It started out innocently enough (it always does) — one man pretends to be gay for a single dinner party to help a friend out. As lies do, this one sucked in the friend’s family, free time, and living situation. And, before he knew it, the Helpful Man found that the lie had spiraled completely and entirely out of control.
The best part of Reddit of late (besides r/nosleep, which will make you afraid of your own butt) is a section called TIFU (Today I Fucked Up) where users share stories of big time life boners. And today’s marquee TIFU story, by a user named darkruby45, is one for the ages. Read the whole thing. Worth it.
So my coworker (call him Jeff) is asexual, but his parents kept trying to get him a girlfriend. When he kept rejecting them, his parents eventually asked if he was gay. He decided to pretend he was and said he was already seeing a coworker and then asked me to pretend to be with him, even going so far as to offer money (I don’t really know enough people to care about my reputation and could think of worse ways to earn money, so I agreed). His parents wanted to meet me. The original plan was to meet his family and leave a very bad first impression so he would have reason to not bring me around them. Well I got there and it turns out his family is about the most fucking awesome family I’ve ever met. I expected everybody to either tiptoe around the gay thing, or be very over zealous about supporting it, either way I would overreact and make an ass out of myself. Turns out they treated me just like they would anybody else, so I couldn’t do that. Then his twin sister (call her Jenny) comes out and decides to try to make me uncomfortable by sitting on my lap, (I didn’t mind) and asking questions that most would consider inappropriate, I kind of fell in love with her that night. Well I ended up leaving a good impression, and was invited to dinner the next night to meet his other sister and her husband. That dinner went great as well, so I ended up just saying “fuck it, I’ll come over whenever they invite me and just hope we don’t slip up”. Things went pretty well over next few months, I got along with everybody and kept telling myself I’d ask Jenny out after we told them the truth. Well Jeff ended up getting an apartment and moving out of his parents house, he needed a roommate and I volunteered (I wanted to move out of my parent’s house anyway). One night I get back from work to find a fucking candle lit dinner waiting for me, turns out he really was gay and had a crush on me, and decided the best way to seduce me would be an elaborate scheme to trick me into moving in with him. Needless to say I rejected him, and he was actually surprised when I did. So he calls his mom crying and said I cheated on him. His family hates me now, especially Jenny. They won’t believe a word out of my mouth, because it’s his word against mine. So now I live(signed a 1 year lease) and work with a guy who thinks he’s in love with me. I did learn a valuable lesson though; if you are going to live a lie, record some kind of proof that it’s a lie.
Tldr; Pretended to be gay to help friend get parents off his back, find out he wasn’t pretending. Now I live with a gay guy who thinks he’s in love with me.
Kooky, ill-advised, somewhat far-fetched, and a little formulaic — this is the gay rom com America needs right now!
Like any good rom com, before things got better, they got much, much worse.
In a series of updates posted throughout the day and devoured by a rapt reddit audience, Our Hero proceeded to detail the fallout of his homo hijinks. Jenny was mad at him at first, he says, but then she understood. Then Jenny went home and confronted Jeff, who insisted that Hero had led Jeff on by pretending to be gay, which is a thing that Hero could not disprove. Jeff then added that the cheating was with a woman, which made Jeff’s whole family mad. Jenny got grossed out that Hero let her sit on his lap, then Jeff’s family disowned Hero, who had basically been like an extra son to them during these months. Then Jeff kicked Hero out. Hero is now homeless. Then Jeff tries to get Hero fired. Then Jeff’s coworkers convince Jeff to come clean to his manager about lying about their relationship, and he does, and then they kind of bro-hug it out.
So Jeff came home and we had a fairly short but very concise discussion. He agreed to put this whole thing behind him on the condition that I let him continue the lie with his family. I agreed to apologize to his family from the bottom of my heart for cheating on him and admit that I was leading him on. In return he agreed to make a formal confession video admitting that we were both at fault (omiting the cheating and leading on altogether) and he would let it die here and now. We sealed the deal by punching each other and unknown to him, I recorded the whole conversation on my laptop. I won’t do anything with said recording unless he forces my hand.
Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart, your comments have helped me think through this mess and not react in a physical manner. This is mostly likely my last update, unless something drastic happens with the landlord, lawyer or workplace. Also he said he’d try to make Jenny apologize for calling me a creep, even he agrees she can’t get mad about something she initiated in the first place. And the movie rights go to whoever gets a script written up first, just as long as the actor portraying me is a handsome motherfucker.
I nominate Jake Gyllenhaal. Opposite Zachary Quinto as the devious “Jeff.”