30 years ago I worked with a colleague I'll call Rachel. We've kept in touch over the years — usually just Christmas cards with a note or an occasional email — until about six months ago she phoned for a chat and since then we've video-chatted every few weeks. It's fine except for the fact that every so often she refers to an event or something I said or did that I can't for the life of me remember. And these things are never good things. So, for example, we were talking about going to another colleague's wedding and she talked about me having too much to drink and her needing to stop the car on the way home so that I could be sick. I have no memory of that at all. She says well of course I don't remember, I was drunk. I do have a vague memory of taking the tube to Hendon in my dress and hat and being picked up in a car by another colleague, who dropped me back there on the way home, but according to Rachel this must have been some other event. I can't for the life of me think what other event I needed a hat for. She also refers to the times I took days off work because of heavy periods. 'Oh', she says, 'you were dreadful, always using your period as an excuse to have a couple of days off work or not to do things'. Not only do I have no recollection of this, but I was always pretty lucky on the period front: not much pain and not much blood. I've never, that I can remember, had time off for that reason.
My sister does this to me too. On a family Zoom a couple of months ago she told a story about me reversing my car over a steep kerb and doing serious damage to the underside. Everyone was laughing. I didn't say anything at the time but in private I reminded her that it wasn't me who had done that. I'd lent my car to an uncle and aunt who were visiting from New Zealand and they'd had the kerb incident. I remember the hassle with their insurer and how long it took to get the car fixed and how bad they felt about it. They're both dead now, otherwise I'd ask them to confirm my side of the story. I told my sister this and she remains convinced she's remembered it accurately. She also 'remembers' one time when we all went to a rented house in Cornwall for a major birthday family get-together and I was supposed to bring a lasagne and instead turned up with chicken pie, which annoyed her because she'd made a chicken pie too. I have no recollection at all of that get-together and I'm not in any of the photos. I'm pretty sure I was working abroad at the time. One of my cousins, who did go, doesn't remember me being there and says she took a chicken pie, as instructed by my sister. But my sister is insistent that her version of events is the right one. There are dozens of other minor stories like this, all showing me up as incompetent or thoughtless.
Does this kind of thing happen to anyone else? How do you deal with it? I've done loads of stupid and embarrassing things I do remember and I hold my hand up to them without flinching, but I'm increasingly irritated at having things I'm pretty sure I didn't do held against me. I don't think Rachel or my sister are doing this purposely or consciously. When someone is regularly misremembering stuff about you, and it's negative, what's really going on?