To wonder why people exagerrate threads

[Wonkywinky]

Explanation needed for my title!
So for the first time ever I've spotted someone I know on here
They have exaggerated and lied on their thread .
Why do people do this when looking for advice !

They are not looking for advice more for people to agree with them that they are ‘right’.

To provoke a response
To make the issue seem more important
To garner sympathy/ outrage

All of the above.

Or they genuinely believe their version of events?

To be less identifying.

Because the matter was bigger to them than you and their emotions are heightened.

To ensure they get the ‘correct’ responses.

They are bored.

I guess it depends on the lie of the thread your talking about.

But in threads about situations I guess it might be their perspective and how they've taken the issue. I guess in everything they say their is a side to every story so your seeing their emotionally driven adaptation. It's hard to recite events or whatever impartially when emotionally triggered. But if it's about a particular topic or a yes/no awnser perhaps they are trying to motivate the responses towards a certain angle to feel validated?

Ah yes hadn't thought about the less identifying possibility .
Although in this case the identifying parts..age.. school year .. boy or girl..are all correct and unchanged. .

Boredom and attention seeking.

I once came across someone who did this about me. Some of it was exaggerated and other parts were outright lies. These were not ambiguous events that could have been misinterpreted. They could have been doing it for the support and attention. Everyone believed them and told them how horrible I was based on these lies.

This is always on my mind when I read threads here where everyone is criticising someone who is not there to defend themselves. We only hear one side of the story.

It’s not who you think probably… or they’ve changed details to be less identifying… or you don’t know as much detail as you think and the facts on here are correct…
I have a work colleague who’s ALWAYS spotting people she knows -
except not really.. loads of people have stroppy teens, or kids 2 years apart or a DHs who seem the right age with the right hobby as someone she’s knows except there are loads of Middle Ages blokes on Strava avoiding their families at weekends…

It’s probably not the same person.

I don’t imagine anyone who’s seen the story play out in real life would agree with how one person tells it. Doesn’t mean anybody is lying.

There are three sides to every story, yours, theirs and the truth which is always somewhere in the middle.

I do think it’s really impossible to tell who people are unless it’s a really really unusual situation… really unusual with an identifier detail …

I think there are a lot of people facing surprisingly similar circumstances.

i read a thread once that gave me the creeps because it could have been written by me- right down to the very specific, niche and what I would regard as outing details.

I even thought that someone was using my story and passing it off as theirs until I remembered that I hadn’t told anyone about very detailed parts of it.

unless they provide very identifiable details, it’s impossible to say for certain

I get your point and there’s a lot of truth in it, but often the truth isn’t in the middle but skewed very much in the favour of one version of events.

often, there is a lying trouble maker and someone who is largely telling the truth ( but may not have appreciated the other person’s perspective)

What’s the detail that made you think that’s them?? Having children the right age in the right gender order isn’t really enough… even if you know someone who has a 6 yr old boy and a 9 year old girl and works in Asda and has a DH she’s having issues with - honestly, there’s probably a dozen with the same details knocking around

This happened to me too!

If anyone I knew in real life had read the post, they would definitely assume it was me that wrote it.

How many users does MN have?

could quite easily not be who you think.

Poetic license, I suppose. Years ago, I took a side-ways promotion to a more complex role, albeit no extra pay, but a step in the right direction. It was harder than my previous role, but manageable. There were two vacancies and five people who applied.

Four months later, we were told the entire department was being closed & we were given 12-weeks notice of being "at risk" (read: unemployed). Anyway, I requested immediately to go back to my previous role as I couldn't be arsed carrying on learning the new role, knowing it was going nowhere. One of the unsuccessful applicants was then asked to take my place - we swapped roles effectively.

Two decades passed, and I was stalking her on Linkedin. Her profile described in great detail how she'd been taken on for role A, but was quickly seen to be wasted in the role & was subsequently head-hunted for role B.

No mention of failing the interview. No mention of redundancy being round the corner. No mention of only being asked to fill in until we were hoofed out completely. Funny that.

Are you sure you recognise them? There are so many people who use this site a coincidence might be more likely if it seems exaggerated?

In the circumstances I don’t blame her, your behaviour however stalking her 20 years later is a little odd.

It really isn't - one day out of the blue she popped into my head and I thought "I wonder what she's up to now".

Had social media not been in existence, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. If information is made publicly available, it's there to be read. By anyone.

Hi just to answer ,I posted because I know it's the same person. If I wasn't sure I wouldn't be posting the question.
V V specific details on the post which Ive not mentioned..instead I was deliberately vague .

But you can’t know, can you?

You're deliberately making changes to your story, how do you know the other person hasn't?

And I'm sure it's not hypocritical for you to not to be 100% truthful while criticising someone else for doing the same thing!