The Habitual Liar and Why She Fascinates Me

Last week I read and finished the book "My Horizontal Life," by Chelsea Handler. It was a quick read. Each chapter was about one man she had a date with, all except the first chapter, which involved a story about being paid by her sister at age seven to take a photo of her parents fooling around in their room. Upon first glance, it looked like a female version of the Tucker Max book. The main reason I wanted to buy it is so that I could help Chelsea be more successful than Tucker Max, since he is unquestionably an arrogant, chauvinistic, inconsiderate, heartless man, at least in print, making money on the pure premise that he is completely and cruelly obnoxious to women. And if he read this description of him, I am sure he would grin from ear to ear with joy, giving himself another plus point to the proud womanizer in him.
I picked up "My Horizontal Life" at the bookstore. I read the middle chapter, which is the first one I turned to, to skim through the book. It ended up being the best and funniest story of the book, and about her affair with a man who, she discovered later, lived with his girlfriend during Chelsea's approximate three-week affair with him. He didn't know Chelsea was a waitress, and came into the restaurant where she worked to have a meal with his girlfriend. There was no one else to wait on them, and she wanted to avoid being fired, so she waited on them, but pretended that she was the (fictional) twin sister of herself to avoid the awkwardness and embarrassment of the situation.
The other chapters involved lots of drinking, and lots of lying. I also wanted to read the book to get into the head of someone who habitually crafts dramatic stories that have very little truth in them, and either exaggerates or completely fabricates interesting but pointless accomplishments or life situations that are, in my mind, only told to make the conversation more fun. Most people probably have met or have known other people who have told them things that they suspect were sheer, pointless, fabrications, like, "When I was nine and a half I got accepted into college and attended three semesters, but I got kicked out because my pet chimpanzee got discovered in my dorm room and so then I had to go back to the fourth grade," or "When I was born I was a Siamese twin and we were joined at the elbow and I had an operation to remove my twin when I was five and we both had to lose half our arm, but mine grew back (see?), and my twin died two weeks later." The listener, having just met the verbose fabricator, thinks to himself or herself, "Really ..." thinking of a hundred follow-up questions, and spends the rest of the time wondering why the person would be lying, whether anything they've said is true, or whether the speaker is delusional, or if perhaps there is some small likelihood the story is true, or based on the truth, and he or she should be ashamed for not trusting and believing the storyteller's fantastical and fascinating life. In Chelsea's case, it seemed she lied for fun, she lied to get attention, she lied so that she didn't involve her dates in her own personal life, and she lied to make things more interesting. And, in doing the lying, she occasionally came to believe the lies she told. That was the interesting part for me. I have met and been friends with a handful of men and women, teenagers, children and adults, who tell fantastical fabricated stories, and it fascinates me why they would pass those stories on as the truth. I have often wondered if they have convinced themselves of the truthfulness of their lies. I wonder how they can come up with the things they come up with on the spur of the moment (does it involve a lot of planning, or does it come naturally, or with lots of practice?). And I wonder whether they think I'm a gullible idiot or completely not important or significant enough to be honest with.
Fortunately, Chelsea Handler is also a professional comedian -- she has had shows with her stand-up comedy on Comedy Central and E! --- and the book was written in a very funny, friendly and entertaining way. It was not written in a female-chauvinistic way, and the men she wrote about were treated respectfully in writing. The book balanced nicely against Marley & Me, which has the complete opposite storyline, about sweet American family life, which I was also reading at the same time.