To ask if anyone has ever met a Walter Mitty type character?

[Mrspoopoohead]

Just that really it always amazes me to hear how people manage to get jobs impersonating doctors for example. Has anyone had any real life experiences?

I worked in a profession where people moved around a lot and jobs used to be very plentiful many were contractors so a lot of different faces regularly.
Used to encounter some right strange ones
One that stands out is a woman who told us 'in confidence" she was dying of cancer and we went through months of chemotherapy discussions, tears ,tantrums and why me, my poor kids , leaving work to go to Dr's appointments ,we worked in a very remote area and she told us the boss was aware.
It turned out to be all lies and the boss was never aware we were covering for her to go home early and fictitious appointments ..
Despicable woman who ended up getting a very high level job in another area, I often wonder if she played the same trick on her new co workers.

Friend of a friend of a friend situation but I know of someone who had a large group of people on Facebook convinced he was the executive producer for Strictly.

He would post all sorts of 'insider' information that he'd stolen from Instagram accounts of actual producers and runners. Over time 'celebrities' were added to the group, who's sole purpose were to big up this guy and as time went on he started to claim he produced EVERYTHING, love island, strictly, dancing on ice, ant and dec, basically all the big Saturday night shows. He even claimed to produce newsnight saying that he was Emily Maitlis' personal producer. He claimed he was a close friend of Caroline Flack and spoke at her funeral. When asked why he wasn't credited for all this work or spoken about by all his celebrity pals publicly he claimed it was because his mum didn't approve of his job and as he was her carer (which he somehow managed whilst commuting back and forth to London everyday from his small northern town) he didn't want her upset so chose to be uncredited as those who needed to know, knew because he was just that good.

It was utterly bizarre and obviously a load of made up bullshit but it was carrying on up until very recently when his lies eventually started to unravel.

My ex is a compulsive liar. I watched the Fyre Fest documentary and the fraudster is basically him (we watched it together actually and yes, he empathized with him big time!) Charming, plausible, narcissistic and living in an alternative reality where he’s brilliant and successful rather than an unemployed drug addicted waster. He has a string of failed businesses, debts and broken friendships behind him as people slowly catch on.

Two people locally who come to mind, one a young woman who pretended to have cancer for a very long time. Even when outed and proved to be lying she still keeps up the response (or pretends she has recovered, not sure which). Another is a man who dressed his car up to be like a first responder and turned up to events to do first aid etc, big events such a concerts, festivals etc. He also set fires and 'found them' to look like a hero I presume. Not very well liked locally funnily enough

I knew a guy at university who was renowned for this. First conversation at uni with new course mates round a pub table went along the lines of how old are you, just come from school etc. I had done a gap year so was a year older than most of them. One guy latched onto me and claimed to also be 19 (rather than 18) and had done a gap year with the NBA in America playing basketball. But then as the conversation went on he lost track when his school friend on the same course turned out to be also 18 suddenly it turned out to be a summer program etc. He was quite funny and sarcastic so I initially thought I was being trolled on purpose and got all insecure and shut up with my questions.

Everyone cottoned on throughout the course and felt really sorry for him. Everyone was too embarrassed for him to call him on it. Harmless nonsense etc. I kind of lost track of him and forgot about the lies then at the very end of the 3 years he claimed to have opened an independent trainer shop in the city's trendy district. Telling me all about it because I had once lived in the road behind where it was. I went for a last visit to the area before leaving and found the shop which turned out to be an Offspring/Schuh type of shop. I went in, spoke to the sales guys asking if this was HisName's shop and they smirked at each other and were like, 'erm, he's a sales assistant, did he tell you this was his shop?!'

I absent mindedly told him I had gone to his shop but couldn't find it and only found this place and that the guys said it wasn't your shop. He went a bit ashen and quiet, said it wasn't his shop it was on the other road etc. Then it all came back and I STILL didn't call him on it. I doubt he went back to his trainer fitting job after that!

Married with kids now I think. Crazy. Sad.

If you mean manipulative liars whose whole persona is based on bullshit and believing they are so intelligent everyone is fooled

Yes. My sister could win a national prize at her projected persona bearing no relation to reality.

I'm currently working with someone whose lies and manipulations are so transparent you feel a sense of second hand embarrassment.

And in terms of someone whose every word was a lie, one, it was compulsive, and like she knew she was doing it and still couldn't stop herself. Ditches people as soon as they realise. Often wonder how she is as a nice person was underneath it all and really she needed help.

One if my bil’s ex gfs. Total fantasist. Never met the woman till she came up with him for a weekend. Planned food, she declares she’s veggie. Bil looks confused and says “are you?” Then starts talking about careers. Currently she worked in a supermarket, but had been “headhunted” by m15. But she had to go to uni first. She was going to Oxford. She was seriously pissing me off by now (she said she really didn’t like children and couldn’t understand why people had them. As we were taking my three out for the day. Rude about where we lived. Fil, who she’d known for about 3 months) So I started asking which college she was going to, what she’d be reading, what A levels she’d taken. She dug herself in even deeper. It was a special college, for those who were “clever” but not in an academic way. She was doing business admin, but that was a front. “So Oxford Brookes then?” She claimed she couldn’t say more because she’d signed the Official Secrets Act. “Well, you’ve breached that already by telling me. I know how seriously they take that as I went to uni with several people who ended high up in the Civil Service.”
Next day she told dh she had been recruited to be protection for the Royal Family. Dh, being less patient than me just said “Did you aye?” Even gullible, naive bil soon saw her for the fantasist she was and got rid.

I did meet one person - the (now ex) husband of a friend who successfully managed to persuade her and her family and all their friends that he was someone he wasn't. It was a real shock when the truth came out. It's interesting that some people feel the need to live this kind of a life. Fascinating really (only I'm glad I'm not on the receiving end of it!)

Yes, someone I worked with.

He was having flying lessons to become a pilot. Had a girlfriend no one had met.
He lied constantly about anything and everything.
He was getting a new car and dragged his friend to high end garages. His neighbour then told friend it was a mobility car for his very sick mum.
His best friend fell out with him when another big lie came out.

Ended up having a breakdown and leaving his role.
He then started following me on Instagram and had a very obviously fake life on there.
Lived in a new city and was dating a doctor. No photos of the said doctor but he tagged them on a photo. Their account had one follower. Him.

We all had an awful feeling about him. If he was ever suspected of murder I would not be surprised.

I used to be an Support worker for a man who used a wheelchair. Little did he know that im also a qualified OT and can tell from someone's muscle tone that they can probably really walk and are bullshitting us all.
The CF had lots of adaptations done, couldn't prove anything although I had my suspicions. Months later a job came up as an OT in the local authority which I was successful at getting. I house shared with a woman who lived diagonally behind him and watched as he shifted concrete posts and panels into place. I took videos and photos and submitted them to his housing association. He was soon relocated to a shitty flat ( he was lucky he wasn't imprisoned ) and his bungalow was let to a woman who genuinely needed it complete with new fence. Cheeky F

Yep, worked with a woman who made up an engagement complete with fake diamond ring. It was so obviously fake but she kept it up for a while then made a big show of it being over. I felt really sorry for her actually.

I work with a woman who is a fantasist. Mention a famous person or politician and she is related to them or friends with them. Regardless of who you say. Peter Mandelson, Jeremy Corbyn, Liz Truss, Elton John, anyone basically. She has had every disease going, has worked in every job going. She is also very fond of the sound of her voice and has an opinion about anything and everything.

A couple of them!
Ex MIL left ex FIL for a heart surgeon who actually didn't have a single medical qualification to his name, but carried a medical bag and pager from the hospital he apparently worked at, ended up in prison for it.
Also I used to work with a woman who literally couldn't tell the truth if her life depended on it, from cancer to her childrens made up injuries, and she's still at it now, madness.

I used to volunteer with an amazing fantasist.

He claimed to be a lord, a reverend, a consultant psychiatrist, a qualified solicitor, a qualified engineer and all sorts of shit.

I found him as he was claiming an honorary military rank and wanted to attend an event in uniform and was making all sorts of outlandish demands, I was suspicious and rang the regiment to ask some protocol questions.

The whole thing unravelled later and he is lucky to have escaped prison

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/alan-blacker-benefit-fraud-rochdale-17548129

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/lawyer-who-received-60k-disability-17163909

My father was an officer in the Parachute Regiment. One night he was sitting in the Officers' Mess chatting to fellow Para Officers. A chap came in, in Para uniform, and joined their conversation. He knew their names. He refered to an amusing event that had happened on a recent training exercise. He knew people's nicknames. But none of them knew him.
Eventually politeness gave way to curiosity and they asked "none of us know you, who are you?" He was a Walter mitty who had obsessively read the regimental magazine and momorised all the names, photos and stories. He'd bought a uniform. And he'd blagged his way past the guardroom and into the mess.
This was the height of the troubles, so the security breach was a major cause for concern.
My father was very impressed with the dedication he must have given to memorising the facts gleaned from the magazine.

I’ve met several! I can think of two who pretended to have cancer - one guy was a regular on nights out in my home city and would tell anyone who’d listen he had bowel cancer, but would be out drinking again the next weekend despite having had ‘surgery’ just a few days prior. A few years later a girl I met at uni suddenly had cancer following a breakup, but miraculously recovered and never spoke of it again when she found a new bf.

Another uni friend was quite normal when I met her but we lost touch and reconnected a few years later and the lies wouldn’t stop. She’d pretend to have been in hospital and send images of a needle in an arm over whatsapp as ‘proof’, but I reverse-searched the image one time and it was a stock photo of a cannula in an arm! Also claims to have been headhunted for Google but turned down the job, owns property in New York, is qualified in aerospace engineering, lied about her current job title, fabricates tales of being horribly mistreated by men she ‘dated’ when what actually happened is she went on 2 dates with someone and they perfectly reasonably decided that wasn’t long enough to be wanting to marry her. I feel sorry for her, I think it’s all a self esteem and anxiety thing but she doesn’t see the extent of her problems.

A man who was the life and soul of the party, charismatic and accomplished in his field. seemed to fall for me quite quickly and intensely, promising dream holidays and a future together. When I first went to his house he had no personal possessions anywhere - literally just clothes and a TV like he was ready to do a runner at any moment. Claimed he wasn’t on social media but I discovered he had profiles under fake names. When I questioned some bizarre behaviour he disappeared off the face of the earth, ghosted me right before I was due to visit, then re-emerged claiming to be a recovering alcoholic. Didn’t have any real friends, just people he knew through work. I had a strong instinct he was hiding something bad but I never did find out what.

Working with one at the moment I think. He asked a group of us if we recognised him from his previous career - a roving reporter on the Paul O’Grady Show. Apparently during the ten years he did this he skated with Torvill & Dean, followed Johnny Depp around on set and rode Prince Charles’ polo ponies. The thing is we can’t find any record of him on PoG Show Wikipedia or IMDB. Such a weird, easily checkable lie. My guess is if we were to question him about it he would claim it was a joke.

Dp can be a bit walter mitty. He tells people random white lies basically things he wishes were true but currently are not for example saying he owns houses and cars which he does not.

Oh and a girl i used to know at school used to be a massive walter mitty type. Her favourite story was how she worked closely with johnny depp for one of his films and was heavily involved in a secret entertainment business he ran... Like ok love, hollywood star johnny depp found you, a 16 year old girl from bradford and has been paying you thousands a month to run his business.

One of my BILs was a total fantasist. I think he started off just being cocky/a bit of a bullshitter but got into drugs and got a lot worse. He really seemed to believe some of the shite he came out with. H and I lived with him for a couple of years. He would insist that MI5 and MI6 kept trying to recruit him, that they'd bugged the phone and were carrying out surveillance on him because he "knew stuff" and "knew dangerous people ". He insisted he'd won the lottery but was keeping it a secret so people didn't ask him for money. He knew what lottery numbers were going to come up each week "psychically " but wouldn't tell us. He'd insist that gorgeous model grade women would come up to him in the street/supermarket and beg him for sex (though there was never any evidence of this).

The reality was very sad and had a tragic end. He was an unemployed stoner on benefits - that's the bit we knew. He had a back injury which is why he couldn't work but we suspected he "hammed it up" to get enhanced benefits and strong painkillers. He would keep changing doctors surgeries to get the drugs he wanted including morphine. In real life he had started taking heroin too (we found all the evidence when we cleared his house). He suddenly fell very ill and died within a few weeks. It turned out he had liver cancer. All the drugs he took had probably masked the pain and other symptoms until it was too late. He was only 44 when he died.

My ex husband. Among many many many lies...he was related to royalty, he got money from people by telling them I was terminally ill and had asked him to clear credit cards, he was in the sas. He told lies All. The. Time. Just endless, about the most stupid things. Then I'd look like a dick when I'd believe things he said, repeat them and realise I was talking bollocks as I saw the look on other people faces. Once we split up he became far far worse and lived in a total fantasy land. The last lie I know he told about me was that I was a long term drug user. He even phoned the kids for that one. They thought it was funny, it was a final straw for me.

Eventually I've come to believe that once a lie came out of his mouth, he genuinely then believed it to be true because it had been said. Dangerous stuff really.

My friend used to be an organist at a large city church, thus a mostly expat congregation rather than your average parish church where people know one another from the locality. As organist, he was considered part of the "team" and he and his then wife were involved in the pastoral support of members.
One elderly lady claimed to be a widow, whose Australian husband had seen military service in Vietnam. He's not a military type, but his interest in medals means that he has acquired some knowledge of military history, and her late husband's service history didn't chime with the background history she cited, although the medals she proudly displayed looked authentic enough; although Australia had no direct involvement in the Vietnam conflict, he figured there was nothing to stop someone from a friendly country enlisting in the US army - but odd.....he and his wife would occasionally have her over to supper, and other members of the congregation were hospitable to her as well.
She became infirm, and he was part of the pastoral team helping to move her possessions into sheltered accommodation, but even this became too much for her to sustain, and she had to be admitted to a nursing home.
His then wife was part of the ladies support group who went along to ease her admission, and came home in something of a state of shock.
Disrobing her to get her into bed revealed that "she" would actually need to be found a place on the mens' ward.

I worked with a man, ( call him "Tim") I actually quite liked, but it was so obvious that everything he said was a lie.

He insisted he'd been high up in the navy for years, but when I looked him up on linkedin he was listed as unemployed for the all the time he was supposed to have been in the navy.

A female colleague was in the local paper for sucessfully giving CPR to a member of the public who'd collapsed outside our office , ( the guy survived due to the first aid our colleague had provided). Tim went round telling everyone that he couldn't make a big deal about an "adult" giving CPR, as he'd given sucessful CPR several times to several different adults age. 8 as a child.

Tim also purported to be a "secret health and safety inspector " who had the authority to "shut our office down," if he wanted to, ( he never did).

And when Harry Potter came up in conversation, Tim was quick to say he had been a "star extra" in one of the films.

He "couldn't remember " the name of the Harry Potter film he'd starred in.

DHs Granddad went on a cruise several years ago, each night he and his wife were sat on the same table with another couple of a similar age. The other gentleman spent each night recalling his adventures in the RAF during WW2. Unfortunately the squadron, battles and places he placed himself in were the same as where Grandad actually served. They never called him out though as he was a good story teller and it sounded better than Grandad remembered it.

They stayed in touch and are planning another cruise together once covid allows.

@twoshedsjackson ironically sounds like your friend might be walting a bit about his knowledge of military history- Australia’s extensive involvement in the Vietnam war, in stark contrast to the UK position, is very well documented - some 60,000 Australian personnel served in Vietnam with over 3000 casualties.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Australia_during_the_Vietnam_War