP posts:
RedHelenB · 04/04/2012 13:12

Just curious as to wonder how you know it didn't happen to the author of the email!!??

EightiesChick · 04/04/2012 13:12

peeriebear plus I have seen the 'quick wash before smear but accidentally using daughter's glittery flannel, only for gynaecologist to make quip about not needing to go to so much trouble' story used in two different novels now (there are probably more). There are so many versions of that floating round it's ridiculous.

CrockoDuck · 04/04/2012 13:13

I don't know.

But I had a friend who swore blind that her friend/relative, with the surname Cotton, chose to name her daughter Polly Esther.

When I enquired further, she couldn't give name of "friend" or where she lived etc - so I think it was bullshite.

Proudnscary · 04/04/2012 13:13

Yes sorry I totally missed the point Calamity!

And yes it's very annoying.

Proudnscary · 04/04/2012 13:14

I don't understand the quick wash/smear/gynae story thing - what is it?

Original poster
CalamityKate · 04/04/2012 13:15

Well Helen, given that the story's been around for about 20 years, and the nature of it, I'd say that the odds are far higher that she pinched the story than it happened to her, wouldn't you?

OP posts:
Original poster
CalamityKate · 04/04/2012 13:17

Smear Story

OP posts:
Agincourt · 04/04/2012 13:19

what do you mean the dug up a rabbit story? she dug a rabbit remains or a dildo?

either way i can't see anything funny about it Confused

remains = a bit sad
a dildo = I meany why would you? and what's so funny about it?

Oohlordylordy · 04/04/2012 13:20

I can honestly honestly say I once met a bloke called Michael Hunt who went by the nn MIKE.

I still can't believe it myself.

He sent me a fax (many years ago, when faxs were the done thing!) signed Mike Hunt. I kept it. I think this says more about my personality than his.

Agincourt · 04/04/2012 13:21

I am now concerned I have missed the point of this thread entirely and I am thinking about digging in the garden and now it is dawning on me that it may me digging elsewhere, which quite frankly I don't wantt o think about when eamon homles and colleen nolan are in my mind

Oohlordylordy · 04/04/2012 13:21

My post has nothing to do with the OP. Blush

WhaleOilBeefHookedIWill · 04/04/2012 13:22

A 'friend' who im gradually phasing out of my life does just this. She has beaten people up for revenge in a totally different address to where they actually live..has various business ventures that are in cloud cuckoo land, is related to 'hard' people who dont actually exist etc etc etc. Maybe so she doesnt sound too boring to me but the a;ternative is she sounds like a fruitloop

WhereYouLeftIt · 04/04/2012 13:22

It's sort of a variation on embroidering a real story for the amusement of others though, isn't it?

Some people are, to be blunt, a bit simple. They see their lives as uninteresting to others, they spice it a little with something they've read or heard, and do not see that others will see through it, because they wouldn't. Eventually some of them will genuinely believe it happened to them, because they've been telling the story so long.

It's a bit sad.

BillyBollyBandy · 04/04/2012 13:23

Get your mind out of the gutter Agincourt Grin

Dog brings caller next door's rabbit - dead.
Caller cleans rabbit up and outs back in hutch
Neighbour screams, caller goes to see what the problem is - Neighbour had buried dead rabbit 2 days earlier so dog hadn't killed it but dug it up

GreenEyesAndHam · 04/04/2012 13:23

It's like that wedding thread on here where at least three different posters claimed to have attended a wedding where a guest in a kilt sat on the brides lap and left a skidmark on the dress Grin

Original poster
CalamityKate · 04/04/2012 13:24

If you follow the link to Snopes in my OP, you can read the Dug Up Rabbit Story (and variations thereof).

OP posts:
ABitSnowyOutside · 04/04/2012 13:24

Many thesps when being interviewed always roll out the story of how they gave their first performances on the kitchen table aged three.

Every
Bloody
Time

It is always aged three.

BonzoDooDah · 04/04/2012 13:26

My friend told me the stamp /smear story back in 1991 - I had no reason to disbelieve her and she'd obviously not read it on the internet! (She said it was a green-shield stamp which were still about in those days - or only recently out of circulation). I did write about it on here though so maybe it's been propagated. (and others had similar experiences with glitter - it has to happen at least once!)

And I did just hear the Dug Up Rabbit story and think FFS that one's off the ark!