Let’s be real: we’ve all told a little white lie (or two) in our lives. Most of the time, they’re completely harmless, like saying you love a bizarre gift, or you’re too sick to go to a party you’d rather skip. Sometimes, though, these minor fibs can come back to bite us.

Someone asked an online community, “What is the most harmless lie you’ve told that spiraled out of control?”, and netizens didn’t disappoint with their answers. Tuck into this collection of some of the funniest, silliest, and most bizarre.

More info: Reddit

Discover more in 30 Times People Told Simple Lies Without Anticipating How Badly They Would Spiral In The End

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#1

I was a plus one at a birthday party for a guy named David. I met this gorgeous girl and turns out she was his sister. She asked me how I knew him.

“How do I know him? David is my best friend!”

David was, in fact, not my best friend. I knew nothing about David, and he knew nothing about me. But goddammit his sister was hot as hell, so David and I were going to know each other real well.

I befriended David, pushed myself into as many social events with him as I could. We became actual friends. Really close. Eventually he started hitting on me. Turns out, David was gay and his family thought we were hot for each other because of how much time I went out of my way to spend with him.

© Photo: Sentient_Prosthetic

#2

So a few years back, I got invited on a boat dive with some friends, but honestly, I was feeling lazy. Early morning, long boat ride, gear schlepping… I just wasn’t in the mood. Instead of just saying “nah, I’m tired,” I panicked and told them I had to help with a “water quality survey” at the marina that morning.

Totally harmless, right? Just a little white lie to get me off the hook.

Well, fast forward a week and one of those friends is chatting with someone from a local conservation group. They mention, “Oh, Sharkhottub has been doing water testing at the marina.” That person goes, “Wait, really? We’ve been looking for volunteers! Can you connect us?”

Now I’m suddenly cc’d in an email about helping collect salinity and turbidity data. I figure, no big deal, I’ll ghost it. Except, my friend is so excited for me that they volunteer to come along with me to “learn what I do.” Nevermind that I do underwater photo work with these same people and cant look foolish.

So I scramble. I show up at the marina at 8 a.m. with a pool test kit I found in my garage, an old Nalgene bottle, and a clipboard. I’m crouching at the dock, furiously dipping strips into the water, pretending to write things down, when my friend shows up with coffee. They’re so impressed.

And then because the universe has a sense of humor, an actual marina staffer comes by and asks if I’m from the county. I stammer out that I’m “just helping out.” He squints at me and goes, “Good. We’ve had complaints that you guys tested at low tide last time and gave us a yellow safety rating instead of green”

My friend’s eyes go wide like I’m some kind of expert.

The lie kept snowballing. For about a month I became the “marina water guy.” Its not like Im not back at that marine practically every weekend. Friends asked me for updates. I started googling terms like “turbidity” and “K.brevis monitoring” just to have things to say. At one point someone introduced me at a scuba club meeting as “the guy who checks if the marina’s safe to swim in.”

Eventually, it collapsed when one of the actual survey volunteers recognized me at the very same scuba club meeting and asked what lab I was sending my samples to. I had to admit I’d just been using a pool kit and… yeah. Let’s just say I don’t live that down whenever I see those friends.

TLDR: just say you don’t want to wake up early. Don’t invent a career as a fake scientist.

© Photo: Sharkhottub

#3

“Thanks for the cow, I love it. Maybe I’ll start a plushy zoo”.

That was to a earnest friend that clearly was insecure and was trying to give a sweet birthday present despite not having money. I did not care one way or another about a bovine soft toy, but I wanted to be kind, and I did appreciate the thought

Anyway, 20 years later, the entire top shelf of my closet is full of soft toys,. There a few here and there as decoration in every room of the house, and there one big a*s cow at the top of a mezzanine. Half of them are gifts, but I have to admit, I was taken into the spiral myself after a few years.

© Photo: Marawal

White lies are basically tiny social Band-Aids we slap on to keep life running smoothly. You know, those harmless-seeming fibs like “I absolutely love your haircut!” or “I’m literally five minutes away.” They’re the soft cushions we strategically place between brutal honesty and soul-crushing awkwardness. Here’s the thing, though: even these seemingly mild deceptions can take on a life of their own.

People tell white lies to avoid hurting feelings, maintain social harmony, or dodge those uncomfortable truths nobody wants to deal with. Psychologists say they’re often motivated by genuine empathy; we really want other people to feel good about themselves. But let’s be real, we also use them for pure convenience. While our intentions might be gentle enough, the outcomes can absolutely blindside us.

#4

Not a lie I told, but I got sucked into the spiral:

When I was 20, I moved states and I was renting a room from my ex’s parents (he didn’t live there and we had stayed friend’s) for a couple of months since I was new to town.

He was dating this girl who said she was pregnant and they were gonna keep the baby. Weeks go by, no prenatal care, nothing. So I tell ex’s mom, who is a nurse, cuz I’m like legit worried about this pregnant teens health.

I wake up that night with ex standing over me in the dark holding a huge knife. He threatens me for telling his mom. I call the cops for threatening me at knifepoint. They make a police report. He loses his job with the TSA. His parents kick me out (“You know he wouldn’t have actually hurt you. Why did you have to get the police involved?”) And I live in my car and couch surf for a couple of weeks until I find a new place.

There never was a baby.

© Photo: sprinklesaurus13

#5

“I’m ok.”

I wasn’t. I so very terribly horrifically wasn’t.

And it spiraled out of control for over three decades.

I’m better now, but it is still a lie I tell daily, multiple times a day, because I respect social constructs.

© Photo: ooOJuicyOoo

#6

So I was kinda poor growing up, my parents couldn’t afford to buy me Pokémon cards except for one starter set. So When I was in 5th grade, I told a person who kept bragging to me about their cards and how I don’t have any, that I had a first edition holographic Japanese Raichu Pokémon card. By the lunch time, somehow everyone in the school, at least 3 different grades, kept asking me to bring it. But the thing is, not only did I not have this card, this card doesn’t exist. I kept up with it for a few weeks till it died down. Kinda makes you miss the age of no internet in your hands.

© Photo: toofabforfanghorn

One major reason white lies backfire so spectacularly is that they can accidentally set expectations we never agreed to. A casual “Sure, I can totally help sometime!” suddenly becomes a firm, ironclad commitment in the listener’s mind. Before you know it, you’re completely trapped by your own politeness, frantically crafting even more falsehoods just to escape the consequences of the first one.

Here’s the other issue: people often remember compliments way more vividly than we ever expect them to. Telling a friend their experimental neon-orange sweater “looks great” might genuinely boost their confidence in the moment… until they wear it to literally every major event, fully assuming they have universal approval. What started as simple kindness morphs into a long-term fashion endorsement you absolutely never intended to make.

#7

Many years ago, a girl was interested in me, but I wasn’t interested in her. She wasn’t the type to take no for an answer, though, so I made up a girlfriend. This… didn’t go as planned. She wanted to show an interest in my life (to eventually turn it into something more), so she asked questions about my (made up) girlfriend.

This lasted for over three hours, where I gave my made up girlfriend life – what she looked like, what she liked, where she went to school, and so much more.

Finally, we were done talking, and as I’m getting into my car to drive home, I started wondering to myself what my (nonexistent) girlfriend was doing right now, and why she hadn’t called in a while. I briefly convinced myself that she was real.

© Photo: heelstoo

#8

One day after school from kindergarten my mom thought my belly looked red and asked me why with concern. Being 5, I just wanted out of the line of questioning due to the concerned tone, so I made up the first plausible explanation that came to mind: “idk, maybe I ran into a passing kid’s hand or arm at the bottom of the slide or something.” She asks who, so being at a K-6 school I say “idk, maybe a 6th grader.” No idea what the truth was. Could have been anything from nothing to slapping my belly to make funny noises.

Unbeknownst to me, my mom freaked out thinking I was bullied and called the school.

Later that week, I get pulled from class by an admin and walked to the 6th grade class to identify the kid. Realizing I’m in way too deep, I just go with it. We get to the class, and I point at the first kid that catches my attention: a boy with bleached tips. He gets pulled from class to go to the office, and I get taken back to class.

He never bullied me again. Never did in the first place either.

Years later, my mom brings it up, and it turns out the kid I pointed at was literally the principal’s son. No idea what happened to him, but it couldn’t have been good. Sorry dude.

© Photo: FromStars

#9

One time i made the pre packages tollhouse choc chip cookies for my boyfriend, planning to tell him that they were store bought (you just have to throw them in the oven). his roommate started joking and saying they were wayyy too good to have been homemade, so instead of agreeing and saying they weren’t homemade i got defensive and said they were. its been years, i live with my bf, and sometimes he stills asks for my “homemade” cookies lol.

© Photo: fluffy-puppy3

Famous white lies have completely shaped pop culture as we know it. One absolute classic is the “It’s not you, it’s me” breakup line, which has softened thousands of painful partings but also created massive confusion for everyone involved. In Seinfeld, for example, this harmless cliché becomes pure comedy gold precisely because it’s so transparently, hilariously false.

Another classic example? Parents cheerfully telling their kids that Fido “went to live on a farm.” This well-intended myth often leads to literal years of bizarre assumptions, like genuinely believing pets that have crossed the rainbow bridge are living their best lives in some idyllic rural setting – a story no doubt created to protect their tender little hearts from one of life’s harshest realities.

#10

Not me but when I was 8 a friend of mine got giardia from a creek behind her house. She liked to pretend to be a deer and was told repeatedly to not drink out of the creek while imitating deer (spoiler alert, she did). Her parents were teachers at the small boarding high school I eventually attended, which provided on-campus housing for the families of their staff. Because she adamantly denied drinking from the creek, the school overhauled their water system (my child mind heard those words and I saw a lot of construction, I don’t know how these things work) from fear of contamination and spent thousands of dollars for her lie.

© Photo: Lorazepam369

#11

I got a call from my sons teacher. She wanted to let me know that he was taking it quite hard with his mom and I getting a divorce.

I’m just like, What? We are not getting a divorce, and I have no idea of why he would think that.

He had told the teachers that my wife and I were getting divorced, and she’d be moving out while my new gf would be moving in. But none of that is true.

I questioned him later that day, and I had a hunch that perhaps some other child in school were going through their parents’ divorce. and rightly so. He’d seen the attention they’d gotten and wanted some attention himself.

Later that night I was talking to his teacher on the phone and told her it’s propably because of that other child going through divorce. And then she told me that there are no kids in class going through divorce at the moment, so he lied to me again! xD.

© Photo: Hjordt

#12

Couple of years ago I told my boss I was ‘great with Excel just to get the job.
Now I’m the Excel guy. Ita been three years of hell.

© Photo: BulkaBabe

Even celebrities get tangled in white lies. Liam Hemsworth lied about his volleyball skills to star alongside Miley Cyrus. Gillian Anderson deceived casting directors with her age to win the role of Dana Scully on The X-Files. Idris Elba pretended to be American during his auditions for The Wire. All perfect reminders that the world we live in absolutely loves running with a fib.

Online, white lies spread faster than wildfire. Influencers constantly downplay sponsored posts by casually calling them “just recommendations,” which inevitably leads followers to feel completely misled and betrayed. Even small exaggerations, like claiming a product “literally changed my life forever,” can spark backlash. Netizens are incredibly sharp, and when sincerity feels even slightly diluted, their trust evaporates in an instant.

#13

I hate funko pops, I think collecting them is one of the most wasteful hobbies there is.

With that out of the way, my friend group knows my sense of humor very well, and I can be quite sarcastic. During a get together someone mentions sarcastically how much I “love” funko pops, to which I reply also sarcastically something to the effect of me keeping a massive collection of them. Everyone knows I’m joking, everybody except this sweet woman who happened to be a new addition to our friend group.

Now for the past 11 years I’ve been getting a new funko pop every other bday/holiday, and I don’t have the heart to correct her since from her cultural background she’s not even used to celebrating birthdays and holidays for anybody in her life, but she makes it a point to do that for us. It seems the rest of my friends has caught on to me not wanting to say anything to her, so they just poke fun at “my collection” in private when she’s not around.

Good thing I don’t host any get togethers at my place, jfc.

© Photo: Yisuscrais69

#14

We had to replace a support beam in the basement of our old fraternity house. They pulled the old post and left a 2 foot square hole in the concrete floor. We mixed dirt and rust flakes into the concrete and filled the hole to look old to “match” but it was obviously weird, so we carefully drew into the wet concrete “Ida B July 4, 1932”

Then we told pledges that there was a fire in the huge old house and they didn’t get the baby out of the back bedroom. They just put a memorial marker in the basement. My roommate and myself did this to like 2-3 pledge classes then graduated.

When they demolished the house and moved to a larger one, everyone was talking about how sad it was to lose Ida B… the house ghost. The story took a life of its own. Retold for 30+ years, roughly 80 guys each 4 years. Guys were actually sad the little (imaginary) girl wasn’t coming with them to the new house. Half of them had stories of the girl doing ghost stuff, or softly speaking to them.

© Photo: Powellwx

#15

While getting a full-body exfoliation and massage at a spa on a cruise ship, the attendant took a look at the stretch marks on my stomach, wrinkled her nose and asked “how many kids do you have?” I could tell by the look on her face that, although 1 was the true answer, it certainly wasn’t the correct answer at that moment. I lied and said 2. She then proceeded to ask me increasingly more detailed questions about my 2 kids for the next hour. I idiotically kept spinning tales about these kids, one of whom was non-existent. Inside my head, I was screaming “you dumb twit! Will you just shut up! I’m lying to you to conceal the fact that my body is wrecked for no good reason!”

Needless to say, the spa treatment was the opposite of relaxing and I was absolutely exhausted from trying to keep all my lies straight that entire time.

© Photo: Maleficent-Dirt3921

White lies will always exist because us humans fundamentally value kindness, social ease, and smooth interactions, but their unexpected outcomes remind us that gentle, thoughtful honesty can often save us from massive future headaches. The best rule is actually pretty simple: if a tiny lie could potentially grow into something genuinely messy, just don’t do it. 

So, what’s your biggest white lie? And what do you think of the ones in this list? Upvote those you found the funniest and feel free to leave a comment if you can relate!

#16

So not exactly a lie, but an exaggeration.

I told my boss that I was quitting for health reasons (partial truth) because I was getting sick too often. It was also the commute and that I really started to dislike my coworkers and job but I heavily insinuated my poor health was the major reason(to be fair I was sick almost constantly for 3 months straight)

My boss would not let it go and told everyone. Suddenly the story was that I had an autoimmune problem, and needed my bone marrow checked, and couldn’t be around people. Had to do immunotherapy. Was leaving the profession etc.

I never said any of this. But as I was applying to other jobs my coworkers started pushing and acting shady like I lied to them when they found out.

Yes Karen I’m sick, sick of your nonsense.

I was like.. I never said I had immune problems, or any of that. Just that I wanted to work less and closer to home because I was getting sick a lot.

© Photo: Bearacolypse

#17

“I have my card for the bus” Well, I didn’t have the card, I didn’t have money for the Uber, and while I was writing to someone to bring me someone stole my phone, then when my parents saw that the location was far from my normal route they got scared and called the police, I arrived at my house with a patrol in front of my house.

© Photo: MorkDagse

#18

“Yes I totally know what I’m doing”.

© Photo: anon

#19

That I’d been to the bottom of an Ocean Trench

Kids kept asking me details, about anything I would’ve seen, where I went down, etc etc.

I didn’t expect these details, so I pointed to a point on the map and kept fibbing and fibbing. Funny enough, even the teacher believed me and asked some questions (he was a massive fan of deep sea exploration)

I became the school’s “deep sea guy” for the rest of the school year. Funny enough, my teacher even brought it up at a PTA, and my mom misunderstood and said “yeah, he’s a huge ocean guy, I like to indulge him” or something like that.

Fun fact, some of my nonsense was right. I said I’d found a giant boat down there. About 15 years later, an old WWII shipwreck was found only a few miles from where I’d pointed.

© Photo: RhysOSD

#20

I lied about having a ton of siblings when I was volunteering at the library during the summer with a bunch of other teenagers to help with the Summer Reading Program. I would tell wild made up stories to the other volunteers- I think I must’ve liked the attention I got from these crazy stories about my made up siblings. one day my mom came to pick me up at the end of the day and another teen volunteer had led my mom over to me putting books on the shelf and I immediately panicked “ like, why did I lie about having a big family and a bunch of wild siblings because if they talked to my mom, they would discover my lies and I really didn’t know how I would answer when asked ‘why?’ I lied?!”. I was so stupid.. I just stopped cold turkey talking about my made up siblings and their crazy antics. occasionally I would get asked about a specific ‘character/sibling’ I made up and instead of owning up for my lies I’d just say “ oh, he’s/she’s been pretty chill since they got in trouble for x..”. then I would change the subject. facebook friends with a few of the other volunteers from that summer and so far nobody has called me out on my national siblings day posts on the fact that I only have the one brother. I don’t even remember the stories I made up- probably just stories about my being pranked by so and so the night before I think what started it out was a few were talking about wild stories about their childhood and I retold stories that happened to friends but instead of saying “my friend’s little brother did xyz..“ I said “my little brother did xyz..” I still cringe when I remember that I made up stories and lied about having a ton of wild siblings.. I really didn’t think it through.

© Photo: alm1688

#21

Went to dinner to my girlfriends parents for the first time and told them I’d never had a potato before.

© Photo: xtothewhy

#22

For a laugh I put some rose petals in the edge of the cream cheese sandwich my mum made for me for school, and I said my mum always did it. From then on, people used to bring me roses and I had to make eat them.

© Photo: WeedWrangler

#23

A friend of my dad worked as some sort of engineer/mechanic hybrid at a refinery. Basically they were in charge of fixing things, like the computer systems and problems with the equipment and so on. Everything from punch in clocks to acid baths to huge cranes was their responsibility.

Thing is, he got paid a base salary for just doing basic things like sitting around in the workshop and keeping tabs on the IT system. But if he had to go out on a call and do work on site outside the workshop, he got paid extra for the trouble. So if it was a slow day, sometimes he’d invent some problems with some equipment, so he could go there and “fix it” and get paid more.

Thing is, every time he did this he had to fill out a form about what had been fixed. Everything had an identification number. And since he did this frequently, he didn’t want to bother to look up new identification numbers all the time, so he memorized an easy one for one of six huge multi tonne smelter ovens on sight. So he’d claim that it was broken, go there, “fix it”, fill out a form saying it had been broken and he fixed it.

And then one day he shows up and management has decided to replace that smelter oven. Why? Well it kept breaking down all the time. Better to replace it before it broke down completely.

That thing cost millions of dollars.

© Photo: Canotic

#24

When I was younger, my cousin always took me everywhere and since she was 5 years older, it made my teenage years a lot more thrilling. I met a lot of her friends, went to parties, knew older people and generally felt cooler than kids my age. When I was 13, I was at her house when her friend called. She was a senior in high school and I was in my last year of middle school. She put me on the phone to just chat with her friend but told him I was also a senior in hs. So I had to fake it and somehow, he believed it. He was funny and smart and since I was over at her house often, it kind of became a regular thing. He asked my cousin to let him know when I was visiting so he’d know to call and that led to him asking if he could see a picture of me. In her panic (couldn’t show a real pic of me) she said she doesn’t have one, that I hate having my picture taken so she drew him a picture. My cousin never told him the truth and I was too young to have the maturity to put a stop to it. She eventually gave him my number and he was calling every day. This went on for months and for some reason or another, us meeting never worked out. When we were in the final half of the school year, he asked me to his prom. I felt terrible. I have to say, he was never inappropriate with me. He’d make me laugh but he was a really decent guy. I can’t remember exactly how I got out of it and he did find someone else to go to prom with him. My cousin never told him the truth. For all he knows, this girl who became a pretty good friend , left to go to college out of state.

I’m almost 50 and I still remember that with guilt.

© Photo: greyrobot6

#25

That my great-great grandfather invented the marching band.

© Photo: Best_Whole_70

#26

When I was 11 I told my parents that a girl in my class was bullying me (she wasn’t) because they pressured me into admitting it although it never happened.

My dad later told the dad of that girl that he would beat him up for bullying me in the group chat of my class’s parents. The girl in question ended up grounded, the whole class was mostly on her side (there were a few that remained neutral) and both my and the girl’s parents got the police involved.

My parents talked to our neighbor who was a cop to do a deep dive on the father and it turns out that the guy was JACKED and was also a professional hunter, so naturally, my dad got nervous as he was fat and therefore would get smashed into paste if the guy just looked at him the wrong way. And the girl’s mother went to the station to warn them that if something were to happen to any of them my father was responsible.

Eventually I had to tell my parents the truth about she not bullying me and the rest is kinda foggy. The girl basically never talked to me again, at least not in person and without any sort of argument going on.

Fortunately everyone forgot it like 3 months later and it was never talked about again, and I managed to restore the few little crumbs of the reputation I had left and form a new identity, one that doesn’t break so easily at the hands of others and consequently never opens up about its true feelings.

I’m fine btw.

© Photo: TapTheCat0918

#27

I convinced another kid that my name was something else, and (a week or two later) I watched him argue with my friend on what my name is and it was hilarious. It’s all cleared up now, we’re friends, and he calls me by the fake name sometimes for fun.

© Photo: That_Enthusiasm_9599

#28

In the 8th grade, our PE teacher was trying to “grow” athletes for the high school football team. We all got a Costco jug of protein powder and we were strongly encouraged to drink protein shakes.

Fast forward to two summers later when my mom got me a job with her cleaning condos. It was grueling work and we cleaned like 7 units from 6am to noon. Each week she told me how much money we made but at the end of the month she ended up paying me only a fraction of what we earned. I drove the two hours each way every day in my car mind you

I was cleaning the kitchen and found my ol’protein bucket. Oddly enough it looked a lot like the Slimfast my mom was taking to loose weight and “catch a man”. I poured half of the Slimfast out and the protein powder in, mixed them up and moved on with my day.

She asked me about every week if she looked like she was loosing weight. She wasn’t.

© Photo: Grouchathon5000

#29

When I dropped out of college 18 still living with my parents. This lie took a lot of effort to keep up the belief. But I just didn’t want to get kicked out which I did when she found out. I just wasn’t ready for it.

© Photo: anon

#30

Don’t worry I got a vasectomy. tens of thousands of dollars of child support later here we are.

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© Photo: drink_from_the_hose

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