Redditors, what started off as a small lie but then snowballed into "This is my life now?"

1. I moved to a new city, and got a new dentist. For some reason, the guy thinks I used to see him at his old practice in a town I've never lived in. I corrected him a couple times, but he just keeps bringing it up, so now I just kind of roll with it. He asks after my parents, which is easy enough...but we've had all kinds of conversations about local restaurants I've never been to and other random stuff like that.
   — Davran


2. Someone bought my wife a Vera Bradley handbag. She doesn't care for Vera Bradley, but uses the bag anyway. Because of her use of Vera Bradley, people buy her Vera Bradley things. She has a ton of it, plus gift cards to Vera Bradley. So naturally she has a ton of Vera Bradley accessories. She is now considered by others to be 'very into' Vera Bradley, so she gets more stuff from Vera Bradley. This is her life now. Edit: [bonus Gus](https://youtu.be/0RiRXflE4zE)
   — ViolentEastCoastCity


3. A new coworker of mine tried downplaying his bday and eventually after me hounding him about why he didn't like celebrating, he eventually told me in confidence that his best friend was killed on his birthday and he hates thinking about it. Fast forward 8 years -- this guy and I had become really good friends. Best friends. Lived together at one point. He was accepted into my friend group and I always made sure to downplay his bday (his is 4 days after another friend) so we just did a group thing and never made a big deal about it. Finally someone got brave enough and wanted to talk to him about it, and he laughed and had no recollection of telling me that and said he was probably just screwing with me. He always wondered why no one wished him happy bday.
   — jackrack1721






4. Wasn't a drinker in high school so to shut down peer pressure I told them I was born with half a liver and drinking anything could make me very sick or kill me. The lie just became natural and followed me to college. Was out with some friends playing pool and decided to have a beer. When I came back, a buddy slapped it out of my hand thinking I was suicidal. Then the explanations began...
   — dopplegangerexpress


5. My uncle's name is Ernie and he owns a restaurant, and likes to talk to guests when they arrive and leave. One of the patrons that eats there a lot, confused his name with Bert, a la Bert and Ernie. Being the pleasant and polite asian dude he is, he didn;t have the heart to correct him. Now whenever this one customer comes, the staff and and my aunt (the manager) has to call him Bert. He is my uncle Bert now.
   — seen720


6. I was having a rough time commuting too far for work for a few months. Decided to quit to find something closer to home, but told everyone I had been approved to work from home. When I went to give my two weeks, my manager asked, "I know the driving has been killing you, how would you feel about working from home?" Work laptop to my left and watching Great British Masterclass as I type, been working at home since then.
   — Geekprincessia






7. Not me but my Dad. We moved and he was convinced the postman's name was 'Ger' as in short for Gerry. He greeted him by it, nearly every day for about 10 years. We even gave him a Christmas card which he displayed down in the sorting office. Fast forward and we have a temporary post man, my Mum asking him after a few weeks 'When is Ger coming back?' This was met with stunned silence and a puzzled look, with a resounding 'Who is Ger? No one works in the locality by that name' Turns out, his name is Declan and he was too nice to correct my Dad for close to a decade.
   — djaxial


8. There was a Japanese show posted in r/Videos a couple weeks ago where this man hadn't said anything to his wife in over 23 years. ~~Hos~~ His excuse was that he was jealous of the attention his wife gave the kids so he stopped talking. He admitted that he did want to talk to his wife, but had committed to not talking for so long that he didn't want to admit his silliness or something like that. If no one posts it, I'll grab the link after work. Edit: See the link below from u/maran999
   — Gleveniel


9. This is a lie that ends well :) 40 years ago, when I was my final secondary school (high-school) year, I decided that I wanted to be a Civil Engineer and study Civil Engineering. My father, who probably had some doubts about my choice, arranged for me to spend a week in a civil engineering office owned my a friend of his. I spent a week there and definitely knew one thing afterwards - that I *did not* want to become a Civil Engineer! So... a couple of months later, I was walking through the centre of town and met the owner of the Civil Engineering company that I had spent the week with. He says: "Hey, 1000000CHF, how are you? Still planning on becoming a Civil Engineer?" I'm a bit flustered (as I often was at that age) and don't know what to say, so I say: "No, actually I've decided to study eh... hmm... Computer Science" (The 1st lie) He says: "That's great. A career for the future." We say good-day and go upon our separate ways. A few weeks later, while I'm actually sitting my final school exams, he calls me and says "Hey, 1000000CHF, I'm starting a computer company, would you like to join?" I say: "But, but... I'm about to start University to study Computer Science" (The reinforcement of the 1st lie) He says: "Great! We'll pay your University and you work all your spare hours for us." So I was trapped. Because of my lies I ended up studying Computer Science in a top University and getting a great degree and postgrad degree while earning a full income on the side (this was the 80s). But the silver-lining was that I actually fell into a career that I absolutely love and never want to quit. Forty years later I still get enthusiastic about interesting new technologies and have created two successful I.T. companies that are still operating. I'm actually in the process of creating another this month. Despite the management tasks, I still succeed in spending over 70% of my time doing what I love - developing modern, quality software. Clients and developers that work with me respect my opinions and are very often surprised at how I stay on top of the technology trends. But what I really derive my career satisfaction from is knowing that there are millions of people out there using software that I designed and wrote every day. TL;DR: a lie and a reinforcement of the lie led to me having, and continuing to have, a very successful career in software development.
   — 1000000CHF






10. I became friends with one of the managers at Panera. One day as I was giving a cashier my order, he told her to give me the same discount as they give to firemen, police and paramedics, i think. He just chose this discount as it was an easy button to push on the register. Well this cashier really thought I was a fireman. I'm not. So for the next two years this cashier gave me the discount. Even if she wasn't serving me, she would go out of her way to tell the cashier that was helping me, "He's a fireman, give him the discount". It snowballed into such an awkward situation that I didn't know how to get out of it. Luckily that cashier eventually transferred to another store and I now happily pay full price.
    — Steve0512