My mate lies to try to make her life more glamorous

I have a friend I’ve known for about eight years. We met when we were doing shifts at a restaurant straight after leaving university and became close quite quickly. We’ve both recently turned 30, I’m married with a baby and she’s in a long-term relationship.

My issue is, she lies all the time. It’s never anything really serious, but she exaggerates a lot and often makes excuses about why she hasn’t turned up to something. Then I find out she’s gone somewhere else or I’ll look on social media and there are photos of her out partying with other friends.

She exaggerates wildly when it comes to her life, her job and her boyfriend, and embellishes stories to make things seem more exciting and glamorous.

A mutual friend recently uncovered one of her lies, about working with celebrities in Ibiza. Apparently, this girl’s cousin then started telling the same story and it turned out the cousin was the one who’d been in Ibiza!

I’m not sure how she thinks she can get away with all this. It feels disrespectful, slightly mad and also makes me wonder if I can trust anything she says.

On the upside, she’s always been such a fun, confident person, who I love being around. She’s quite unique and I don’t know anyone else like her. Is that enough to base a friendship on? Please help.

Well, it is if you’re willing to take what she says with a pinch of salt and just enjoy being around her.

I think we all have different types of friends – for example, ones we can confide in and trust with our lives and other mates who bring the fun and, while we love their company, we might not go to them in a crisis. So, I think your friend sounds like she definitely belongs in the latter category.

Also, I think by exaggerating and embellishing stories with white lies, she’s showing that she’s actually quite insecure and possibly unhappy underneath it all. Just because she behaves as if she’s confident, doesn’t mean she is deep down.

You could gently call her out on it and say you don’t understand why she feels the need to exaggerate because she’s great as she is – in fact, she’s one of the most fun people you know.

But don’t get angry or make her feel stupid because then she’ll never open up to you. Alternatively, say nothing and just keep her as a fun friend, and accept her limitations in certain areas.

She might let you down and lie, but you’ll have a blast the next time you go out.

She’s always exaggerating about her job and boyfriend