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?

Dump the boyfriend. Buy some pearls to clutch. Don't date anyone over 50 again, there is a risk they went to a Polytechnic.

My exhusband ( recently deceased) told his final girlfriend that he had been a student at Merton College Oxford.
He had actually been a student at Merton tech in London in the mid eighties and had studied motor cycle mechanics.It was one of hundreds of lies. Be careful Op.

Hmm, my ex-H used to tell little, seemingly irrelevant lies like this. I dismissed it as being unimportant. Get a few years down the line and turns out he’s a pathological liar. Could barely trust a word he said, and much of it for no discernible reason. So based on my experience I’d give him a wide berth!

Cross-post with @AngelinaFibres seems we’ve had brushes with similar men!

But also @Snoopy104 how old are you referring to anywhere as a poly in this day and age? Surely new university is more the lingo for anyone under the age of about 50?!

A bit like going to the ancient universities in Scotland and saying you have a masters. I went to one of the ancient universities so I have an MA. But it's called a BA everywhere else. I didn't do a post-grad degree.

My OH and I grew up in different countries, so his schools are not local to me. He says stuff like, ‘When I was at x school, we…’

Polytechnics are no more. They are all unis.

I feel you checking his story and searching campus’, halls and courses is more of a red flag! Stalkerish!

YABU

I don't mention the last Uni I went to by name, it used to be a 'poly' in it's day but it's known as being a shitty uni, the only reason I did my Post Grad there was because it was the only place within a couple of hundred miles that did the course I wanted to do. Thankfully, I have my main degree from a highly thought of Uni, so I always just say that Uni name when asked.

I don't really see it as lying, my husband always takes the piss of the shitshow of a Uni I did my Post Grad in, so it's purely to save my embarrassment.

I wouldn't see this as a red flag. I've never lied about it on a CV or professional environment, so don't see the problem trying to save face in a casual setting.

If he’s trying to pass off Oxford Brookes as Oxford, Anglia Ruskin as Cambridge etc then I’d be unimpressed as it suggests a level
of insecurity and pretension I’m not not interested in having to deal with.

I have no skin in the game - no degree, flunked out/dropped out - just don’t like the lies.

Wow. Somebody should tell Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, California.

To make it worse....girlfriends parents had met at Cambridge so there would have been lots of similarities with his experience at Oxford. Instead of changing the subject he spoke for an hour about what he had read,where he had lived, his tutors, well known people who were there at the same time. He had researched it all. It was cobblers, absolute cobblers.

Of course, but we all know what the OP meant. Nowadays they are called post '92 institutions, but you don't have to be over 50 to know what a Polytechnic was. That said, I have zero snobbery against these institutions, it is the lying that would put me off rather than the fact that someone went to a post '92.

My mate used to tell people her friends (3 of us) were students at college. For me it was fine, I went to King's College, London uni but for our other friends it didn't quite work - one was at Cardiff uni and the other at Leeds Uni. She said she told people that so they didn't think we were snobs!

Some guys came talking to us - they were at UMIST so I was merrily chatting about living in Chelsea and he said, I though you were at college and I said, I am, I'm at Kings College. They thought we were being funny when it wasn't ever us 3 who said anything about where we were studying, we just used the term student to describe ourselves.

Anyways, the moral is that it frankly doesn't matter, does it? He has a degree, you have a degree etc, so all things are equal, right?

What is a red flag is one of my relatives via marriage has a painted portrait in cap and gowns when she's not even a graduate. She says, well I went to college and if I was in the USA I would have graduated.... wtaf!

@DreamTheMoors

America? Wtf are you talking about

I wouldn't hold it completely against him. I think it's a small adjustment. If he'd lied about going to uni at all, that's a red flag. Indicating the uni instead of poly isn't a huge deal. Maybe he was mocked for it back in the day and it still rankles, we all have our insecurities which we like to gloss over a little.

Lying about your academic credentials isn't great, it suggests insecurity as well as the ability to fictionalize your life. Neither are attractive traits.

@NewFriendlyLadybird ahhhh this reminds me of my favourite Brookes story. Very uppity colleague kept telling people she went to Oxford. She was innocently asked by someone else which college (the second person only had a little familiarity with the names and was quite naive). Uppity colleague responds "Brookes" and carries on the conversation as if it's one of the colleges. I look Uppity dead in the eye and say "Oh that's nice. I never managed to see Brookes properly when I went to Balliol, I think it's one of the more modern ones" and watch her flush and change the subject.

My friend was very lucky in that for her year and the last year as it turned out for her PGCE she attended Brookes but the actual certificate says University of Oxford.

I went to Oxford university……in so much as I was a tourist and went on a walking tour which happened to briefly take us through the grounds of one of the colleges. Does that count?

Other than that, I now feel really inferior as I didn’t go to university! 😁

@DreamTheMoors what's California got to do with this - in the UK they haven't existed for 30 years 🙄
This is a UK site and the OP appears to be in the UK.
The OP said he left university 5 years ago so a long long time since Polytechnics existed. If he left at the regular age (21) that would mean he is 26 now. He wouldn't have even been born when the polys became universities so why would he pretend he went to a "proper" uni rather than a poly? I doubt many 26 year olds have even heard of them.

Urgh this reminds me of one of my worst job interviews ever

she asked where I got my degree and I said where I had studied.

she picked up a copy of my certificate and waved it at me and said that’s not what it says on here, with this stupid smug look on her face

The way she said It provoked such a rush of anger in me , I had to take a deep breath before I explained where I had attended classes , who ran the course, and the university that validated the course was three different places.

she pulled a face and said it was a very unusual set up and she would have to look into it!

stupid thing was I didn’t actually need a degree to do the job , she just wanted to show she was a clever dick In front of her co workers .

I hope she steps on Lego in bair feet 🦶

if you don’t like what you have heard- move on . Don’t make him out to be a liar if you’re not 100% . There might well be a good reason/ maybe you don’t actually know everything about every aspect of each university in the country 🤷‍♀️

Its not the specifics of the lie that are the problem, its the underlying inferiority complex its covering up. You might find it overwhelming after a time, when you realise you can't trust 80% of what they say, they can't bear to be shown up and they seem to constantly assume the worst of others.

Please stop twisting my words, certain posters. I couldn't care less what uni he went to, I actually said in my OP I also went to a 'poly' or whatever they're called these days.
I'm asking about the lying.