Fake girlfriend
I held off posting this for several reasons; namely I thought it would be pretty boring compared to other responses.. but actually I've not read many decent ones this week anyway..

It all started with IRC (quakenet). I was an active member of the UK Quake 2 community and played for several clans; starting low but eventually working my way up to a UKCCL and UKQ2A Division 1 team (I'm still proud of this).

When I started I must have been 13 or 14 and in the early days we used to spend hours and hours playing Quake 2 and hours and hours just talking general bullshit in clan channels afterwards.

In one channel, of what was by then a defunct clan, a lot of members stuck around even after moving to other clans just for the conversation. Teenage angst was discussed, everyone used the /action command to tell everyone what they were listening to on Winamp, games were shared and there were even a couple of real-life girls in the chan. Eventually people exchanged photos and so I sent one around of me on holiday.

I was asked who the 'hot bird,' was and automatically without thinking I said

"Oh that's my gf."

The problem was, of course, that I was an awkward teenager and this was in fact my cousin, not my girlfriend.

That small, white, seed of a lie then started to grow.. I had to make up a back-story of how I met Carrie, how long we'd been together, what GCSE's she was doing etc. and she'd even occasionally make an appearance on IRC and have conversations with everyone (including, embarrassingly, me) for which I had to proxy an mIRC connection through a remote server so our IP addresses were different..

Although it was difficult, I maintained this and eventually other things happened, people forgot about her and we may have even 'broken up.' It wasn't really an issue because I was never going to meet these people in real life.

But then I did. I went to a LAN with a whole bunch of them for a week and even took some friends from home along. During this time I struck up a (real) relationship with one of the girls there called Claire.. Things blossomed, I was made a 'real man,' and of course people spoke about my relationship with Carrie and so that my friends from back home were filled in.

Claire visited me a few times and I visited her but even if she noticed the pictures of Carrie on the wall in my parents house and photo albums nothing was ever said, even if I did get a few funny looks.

That relationship eventually fizzled out and as the years went by the whole situation got diluted and I only had to occasionally rebuff an accusation from my friends from back home who had been to this LAN.

And I forgot all about it until last year.

I recently married a beautiful, kind and, fortunately, real girl and a week before the wedding I had a call from my cousin saying she was really sorry but couldn't make it any more. I was obviously a bit upset but in the back of my mind I breathed a big sigh of relief that some of my mates from back home who would be there would not meet her, remember a face and put two and two together.

It's probably even been ousted and I'm not even sure anyone remembers or, more to the point, cares but for some reason that little lie has still persisted, chased me and haunted me for over a decade..

Length? 13 years I reckon!
(aeloen, Thu 15 Mar 2012, 13:36, 2 replies)

I heard this story on the radio the other day, but forgot the name of the comedian who told it
He lived on a street with no women. All the talk amongst the teenage boys was about girls, and what they might be like. Then one boy (let's call him A) announced that he had a girlfriend. He told all the others about how they had done some sex, etc. The girl lived in another town, next door to his granny, so he saw her at weekends. Everyone knew he was lying, but couldn't prove it.

Then the parents of one of the other boys (let's call him B) were away for a while so he had to stay at A's house. As B was staying over a weekend he got to visit A's granny. After lunch B asked A if they could go next door and meet A's (imaginary) girlfriend. A immediately announced that they had broken up the week before, that she had moved away, and he would never see her again. Problem solved.

Next summer B went away on holiday, and came back to announce that he had met A's girlfriend, danced with her, and snogged her. A and B proceed to have a fight over a girl they both know is imaginary. It wasn't any funnier when I heard it on the radio.
(Smale is stuffed, Thu 15 Mar 2012, 14:31, closed)

Actaully I rather like that, though yes - your story-telling is atrocious.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 15 Mar 2012, 14:56, closed)