Lies, and the lying liars who tell them

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum raid. While we were waiting to kickstart everything, which takes a while when you are 10 people with seemingly unstoppable bladders, there was a flare of excitement and a ripple of “oooooh” through the group because it turned out one of our guildies was at Oxford. Quite how this became such widespread and general knowledge still evades me because, as a general rule, people who went to Oxford don’t go around yelling about it. When you get right down to it, Oxford is just a place you happened to have the good fortune (as some do not) to survive. I know this because, and forgive me if this sounds like bragging for it is truly not, I went. It was where I met M’Pocket Tank. But I really hope this information isn’t going to change our blogging relationship. I want you to think just as badly of me as you did before.

The reason I mention it at all is because M’Pocket Tank and I were pretty excited to find another one of us and immediately asked the usual Oxford questions. What are you doing, which college are you at, etc. etc. The academic equivalent of talking about the weather. We were a bit thrown by the response, which was cagey at best. We learned she was studying Human Sciences and Genetics, which was odd because Oxford is traditional to a fault. We offered Human Sciences sunny side up with no extra trimmings down this neck of the woods. We asked her college but she didn’t tell us. And, in genuine bewilderment, I wondered what she was doing here since term for undergrads hasn’t started yet. She then volunteered quite a lot of information about her life on campus and the crazy stuff she got up to with her computer forensics studying neighbours in Fresher’s Week … which, err isn’t for a fortnight. And, again, computer forensics is clearly some kind of new-fangled nonsense that was not prevalent in the 14th century so Oxford, needless to say, does not offer it. Thinking I had got to the root of the matter, I said: “Ah, so you’re at Brookes” – Oxford’s other university, an ex-poly which is actually a bloody decent place. I ought to know, I did my MA there. The relationship between Oxford and Brookes is naturally a little strained but I’ve never met a Brookes student who wasn’t proud to be one. “the college, lol, no,” she responded.

And then the raid kicked off so I didn’t think any more of it. It was only when having random thoughts later that I accepted the truth of what I had dimly realised at the time … she was a lying lying liar telling lies.

Shock horror. Somebody lied on the internet.

Now I accept that net is, in fact, a web o’lies and that we all obfuscate ourselves (I know I do) but something about this lie and this person really really bothered me. I think it was the brazen brass bollocks of it. I mean, it always rankles when you suspect someone of lying but when you know it for a fact it becomes almost unbearable. Also, let’s face it, it would be disingenuous of me to pretend otherwise, it was a lie that was guaranteed to piss me off personally, not just because I went to Oxford, but because Oxford is, oh, a complex, difficult, occasionally terrible place. It has devoured people I loved, and probably parts of me too, and to see it thrown around, as heedless as candy by an uncomprehending child… gah! Nobody brags about Oxford. As I think I said above, it’s just a place you went to. There are many reasons and many ways to make yourself feel superior to another human being – where you went to university isn’t one of them. I guess being at Oxford is a little bit like being in a guild you care about. There’s the matter of reputation. And if someone in real life happens to PUG someone who was at Oxford, you’d hope they’d intelligent, humble, compassionate and, of course, normal. The sort of people who go around pretending to be at Oxford can’t be the sort of people who could in any way reflect well on the place.

So, of course, idiotface here couldn’t leave well enough alone. The next day I whispered Liar, apologising for being blunt but explaining that I was slightly confused as to why it was she had a campus tour of a university without a campus and why she was attending a fresher’s week two weeks before it was due to take place.

No reply.

Leave it alone, Tam, said my shoulder angel. She’s just a poor, slightly pathetic creature. Stop crusading.

But she lied, said my shoulder demon. She’s a lying lying liar.

So I waited.

Liar, said my shoulder demon. Liar.

And I waited.

And then: “I can talk about this on guild if you prefer,” whispered my shoulder demon for me.

What followed was a puerile act of manipulation on her part. She pretended not to have seen my message the first time, and I said I was in an instance but I’d talk to her about it later. She said, no probs, but since she had me there, and she knew that I’d been to Oxford, could I perhaps offer her some advice. “Oh yes?” I asked. Pawn to King Four. “Should I join the [bizarre series of letters.] “The what?” I said. “Don’t you know what that is?” she asked. “Frankly, no,” I responded, secure in the fact that I actually went to fucking Oxford. “The Oxford University Boat Club,” she explained for me, despite the fact the explanation had no correspondence to the letters, suggesting Something Looked Up On the Internet While Attempting To Do Hasty Research About Oxford. “Fuck no,” I said, in genuine horror, “everybody hates boaties.” I was so traumatised by the boaties I might have left it at that but suddenly she was the one who couldn’t leave it alone. “Thought you’d have known about the Boat Club, being at Oxford and all.” Which, of course, was a red flag to a bull, so in I charged, rattling off every single piece of misinformation she had given me and systematically demolishing it.

What followed was a battle of wits. Well, I say wits. I was, of course, at a profound and fundamental advantage on account of actually being here and having nothing to prove. I think she started from the erroneous, if ironic, position of believing I was lying too, and kept trying to catch me out, pointing out the differences in subject between my various academic qualifications (no, really? I hadn’t noticed that). But Oxford, you see, is full of shibboleths – shibboleths that become so inherent about two seconds after you come here for the first time that you quickly forget how opaque they may initially seem. Silly things like the fact we have an 8 week term, starting later than every other university, the way colleges and departments interact (bizarrely and with hostility), and, of course, the oodles and oodles of special terminology. It got to the stage where the conversation had basically degenerated into:

Lying lying liar: I’ve had people not believe me before, and I don’t see why they don’t. I mean, I’d show you my pass card if I could.
Me: It’s called a Bod card, you silly person.

I know this might strike as you as minor evidence on which to condemn someone as a lying lying liar but from pretty much the second after you arrive you’re so steeped in the vocabulary that it wouldn’t occur to you say anything else.

Oxford. The place where we call a spade a whirdlegiggle.

It was like I kept falling over the fact she kept referring to University College as “UC”. “The undercity?” I asked, blankly, the first time she said it. Oh, you mean Univ.

But the facts, thus far, were these. We had someone to be claiming to a fresher at Oxford:

1. despite the fact term doesn’t start til October (and although undergraduates may come up a week early and leave a week late, they certainly wouldn’t experience the place as anything other than a ghost town)
2. apparently experiencing fresher’s week (which would be in October)
3. studying a subject which Oxford doesn’t quite offer
4. living next door to people doing subjects also not offered at Oxford
5. referring occasionally to the campus Oxford doesn’t have
6. When pressed, claiming to be at a college (Univ) that does not offer her subject
7. having no idea about the vocabulary of Oxford
8. having even less of an idea how the whole thing works

I confess now that I wasn’t entirely honest with her myself. I obfuscated my college. The thing about Oxford is that it’s a closed system – if you want to find someone within it, you can, and I was starting to suspect this girl was certifiably nuts. I mean, human sciences only offers about 12 places a year – I could find her by college if nothing else, and if not by other pieces of information I have about her. I haven’t actually gone to the trouble of downloading this year’s intake list because that would a) be slightly obsessive and b) unnecessary because it’s obvious as obvious mcobvious that she’s a lying lying liar.

The reason I ended up having the conversation at all was because I wanted to know why. Why on earth would you lie about something so blisteringly pointless? And despite proving, time and time and time again, that she lied in every word (that hoary cripple with malicious eye), I couldn’t get her to admit it to me. I promised not to condemn her for it, I promised not tell the guild, I just wanted to know why. And truthfully I kind of want to tell her that it’s the silliest of silly lies and that she should be proud of what she’s already achieved. She must be a university student of some sort – it doesn’t matter where you go, it really really doesn’t. Maybe she applied to Oxford and didn’t get in – letting go and moving on is the best thing you can do. Pretending to be at Oxford on the internet can’t be a healthy way of dealing with it.

But she wouldn’t budge an inch. It was so depressing. I mean, when I’m caught in a lie, I tend to come out, sheepishly admit it, and hope for grace, I don’t cling to it like a pitbull with lockjaw. I got pretty angry towards the end and she got shriekingly defensive, asking me why I was doing this to her, and why I wouldn’t just leave her alone. But she kept insisting she was a fresher at Oxford, and here I was, someone who could offer her guidance, disbelieving her and attacking her. Nobody telling the truth gets that defensive. If you say you did [x], and somebody doesn’t believe you did [x], what does it matter, because you know you did.

Ho hum.

I don’t know why I’m so disconcerted by it. As I said above, people lie all the time, and certainly they lie on the Internet. I think it must be because I know indisputability the truth, so to speak, of the lie. Normally you suspect someone is lying, and therefore it’s easier to either just roll your eyes or give them the benefit of the doubt. Also I suppose there’s a large extent to which we’re socially conditioned to accept lies: “sorry, I’m late,” your friend will say, “I got held up in traffic.” What they mean, a lot of the time, is “I just couldn’t be arsed to be on time.” But that doesn’t matter. It’s the way human beings function, and just because your friend couldn’t be arsed to be on time and you happily accepted a lie doesn’t invalidate the friendship, or even reflect badly on the worth your friend attributes to you. We’re all telling lies, all the time.

But we’re not telling hooters of quite that magnitude.

Our conversation ended with me giving up, and suggesting we both agree to politely ignore the other from this point on.

But, oh, it grates on me. It doesn’t help that she does speak to me in guild semi-regularly and I feel obligated to respond politely. Curses on my English blood. Every time I see her name, a sensation like someone is running their nails across a blackboard trickles down my spine. And she’s coming to the raid on Sunday. Ho hum. I’m not sure I can bear to be in a team with her, especially because she may be wanting to heal.

But what can one do? You can hardly burn somebody in the village square for telling a few pork pies, even if they happened to be the sort of pork pies you find personally distressing. And M’Pocket Tank and I can’t really put the guild in a “her or us” situation because that’s an unbelievably shitty thing to do. It’s just hard to depend on someone, which is what you do in a 5-man or a 10-man team, if you know they’re a despicable and possibly pathological lying lying liar.

I mean, ultimately it doesn’t matter. She’s just a random name on the internet, one among incalculable millions. I’m sure, in time, it won’t bother me.

It’s just ….

… it bothers me now!