I am convinced that I am slowly but surely becoming a pathological liar. Before this year, I never had an issue with telling the truth. Lately, however, I’ve found myself spouting things that are entirely false for no discernable reason. It is happening more and more frequently and it has started to concern me. They aren’t significant lies, thank goodness, but it is only a matter of time before I start telling people that I used to be in the cast of Degrassi and my father is Larry King.

The scary thing is that I’m not consciously deciding to tell lies; it happens before I even know what I’m saying. Sometimes, I’ll catch myself and stop mid-sentence before saying, “That’s so weird. I don’t know why I just said that.”

Once I met a friend for lunch and she asked me how my day was. Before my brain had a chance to register the question and form an appropriate response I heard myself blurting out, “It was good, I had an exam in my 9:25 and I think it went well.” Not only did I not have an exam, I had class at 10 AM that day. As soon as the words left my mouth I instantly corrected myself and said, “Wait that didn’t happen. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” Another time I told a friend that my roommate made me pancakes the previous night which most certainly did not happen because my roommate hadn’t even been home.

I don’t know what has possessed me to say insignificant things that aren’t true. My hypothesis is that it’s happening because the people around me are telling micro-lies and I internalize this and then project it onto others.

The other day while doing homework in the common room I sent my roommate a funny post on Instagram while she was sitting on the couch next to me. Ten minutes later she messaged back “lololol”.

I turned and stared at her in disbelief.

“Alex,” I said. “I am sitting right here and you didn’t laugh out loud once. Not even a chuckle.”

Another one of my roommates, Amanda, has gotten into the habit of responding to my random questions with answers she invented on the spot.

“I wonder why they named our street Crescent Street,” I’ll ask thoughtfully to no one in particular.

Without skipping a beat she’ll reply, “It’s because Trinity’s administration came up with the idea to build the townhouses on a night where there was a crescent moon. And if you look at the shape of the street, and how it curves, it pays homage to the crescent moon that inspired it.” She’ll say this in such a confident and authoritative voice that I’ll sit there for a moment, processing it, and then ask, “really?” to which she will respond, “nope I just made that up.”

I don’t quite know what the point of this article is other than to share with you my distress at my growing dishonesty. If you ever happen to overhear me saying something that is blatantly false please mosey your way on over to me and say, “Jaclyn we need to have an intervention about your lying problem.”