I have a friend who’s always right. If she gets in a fight with another girl, that person started it. If you go out in a group to dinner, she’s always overpaid. If you lend her an outfit and don’t get it back, apparently she gave it back. It’s not usually a big deal, I just take her with a grain of salt, but recently, she told me that a mutual friend of ours came onto her at a party, and groped her while they were getting drinks.
She’s talking about outing him on Facebook as “basically a rapist,” and has already been enlisting everyone we know to shun him. The thing is, it didn’t happen like that. I was there, and much more sober than she was, and she came onto him really aggressively, he sort of pushed her away, then he went to another party. There wasn’t even a place this could have happened–the whole house (and the bar area) was full of people all night. I think she’s just bitter and trying to destroy this guy. What should I do?
– False Accusations
Lose that friend’s number, fast?
Actually, that will probably result in a story about how you murdered her kitten making the rounds on Facebook, so start with the victim: the guy she’s accusing.
Tell him that she’s spreading rumors and he should be prepared to deal with the fallout, then tell HER that you were there, and maybe she forgot, but it didn’t really happen that way.
It’s possible she was blackout and just misremembered the night, but it’s likely that people don’t call her out often enough when she’s selling them day-old shit and calling it caviar. If she starts freaking out or attacking you, ignore it, and tell her that you’re not going to stand by while she tries to destroy someone’s reputation.
Maybe do this with one other mutual friend around. It never hurts to have a witness.
Then go to the people you know she’s told this vicious rumor to and inform them that things simply didn’t happen that way. If your friend is really as much of a serial-exaggerater as you say, it’s likely other people know to question her version of events, too, but in this instance, it’s important to make it very clear that nothing even close to her version transpired.
If she does go ahead with the facebook “outing,” don’t dive into things there–it’s not a good forum, and you won’t convince anyone. But seriously consider unfriending her IRL (it sounds like you’re secretly hoping to, honestly)–people like this are time bombs, and eventually, they’ll explode on you, too.
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