To ask you for your own WILTY stories?

[hepsitemiz]

I like to organise dinner parties where we copy the premise of "Would I Lie to You?" If you're not familiar with this programme, each person reads out a story supposedly from their recent or distant past. The story they read out may or may not be true, and the other guests get to cross-examine the story teller and decide whether or not they believe them. The crucial thing is these stories are a mixture of funny and embarrassing.

Of course I tweak the format a little to suit a DP - we cannot do the "This is My..." round for instance, and spouses cannot interrogate, or vote, on their partner's stories.

Guests send me their true story a couple of days ahead, and I invent an equally ridiculous lie that is both entertaining and plausible. Then both truth and lie go into an envelope which the story-teller draws from: so 50-50 it's a lie. Some of the funniest details of a story come out in the cross-examining - if the story is a lie, the teller has to make up whatever details he can to make it seem plausible. As a teller you get points for passing truths off as lies, and for passing lies off as truths. The others get points for sniffing out the lies and endorsing the truths.

Since I've done this a few times, I'm running out of hilarious lies, since not everything can be recycled. For new lies, I like to draw on weird true stories from friends and relatives. One of my favourites, as an example, was when a friend was forced to run out into the street in her nightie at 8.30 am to retrieve her lacy knickers that were travelling quite fast past the neighbours' houses. The detail is that they had got caught on the back of a hedgehog who then continued on his usual early-morning foraging route. They landed on the hedgehog after she had shaken her counterpane out of the window after a very very late party, not realising there was underwear on there... the knickers wafted down to the flowerbed below where the hedgehog like to browse.

So this is where I need your help: new, hilarious stories. Things that may have happened to you, or to someone you know. Goodness knows we all need the odd amusing distraction these days.

Kindly, if you've done this a few times, the format has probably run its course. Once or twice a year maybe, but too much like hard work for a dinner party.

You could try a murder-mystery dinner party?

Couldn't agree more, and to start a "AIBU" thread on this forum is pretty punchy.

It sounds a lot of work for guests. And now outsourcing the work to MN!

Thank you... I've done two of these parties over the last four years, if that's of any relevance. It was a great ice-breaker and truly appreciated, so I felt it was worth the effort.

I thought it might be fun for people to share their own wilty stories on here, but I can see I was wrong about that, so I apologise unreservedly for misuse of AIBU.

I think It's a really good idea OP, one I might steal from you in fact. I have only ever watched this if it has been on at someone's house, or if someone has shown me a clip, so I hadn't thought of it.

How about, I once ended up being mistaken for a guide of a tour and as I knew a fair bit about the tour area, I just went along with it.

Or, I once met up with an old friend that I had mistaken for a different friend, and kept trying to convince them of all these things we'd done together rather than admit that I had made a mistake

Agree - it’s a common warm up for corporate/training days too. I think people may groan (inwardly) at the thought of it.

Are you sure your guests actually want to do this, again…?

It sounds excruciating. Why not organise a dinner party where you eat dinner and just chat?

God mumsnet is so miserable at times. I think it sounds very fun OP especially after a few drinks and nothing like the crap corporate “two truths and a lie” 🙄.

It sounds fun to me but I can’t think of any stories for you.

I think it sounds really fun op - Def the sort of thing our friend group would do (currently planning a group taskmaster for a big birthday party next month!)

Obviously my brain has gone squidge but I'll have a think, I have definitely played this game before!

I have some lovely acquaintances but OMG that thought of them trying to play along with a ‘hilarious’ and complex lie is excruciating.

Me: So, why exactly did you think at that exact point, I know! I’ll just move this table with the precariously balanced three-tier wedding cake on it over there a bit, without asking anyone for help!

Friend: Erm I don’t know, I wasn’t there.

I think this sounds like a fun idea as long as everyone knows in advance - and it sounds like they do.
My story would be the time I met a TV personality in a bar, and she thought she recognised me. She asked after my children and insisted on buying me a glass of wine. She then asked me to join her and her friends for dinner. At that point, I declined, drank my wine and legged it.
The friend I was with kept asking me how I knew her, and why hadn't I told him about my friendship with her. He wouldn't believe it was a case of mistaken identity.

I guess this could happen if people didn't want to join in,but it sounds as if OPs friends do. I agree @TheRealWhacker . You got a lot of miserable responses at first. MN can be a bit 'fun sponge' at times.

Gosh some people on here are so miserable, I think it sounds like fun and the OP obviously enjoys it so why piss on her chips?

I’ll give you a story, I was walking through our local town and saw a woman I recognised with 2 small children about the same age as my children, so I assumed she was a school mum and waved and did a little ‘hi, nice to see you’ thing as I walked past, she looked at me like I was I was a nutter. When I got home I realised she wasn’t a school mum, she was the star of the big show on ITV at the time and her face was on the front page of the ITV streaming site.

Thank you so much for those very funny, awkward stories!

Only some of the guests have done this before, and have asked me if I'm planning another one. We are all in France, so very few are familiar with the WILTY programme and all have loved the game. In France, we don't do corporate team-building days in the way that some of you are describing.

Mistaken identities can be very funny, @Harriet36 . A little in this vein, another friend's' story was that she was once serenaded at a house party by a man with a guitar who played "The Whole of the Moon" to her... Feeling a little self-conscious and being a bit drunk, she jokingly advised him not to give up the day job - only to be told that the guy was actually the lead singer and guitarist for the Waterboys. God forgive me but I found that funny!

Another good one, @Overworkedandknackered 😉

Kindly, anything that starts with that word is anything but

Yes, I think DP and I would give it a good go because we love watching the Lee Mack / David Mitchell partnership at work.

But I have a few friends who would ‘play’, having had it explained to them and possibly even being familiar with the programme, who would just … clam up.

Here’s my WILTY, @hepsitemiz:

“I asked for advice on Mumsnet, and the first page of responses completely ignored my question and told me I was a terrible human being with snakes for hair”.

Thank you @ChicAutumnCrow!

Sad to say, I was expecting some people to come on with the goal of making me feel small. Because it’s AIBU after all. However, one of those chip-pissers is someone I know from another board to be (until now) unfailingly clever and kind. So that was a surprise, and probably goes to show you everyone can have a bad day!

I would come to your dinner party. It sounds fun!

My story: I got rear-ended at a traffic light. It was pissing down with rain. Damage wasn't too bad, but we quickly exchanged details and drove off.

On my way back, at the same traffic light, I got rear-ended AGAIN! The homeless man on the corner was laughing his ass off. I had a very distinctive car, and he had seen both accidents, about 30 minutes apart.

This isn't what you asked, just an observation. I noticed that the panel, when reading the three anecdotes, often showed some bemusement as if they were reading them for the first time and found the fake ones ridiculous. Maybe that was some kind of double bluff. But I thought if they'd written all three tales themselves they might have read them all out impartially. Just a thought.

I agree - I always thought that the celebs / participants had submitted their own truth, lie, lie - and the surprise was which card was pulled

Interesting... I think the lies have been written by the production team, but I may be wrong. The guests come armed with just one true story. It's supposedly set up so that it's fifty-fifty whether someone is lying. I agree there is likely to be a lot of poker face going on, or even bluffing taking the form of feigning surprise when reading out your true story, for example.

Fifty-fifty theory aside, it seems likely that Lee Mac and David Mitchel, having appeared on the show for so many years, have run out of funny anecdotes, so I do think they read out more lies than truths.

As for the guests, Bob Mortimer, being such a hilarious character, often has true stories to tell, however implausible they sound. Same with a less frequent guest, Henning Wehn. Conversely, other guests may arrive with less funny stories, in which case maybe the production team may choose to give them a lie. So although it's supposed to feel random, I don't think it is, and I think Lee and David are reading out lies more often than not!