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I Hate Being Lied to

So one of my best friends recently lied to me. Here's the whole story: when I met him after getting my new job, he was having some legal troubles with a DUI. I thought nothing of it at first, but we hit it off unusually fast, and after a while, he lost his job over an innocent mistake (we worked at a liquor store and he accidentally forgot to card a girl, who turned out being 19 and an undercover for the state liquor board), and after seeing how panicked he was after losing his only source of income amidst his charges (I mean, he had to pop a Xanax just to come out of his panic attack that night), I offered to help him out with some of his financial troubles.

Long story short: it boiled down to him moving in with me after being sentenced to community service and a hefty fine. I offered to pay his fines for him and let him live with me rent-free if he just did his community service and got a new job to get himself back on his feet. He agreed. Well, he found a new job back in California, where he's originally from, and his cousin bought him a plane ticket to San Jose where he was going to live rent-free also while he got back on his feet. The day I took him to the airport, I asked him if he had all of his sentences finished. He told me he did, so we parted company at the gate at the airport after I squeezed him to death and told him I loved him. I also agreed to continue paying his fines for him until he was financially able to do so himself.

Well, about a week later, I called the county courthouse to make sure they received all his paperwork proving his community service completion. They said they received nothing. So I called the store he did his community service at and they said it was because he did not complete all of his required 80 hours.

This was like a kick in the balls. I hold nothing to a higher standard than honesty and truthfulness, and I was essentially just told that one of my truest, closest, best friends looked me in the eyes and lied to my face, after how hard I worked to help him.

He means well, but he has a bad video game addiction, which is why he missed finishing his community service. He would stay up all night playing video games, then go to sleep late and miss his service dates, or he'd just decide he'd rather not worry about his service and just get up and play the games instead. Of course, I didn't know he'd missed so much. I work two full time jobs, so I'm never home and I never knew what he was or was not doing while I was working. I just took him for his word that he had it all done.

Don't get me wrong. I still call him one of my best friends, and I will until the day I die. He introduced me to my future favorite band, The Contortionist, whose music changed my life in more ways than one. We've had some great times together (many of which involved weed and/or booze lol). But I will always resent him for deceiving me the way he did. I've since stopped helping him and he now has an arrest warrant for contempt for failing both community service and paying his fines. It's his own fault. He had every opportunity and chance, rolled out onto a red carpet for him, and he chose not to use them.

I may no longer help him, but I still miss him and wish I could get a chance to go to a Contortionist concert with him, and I hope things work out well for him in California.
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lukeskywalker89
I have a video game addiction too and plenty of times I have stayed up late and missed morning classes. However ever since I got a job I've had to curb my late night game time. There's a reason it's called addiction: some people just can't control the urge, especially if there's something going on in their lives that the are finding hard to deal with.

That's not an excuse for lying, however. I guess he felt guilty because you were so helpful and he didn't want to let you down - but if he's lied to you once you can never trust him again because you will never know whether he's lying or telling the truth.
chubbystringbean · 31-35, M
Exactly. Dead on. I may love him, but I'll never trust his word again. He's shown how willing he is to put on a poker face and be dishonest to someone's face. I deserve better than that as hard as I worked to help him.