Over the last year there have been countless examples of people getting themselves into embarrassing and/or uncomfortable situations thanks to Zoom.
However, one story posted to Reddit’s Today I [Expletive] Up (TIFU for short) forum blew almost every other unfortunate Zoom-based story out of the water as one individual became embroiled in a very convoluted lie after pretending to be deaf.
The tale started with this individual enrolling in some online classes.
The story starts out quite positively, with the guy in question trying to spend his time in lockdown taking some voluntary classes.
The classes were going pretty well…until the third day of classes started that is.
Our protagonist found himself daydreaming when he was asked a question by his tutor.
Everyone zones out in a Zoom call from time to time, and our protagonist explained:
“I have an incredibly low attention span and [When] the teacher called my name to answer his question, I had no idea what he’d been talking about so I tried to google it. However I have [spotty] internet so it took like really long to load and the teacher was getting pissed as to why I wasn’t responding and why I was typing.”
So, our hero tried to message the teacher directly to lie about their laptop’s audio and microphone not working, a classic Zoom excuse.
However, he phrased his lie a little poorly, to say the least.
“In my immense panic I phrased [my lie] somewhat vaguely and said – ‘I can’t actually hear I’ve been reading the subtitles they take quite some time to load.’ [To] which the instructor said – ‘Oh! I’m so sorry. I wasn’t aware that you are deaf,'” our hero explained.
“In my intense panic and anxiety I just went along with it,” he continued.
This panicked decision was quick to bite him back.
He then spent the next few sessions pretending to be deaf, to keep up the charade.
Amazingly, his lie worked for a remarkable amount of time, with the rest of the people in the class of ten buying the lie! In fact, our hero even went out and got a fake hearing aid to wear during classes to further convince his classmates.
“They bought it. Everyone in class likes me a lot now too and they find me very endearing. There’s a girl, Carla who says I have the most beautiful smile she’s ever seen. So this was actually going really well for me. But like most of my antics, this backfired on me big time,” he wrote.
The class decided to meet in person, which posed real problems for our devious little protagonist.
He then went to the in-person class and kept up the charade! However, the meeting went really well, as this person went on to write:
“I spend the entire irl meet with Carla who is completely [stunning] in real life. She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s kind. We keep handing each other notes on tissue papers and [I] haven’t ever been this attracted to anyone in my entire life. Toward the end of the meet however, Carla hands me a tissue paper with one little heartbreaking sentence on it. ‘Will you date me?'”
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So, they planned a date, with our disreputable friend unsure as to how to come clean about the whole thing.
Fortunately, this person updated their post after the date, to say that it went…actually well, somehow!
After everyone in the thread advised him to just be honest with Carla, he did!
“I prepared really hard for the date, googled what the appropriate flowers for apologizing for your lies are and got her White Orchids. I then put on my best clothes and set out.
“She’d come to the date with a cute little notepad and two pencils for us to write notes in which melted me instantly but I was so anxious and nervous that at first I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. But as we sat waiting for our order to arrive, I kinda snapped cause of guilt and scribbled down into the notebook. ‘Hey, there’s not easy way to break this but I’m not actually deaf’,” he wrote.
He was surprised when she said that she had known all along!
“She then laughed and explained that she’d thought I was so cute that she’d googled me long ago and found my Instagram which has highlighted stories from concerts where I’m screaming and vibing. So she only asked me out to figure out for how long I’d keep it going. So she was actually playing me the whole time,” he concluded his convoluted tale of deceit by writing.
The internet was somewhat unsure as to whether they were happy for the guy in the story or not.
A lot of people were elated that he had managed to be honest with Carla, and even maybe found a partner for life as a result of his honesty.
However, there were some individuals who were incredibly angry with the person who posted the story due to his pretending to be deaf for all of that time.
In an attempt to appease some of the offended parties, this person did post a final update, writing, “for our second date we’re planning to volunteer at a centre for deaf kids so I can redeem myself.”
So, honesty prevailed, but do you think that he was right to lie in such a way?
In the end, the majority of people did seem to be sympathetic with the guy in the story. I mean, we can all end up getting wrapped up in a little lie only for it to spiral massively out of our control from time to time. Only, fortunately for this guy, his story ended up with a happy ending!
If you have any stories of little white lies getting out of hand, be sure to let us know in the comments below.
h/t: Reddit
