Lying friend

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Why would a friend compulsively lie to you?

I have a friend - my best friend who makes claims like his IQ is so big, he's in the top 2 in the world. I asked, "top 2 percent?" he said, "no, top two people." He makes up stories about someone he knows who was the direct cause of a show being cancelled or something big and grandiose like that.

The biggest thing though is him telling people that he has schizophrenia. According to his mother, he doesn't.

Just wondering if you know if lying is a sociopathic disorder or something.

Perhaps he just has very low self-esteem and lies to make himself seem more interesting. As far as I am aware, a psychopath lies for their own gain, whereas a compulsive liar does so out of habit, and their lies are often unnecessary, gain them nothing and make no sense. There are some personality disorders where lying may be a feature such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

I had a friend in my late teens that would tell some really odd, random lies. Stuff like that he was in a band (but he couldn't play more than one chord on his guitar) or he was were beaten up by a gang of anti-white black people (even though he had no bruises or other injuries). I'm not sure why he did it, but I suppose it must be because he felt these things might somehow make him interesting. People can be weird.

My brother is a compulsive liar but he was NOTHING compared to a friend in elementary school (BJ). BJ was such an incredible liar even ol' Aspie me was able to see they are obvious lies. Among his classics are:

He walked and talked almost immediately after being born.
He drank 12 beers when he was two and didn't even get drunk.
His dad let him play with real handguns (that I never saw) in the house.
He drives the family car all the time (at age 11).

I still to this day can't see why he would make up such obvious lies. It was almost as if he convinced himself that these things literally were true. Even my brother makes up lies when he doesn't have to. For example, he'll mention how the local (large) supermarket doesn't sell Milk or Bread so he has to travel to the one across the city (of over 1 million people). Right......

Sadly, liars like that made it so that the verifiable truth I told was rarely believed growing up. Just think: how absurd is it that fifteen boys and girls (many honors students on top of that) would gang up and beat up the tallest kid in school?

Just tell this "friend" that his constant lies are not cool, and that no one buys them anyway. From now on, when ever he tells one of his lies, just tell him, "Hey! Lies aren't cool!" Then walk away.

I think I usually just pushed the compulsive or pathological liars out of my life, sometimes without even saying a word to them. Felt it was better than listening to BS I didn't need to hear.
An old co-worker of mine claimed to have played for the Peterborough Petes when he was in high school. I brought the name up to someone who worked for the Petes during said time period and they had no clue who he was. My suspicion was verified at that point, but that lie was somewhat believable though. Where I knew he was BSing me for sure was when he said he tried out for the San Francisco Giants or knew someone that did. I can't remember the details of the lie, but I knew it was a lie.

Some people are so inherently dull, the only way to make their lives more interesting is to lie.

When it comes to compulsive liars its best to point out any lies rather than feeding their strange take on reality, sometimes doesn't help though depending on how deluded they are. I had a friend from school that was one, some of his behavior was strange but didn't think much of it, until spending more time with him then it became more apparent. I eventually found his behavior too exhausting to deal with and cut ties with him, definitely don't regret it.

Off this note, if you don't feel comfortable telling someone that you don't like their lying, then don't. You might be provoking unnecessary trouble. Just simply try to stay away from this person and do not trust them is all you can do for yourself. Other people may have different experiences with this person, so do not worry about if those other people will get along with him/her or not.