Guy lied about which university he went to

[Snoopy104]

We were talking about our backgrounds etc. And he told me he'd been to the 'uni of' of the town, which has a good rep.
I live pretty much next door to that uni so I asked him if he'd lived in halls close by.
He said no he'd lived in an area in the South of the city as his campus was based there.
The area he mentioned is a very nice, affluent neighbourhood and I had a look at the campus.
It turns out the 'uni of' doesn't have a campus there, it's the 'poly' that has a campus there.
I couldn't care less what uni he went to or even if he went to uni, I went to one of these so-called 'lesser' unis for my masters and I think in the grand scheme of things nobody really cares where you went, the right people wouldn't anyway.
However, the lying is a red flag for me. I get it was maybe to try and impress me or that he felt embarrassed, but the lying makes me uncomfortable. Would you say this is a red flag?

You can’t be 100% sure right now that he’s definitely lying, if it was 5 years ago the campus could have closed but it seems pretty likely he is lying.

I would want to find out for sure. Does he have Facebook/ Instagram? Any friends on there from uni with photos or photos from graduation etc.

If he’s lying I don’t think you should give him the benefit of the doubt. If he lies over something as small and irrelevant as this then what else will he lie about?

If I’m honest you’re both throwing a few red flags.

Him if he wasn’t being truthful and you for looking it up… honestly that’s a bit creepy if you ask me.

So if he was lying, he wouldn’t have mentioned the specific campus, knowing that you know the city, surely? He’d have pretended he was somewhere attached to the other uni. If you were discussing, say, Bristol, and he said “Oh, I went to uni there”, that would be correct whether it was Bristol Uni or UWE. They’re both universities.

And he is probably a pedo too.

A little lie like this right at the start of seeing someone would not bother me too much.

He was trying to impress you and worried you might judge him. Of course he shouldn't, but I can understand it. He did go to uni in that town, it's not like he's lying about his entire life/ background.

I would give him the benefit of the doubt for now if you otherwise like him. It will soon become clear in other ways if it's a big personality flaw.

I agree, I think you should bring it up to him tbh. If he’s telling the truth he can clarify things, if he isn’t - see how he reacts when a lie is challenged. Don’t ignore this but ignore the posters who are being deliberately obtuse and banging on about you caring what uni this person went to. This is clearly about the issue of lying.

I went to a red brick/Russell group type uni for undergrad and a newer uni for my masters too. I don’t care what uni someone went to but I would rightly care about someone showing a tendency to tell frivolous lies.

Same here! My husband went to university in a different country, but I know the schools he went to, his friends names, I even know the name of the kindergarten he attended! Doesn’t your husband ever reminisce about his past? No friends from his university days? All sounds very odd to me…

I think this is a head-screwed-on assessment: it could be either. One is harmless enough in its own way; the other is a massive red flag. You might need to proceed cautiously to find out - though it sounds to me as though yours not too into him anyway.

He's spoken about uni. I just didn't know ( or care) the name of it. No to uni friends. There was one guy he was close to but he is dead. Maybe your OH is younger and that makes a difference. When you left uni 45 years ago maybe these things not so important. And when he did go ( I didn't) he was unusual. Most kids didn't. It's not like nothing when the world and his wife are all at uni

This exactly.

he could turn out to be a massive liar or you got him in a day when he was feeling a bit down on himself

it’s something to note but enough on its own to make a decision

I think you should send him a link to this thread. This will enable him to decide if he wants to hang out with you, and will almost certainly save you the bother of deciding whether or not to dump him.

I wish him well.

When I got together with my (now) husband I told him that I had grade 8 piano, when the truth was that I occasionally banged my way through a grade 8 piece but was actually grade 5. Why did I do this? 😭 My excuse is that I was very young, and a random lie just popped out of my mouth (he doesn’t play an instrument at all so it’s not as if I felt I had to keep up). He still has a chuckle about it whenever the subject come up.

Well yes, obviously that makes sense if you didn’t go to uni yourself. But for everyone that did (including the OP), and has had to research where they want to go, apply etc, they will know. As I said, even the 18 year olds applying today!

@bestmug I wouldn't judge somebody young too harshly for a lie like this. We all learn from the uncomfortable feeling we get afterwards not to do it repeatedly, but when you're young and insecure and there is competition for university places, jobs, opportunities at work, promotion, love it can be a bit confusing and forgivable in your 20s, the energy I emitted was "love me, like me, hire me" and it came from a place of fear that the simpler energy of "make space for me, or I'll move on" wasn't going to be enough (and sometimes it isn't)

The lie would bother me. I don't like people who lie about things like this.

A girl I went to school with went round telling everyone she had got into Cambridge (late 1990s). What she actually meant was Homerton teacher training college (now actually a Cambridge University college since 2010!) and the entry requirements was grade C in Maths and English GCSE and passes at 3 A Levels.

She deliberately didn't mention the college or entry requirements as she wanted to people to think she was a Cambridge A grade student.

I didn't stay friends with her much after this but there were so many other little lies. It's not an attractive trait!

I went to Ruskin College Oxford back in the glory days when they offered an Adult Education Bursary. Every time I mention it I have to do the whole spiel:

it’s not that Oxford although they are affiliated…

Since there are 40 odd colleges I’m always afraid if I just say Ruskin College Oxford I’ll sound like a twat.

@Ace56 is that really true - that 18 year olds would know that a university they are applying to used to be something called a "polytechnic" and what the difference was ?
Something that was changed over a decade before they were even born.
I am genuinely quite curious about that.

I think the premise of this thread is dubious! The op said he lied about which university he went to in a particular city she knows, but then went on to say that he correctly named the campus where he was, which is attached to the ‘lesser’ uni, which is how she feels she caught him out. My point in a previous post was - if he was going to lie about which one he went to, he would surely have mentioned a campus connected to the other one, rather than be completely open about where he was actually based? It sounds more like a misunderstanding to me, which has been blown out of all proportion.

This is one of the most outrageously twatty things anyone has ever said! Off the scale!

Some universities do amalgamate technically i got my nursing diploma from the university of Salford, but my nursing college only became part of of the University half way through the course, prior to that it was affiliated to the university college Salford which also became part of the University of Salford

Remember Sion Jenkins who was arrested for killing his step daughter? He says he's innocent about that and was released from jail, but he's also known for lying on his CV to become a headmaster that he went to Gordonstoun boarding school, where royalty had been. His social worker wife didn't like it he tried to be a Tory MP. He fits my theory there are 2 kinds of Tories. The upper class ones in it to make sure all the power and money stay with them and their friends. Then there are the Hyacinth Bucket types like Ian Duncan Smith, who will do anything to be in with the Eton types and hang on to their shirt tails.

I think some people get used to being a bit ambiguous about their uni by just saying the place name. Because plenty of people are still a bit snobby about it. But if he told you the campus he lived on (or the area) and its of the other uni, its not really like he's lied about it. If he had created an elaborate web of lies then yeah, not on. I'd ask him about it 'I looked up that campus. It's actually for xx. Is that where you went to uni?'

I also knew someone who was “tutoring at Oxford.”

Actually St Edward’s School Oxford but hey, he forgot the school bit🤷🏻‍♀️

Well I hope he was good given St Edwards charges around £40k a year fees just for a day pupil!!!

(I'm afraid I only did my postgraduate studies at Oxford University... I wouldn't have quite got the grades to do my undergraduate degree there! 😅)

My friend tells people they went to Oxford. Then they laugh, explaining they worked in a university there as domestic staff.