A few weeks ago, I was at a birthday party and I introduced myself to some friends of the birthday girl. They didn’t look alike at all and I was genuinely surprised when they insisted they were siblings. They all had really great energy and I engaged in a very lively and I thought genuine discussion about them and their family.

One sister said she was a trapeze artist, currently living somewhere in Florida, the other was an actress in New York and the brother was a neuroscientist who studied at Columbia.  They had another brother who they said was a “doper” (meaning he was into drugs).  So, a trapeze artist (don’t meet to many of them), an actress, a scientist and a druggie.  Nice mix I thought; you do meet all types in New York and it seemed too preposterous to not be true.

Turns out it wasn’t.  A few days later the birthday girl confessed that they were having me on.

How does it make you feel to know that you’ve been intentionally made a fool of?  Not good actually.

Made me think of how trusting I am of people and what they claim to be.  Perhaps even a bit naive.   And it’s not like this is the first time.

I really do expect people to tell me the truth.  How quaint?   Then I get burnt and go on guard for awhile, but at least till now, I seem to always return to a place of instinctively trusting people.

The same week I met the fake siblings I also met a woman who said she worked in the porn industry.  Nothing wrong with that.  A friend of mine actually dated a porn star so there was nothing incredible to me about such employment.  She soon after admitted that she was not telling the truth, claiming that I was “too nice” to carry on the charade.  (Thanks, I think.)

Makes me wonder: how many people are out there playing this pretend-to-be-somebody-else game, and where can I learn the rules to this game?

Perhaps this is why I often feel uncomfortable at bars; I just don’t like bullshit and especially not bullshit at somebody else’s expense – least of all mine.

I mean what kind of lesson do you learn, what kind of world do we live in when you can’t trust a trapeze artist?