Ms. Kaplan's Blog

Yesterday, I met a new person.  Within 20 minutes of being introduced to me, he told me the following things about himself:

• He has pancreatic cancer
• He divorced his wife so that she wouldn’t have to suffer with him.
• He’s  now dating a 21 year old.
• His ex-wife is now with a taller, richer, better looking guy.
• He’s into extreme sports like bungee jumping and sky diving.
• He has four advanced degrees, including a PhD in Management Information Systems.
• He got his Series 7 license just for fun.
• He’s a licensed plumber in the state of Ohio, just for fun.
• He used to be a college professor of Economics.  That’s how he met the 21 year old girlfriend.
• He volunteers at the Humane Society.
• His knee is prosthetic. 

You might think I’m kidding here, but I can’t make this stuff up.  After a certain point in time, I could tell that my husband was getting tired of the constant “I’m-so-cool” tidbit-dropping, especially because most of it wasn’t impressive; it was just sad.   Honestly, I was so fascinated by the fact that this guy thought I cared about his weird life to shut him down.  I wanted to hear what was coming next because the more he piled on, the crazier it sounded…and the less I respected him.

There’s no way that all of his stories are true.  There might be a shred of truth to each story, but he was so un-genuine about his delivery that it was crystal clear that he wasn’t actually telling the full truth.  Yesterday, I was mildly amused by his cartoonish-ness.  Today, I just have pity for a man who might or might not be very ill, both physically and mentally.

The lesson is that people can pick up on when others are purposefully inflating their life stories.  Also, it’s never a good idea to unload every detail of your life on complete strangers, especially in professional situations.  Nobody likes the guy who constantly blows smoke.  They might keep him around for awhile, just for entertainment purposes or because they feel sorry for him.  But they don’t like him, and they don’t consider him a real friend because he’s fake and they can’t trust him.