Emily Duprie
Catching a bad liar is generally easy to do and oh-so satisfying. “Why lie?” is a question we like to ask our friends with pathological tendencies. It’s a good question, especially when it comes to things that deserve to be told truthfully. For example, your profession. On the flip side, accusing someone of lying, only to be proven wrong, is just embarrassing. Most of us don’t really have a reason to lie, especially if we’re proud of something, and the feeling of being accused of lying when you’re not is extremely belittling and frustrating.
One Redditor by the name u/sailorangelxo hopped into a popular subreddit called “Am I The A-hole” or “AITA” after being accused of lying when she really wasn’t. The aftermath just so happened to stir a very messy pot of drama within an engagement party. Ingredients of the pot include: racism, stereotypes, jealousy, and spite.
“Uhm, why are you lying…?” OP writes:
Hello everyone,
This happened hours ago and my mind is boggled. Me(24f) my fiance(28m) went to his bestfriends, Alex(30m) and his now-fiancee Nell(27f) engagement party today.
Essentially at the engagement party, I was talking to an older lady who had spotted my iron ring because she was wearing one as well. (A iron ring is presented to engineers in Canada once they graduate) and I was asking her a whole bunch of questions about her career, which field of engineering shes in etc. Turns out she was Nell’s future MIL’s sister then Nell and Alex came over to say hi and I congratulated them both. Then Nells MIL’s sister and I continued our conversation and then Nell spoke up and said “Uhm, why are you lying about being an engineer? Don’t you work at victorias secret or something?” And I was like “Yeah I used to work at victorias secret when I was in Uni but now I work as a Software engineer” and then Nell started laughing a bit and said “No you don’t, stop lying” and everyone visibly got really awkward.
Quite the way to walk into a conversation, isn’t it? The immediate rage I would feel, had I been verbally harassed like our OP, would not have been expressed in such a calm way. Especially after being accused of lying about your topic of conversation with an older and more distinguished member of your career field. The accusation was out of the blue, and completely uncalled for, given that OP had just congratulated both the bride-to-be and her fiance.
Some useful context from a recent update to the original post:
Some background information I am a POC Pakistani to be exact and my fiancé is Half Indian/Afghan both of us were brought up in Canada. Nell is white as is Alex. I went to school for computer engineering hence I am a computer engineer but this is my first professional job(software engineer) out of school.
So she continues…
My fiancee came over and greeted everyone, and Nell continued to berate me in front of everyone saying that I was lying about my job, and how my fiance shouldn’t be enabling me to lie to everyone by saying that I’m an engineer. I then told her to stop and I stood my ground and said “I wouldn’t ever lie about my job, I worked really hard to get where I am” and then Nell got extremely upset and started saying that I’m ruining her engagement party, I’m making everything about myself and that someone like me cannot be in that field of work.
My fiance got upset and asked Alex if Nell was drunk or not because what she was saying to me was out of line and that she has no right whatsoever to speak to me like that. Then me and him both left early and I keep on getting calls and texts from her friends calling me a b*tch for being stand-offish. My fiance got a call from Alex asking us to not make this a big deal and my fiance told him we’re not going to communicate with them any further until Nell apologizes to me.
When someone is being so out of line, you just have to assume they’re drunk
Being the bigger person is a blessing and a curse. Having to leave a party because someone else won’t stop making a scene is annoying and oftentimes leads to the immature assuming you’re removing yourself to be petty, when in reality, you’re just protecting your peace. In this situation, OP was better than I would have been, and a recent update from her proves it. Apparently, this isn’t the first snide comment made by her “best friend.”
“After this conversation I realized that every single interaction I’ve had with her she has thrown a micro aggressive comment towards me wether it’s about my looks, education, my culture very ignorant type of comments.”
OP updated her post with some context:
So now for the update, today Alex called my fiancé today asking when I’ll be apologizing to Nell.. my fiance was completely confused/pissed and told him I have no reason to apologize to her, plus her friends were sending me awful messages as well, he was on speaker because then Nell started once again claiming I made a scene, I made her look bad in front of her in-laws because she didn’t know I had graduated school. Then I started talking to her and asked her what exactly does that have to do with her claiming I’m lying and she then said she assumed that I didn’t complete my degree and dropped out. I was pissed off at this point and asked her wtf she meant by that and once again she said you just seem like the type. And I then said you seem like the type to tear down other women, jealously is a disease. She then started yelling at me over the phone about me being standoffish about my makeup, the way I dress, and how if my parents knew I wasn’t a good little Pakistani girl. (This took me off guard because my parents are strict and unfortunately during university it was a struggle for me to stay out late, spend time with my bf (now fiance) and go out for group events with my fiance and his group of friends, group of 7 guys with their SO’s including Nell & Alex).
Me and my fiancé looked at each other after she said that and like some of you said. Racism, stereotypes, and over all hatred. With that being said I told her that my parents know exactly how I am and they’re proud of me and if she has an issue with the way I dress, do my makeup, then to never ever talk to me ever again. My fiancé then took the phone and told Alex that it’s messed up that he could stand by someone like that, & not to contact him and he hung up on them and we have blocked Nell off everything same with Alex.
Is she an asshole for being truthful? No, and the Redditors in her comments agree
Long story short, don’t go out of your way to embarrass someone because you’re racist and jealous that you aren’t as cool. Just enjoy your engagement party and if you feel the urge to be an a-hole, take a shot instead. You can find more comments and insight on this post here.
