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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:
PestoPenguin · 04/04/2012 19:10

So no-one else has ever told someone in RL about a MN thread, with the OP described vaguely as a friend" then? Hmm Blush

PestoPenguin · 04/04/2012 19:10

Silverlace -the embalming fluid is an episode of CSI New York!

BillyBollyBandy · 04/04/2012 19:12

DaDerDaDer Yes I know people like this, very confusing.

My SIL also has the ability to strip facts from any conversation, while keeping a small bit of truth so it takes you a moment to realise she has radically altered what you have said.

So me saying in passing "My car is old, I'll have to get round to getting a new one next year" would turn into her saying to my dh "Oooo you must be earning too much if Billy can just go out and buy any car she likes next week, she said she hates her car now and can't wait to get a new one"

Pisses me off as I end up looking like I am backtracking when I correct her.

pebspop · 04/04/2012 19:13

a girl at my work swears the cat microchip in the curry happened to her cousins friend. even after showing her the urban myths on the internet she was still adamant it was true!!

BillyBollyBandy · 04/04/2012 19:14

So no-one else has ever told someone in RL about a MN thread, with the OP described vaguely as a friend" then?

Ha - yes I do this all the time! I think I am sound a saddo saying how I was on the internet, reading this forum blahblahblah

PestoPenguin · 04/04/2012 19:14

CSI NY embalming episode

PestoPenguin · 04/04/2012 19:15

Grin Billy. Ditto

Thing is, any of my friends who are also secret MN users might well be sniggering Blush

AnHonestHCA · 04/04/2012 19:18

I know someone who replaces "I saw this film where.." with "this happened to my friend.. insert random name..."
the poo on the conservatory scene from the American Pie Wedding film was one example

it works for her, she's very entertaining and people gather around her

but its actually quite sinister, she's ALL lies even about small odd things, and once you stop being enchanted by her stories, your name is used as a character in her (usually not very flattering) stories

beware of people who must always have an audience! they'ld sell their granny's reputation if it got them a crowd and some laughs!

Oakmaiden · 04/04/2012 19:21

I heard recently about someone who was asked to pay £500 to attend a wedding - surely that must be an urban myth???

Grin
TheSecondComing · 04/04/2012 19:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Silverlace · 04/04/2012 19:32

Pesto, they must have borrowed the idea from an UL as I first heard it years before the episode in 2005! Sounds like the sort of plot for a Midsomer Murders. If any script writers are reading this there is enough on this thread to keep them going for years.

It goes to show there are very few new plots for stories. Shakespeare was often accused of not being original.

I do like the new twist on the curried cat with the microchip. Bang up to date with modern technology.

Silverlace · 04/04/2012 19:37

TheSecondComing, I heard that one about the child in the supermarket about one of our local ones just as my DS was at the age to walk round the shops. Scared the life out of me until I heard it again a few days later about a different shop and then I twigged. Poor DS didn't have to be prised into a trolley seat after all.

Spuddybean · 04/04/2012 19:38

One of my mums friends told me the glittery spray on the fanjo before gyny app story had happened to her. I totally believed it. It just wouldn't have occurred to me to be a lie, why would someone appropriate a story? And also i hadn't heard many urban myths and it didn't sound familiar. So during a MN thread i recounted it and got leaped on for lying. I felt really bad as i would never have recounted it had i thought it was an urban legend. I apologised but i felt really embarrassed like people thought i was a liar :(

The only urban legend constantly told when i was younger was the 'young man wanking with his headphones on and eyes closed, and when he opens them a hot cup of tea by his bed left by his mum/nan'. Almost every young man i knew told me that story.

Also most of them told really ridiculous losing virginity stories! All involved air hostess or hotel maids they had no idea of the names of coming on to them when they were on holiday (conveniently with no witnesses!). Too many bongo movies i think had skewed their sense of reality!!

Stratters · 04/04/2012 19:45

I've told the supermarket loo snatch story on here Spuddy, so don't feel too bad. I was told by DD1's friend's mother that this had happened to her, and naturally believed her.

I've since googled and googled, and can't find any reference to it happening. So I guess I was had big time too. Thing was, DD1 was only 6 at the time and it really scared me.

ConstanceChatterley · 04/04/2012 20:21

I can't believe no-one has mentioned the snake one yet? A friend of ours told it to DP who told it to me and then I told some people at work (of course I believed it hook, line and sinker). It was only later when I was told a variation of the story by someone else and did a bit of googling that I realised it is a total UM.

To precis..a girl has a python that sleeps in a basket at the bottom of her bed every night. Suddenly it changes its behaviour and starts sleeping parallel to her in bed every night. She thinks 'Oooh this is nice, it obviously just likes my body heat'. She tells one of her friends about the change in her snake's behaviour and friend (conveniently some sort of snake expert Hmm) then informs her that the snake was actually 'measuring her up', i.e. preparing to eat her. I can't believe I fell for it.

Diamondback · 04/04/2012 20:46

Someone told me the 'kid being kidnapped and being found with a haircut and change of clothes in the loos of the store (once it's gone into lock down obv) story too, only they told me they'd been informed of the incident by a policeman that they see through work and it had been kept out of the news so as not to cause panic.

People who scaremonger like that should be slapped! (and should be aware that this also popped up as a plotline in CSI...)

LunaticFringe · 04/04/2012 20:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BillyBollyBandy · 04/04/2012 21:00

Anyone remember the one about people offering you a squirt of perfume in a car lot which was actually chloroform

ThePathanKhansWitch · 04/04/2012 21:15

I have had a Pepper pig sticker stuck to the back of my thigh when i got a coil fitted, I believed the VB hotel one Blush, only it was New York not London.

We had a great one about people being dropped a Mickey Finn in a club and waking up without a kidney. People were swearing it was true ,and being with held from the media Hmm. I'm glad to say i didn't fall for that one.

candr · 04/04/2012 21:32

We used to have the 'man in your car' UL going round when I was in my teens and everyone 'knew' the girl it happened to.
A girl is drivng home from her boyfriends house late at night and stops for gas, the attendent tells her to keep shopping around while he calls the police and for her not to look at him or her car, turns out he has seen a man climb into the back seat of her car and duck down.
Used to and still does scare me so always lock doors when getting gas.
My mum always tells about when I was 'kidnapped'. When I was 4 she was in a big shop (Army and Navy I think) with my twin sister and big double push chair. The fire alarm went off and mum was struggling down stairs with pram and 2 LO so a lady grabbed me and rushed me downstairs.

When mum got outside she couldnt find me even when alarms went off so she rushed to nearest police station only to find me there with the woman who hadn't been able to find mum. Said it scared her to death.

TooImmatureTurtleDoves · 04/04/2012 21:48

Oh...I was told by a colleague that a friend of theirs was offered ££ by Zara Philips and Mike Tindall to give up their booking at the Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh for their wedding. I believed them...is that just a variation on the Posh & Becks Dorchester story?

I have a friend who lies about weird stuff...things like saying she read the last Harry Potter book in 3 hours flat Hmm or that her dog is the best trained dog in the world and won't eat chocolate from under the Christmas tree because she knows it's not hers. It is annoying because you listen to her with a mental filter in place assessing her anecdotes for realism. Still, her heart is in the right place even if she is a bit of a drama queen.

sharenicely · 04/04/2012 22:00

The perfume and petrol station used to be sent round on email (pre Facebook days) and it had always been sent from such and such police officer, therefore it was true !

MistyMountainHop · 04/04/2012 22:13

i remember one that did the rounds about ten years ago round here that someone's friend of a friend had been in a local, well known, scuzzy nightclub, and had felt someone pinch her arse really hard, or thought that was what happened. but then when she had turned round to say something, all she saw was the back of someone running off through the crowd Hmm and she looked at her behind to find a syringe sticking out of it with a label that said "welcome to the hell of aids" Hmm

me and ALL my friends believed it and avoided the place for YEARS Blush

BonzoDooDah · 04/04/2012 22:24

No-one's mentioned yet the one about the couple in the car in a lonely dogging beauty spot. Bloke gets out for a pee but takes ages. Suddenly the car is surrounded by police cars and there is a banging on the car roof. The police tannoy tells her to get out of the car and not look back.

Obviously she's nearly at the police car when she can't help it - looks back - and there is a lunatic on the roof of their car bouncing her bf's head up and down.

And that was my friend ... honest the lunatic

sharenicely · 04/04/2012 22:27

Ooh Bonzo, never heard that one before. Might claim that one as my friend ! Wink

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