What’s the difference between faking and lying? Actions speak louder than words is the difference. So while lies are all talk, faking it is all action. You can lie yourself into a shame spiral, but there’s nothing wrong with being savvy enough to fake your way into the V.I.P. room. You can’t lie and expect it come true, but you can totally fake it until it does! Do you think the chemicals in your brain know the difference between fake Chanel and real? They don’t. When you fake what you really want, you get to have a psychic change. Your brain starts to believe it. The people around you start to believe it. And after that, you even start to believe it! It’s like The Secret, except funnier. There are wrong ways to fake stuff (see Racism) and right ways (see Marijuana). This guide is made specifically to help you differentiate between the two.
Age: Right off the bat, we realize that many people lie about their age. You can fake like you’re younger or older without making a verbal contract. Get a fake ID. Use SPF 80 every day. Make sure all your cultural references are up to par with the age group you’re trying to get in with. Yes, you remember The Electric Company. No, you didn’t vote for Clinton—you were too young. Like that.
Barnard: You can say you went to Columbia but let’s be real: you went to Barnard. We’re pretty sure that’s not Ivy League. Neither is Brown College. We realize Brown University is Ivy League, but “Brown College” is not. Brown College is in Minnesota. It’s where this article is on the syllabus for every class.
Closeted Straight Person: For years, people thought you were a lesbian, but really you were fake-gay. You were a “Fay”. The truth is you felt shitty about your looks and thought it would be easier to commit to overalls and short hair and be angry and get into Riot Grrl bands. You figured it would be easier to be a chick that fucks other chicks because girls care about personality and feelings and emotions more than looks. Turns out, that’s not true.
Dying your hair: This is the most obvious go-to for fakers, because it is literally fake. If you dye your hair blonde, you’re faking that you’re hot. If you dye your hair black, you’re faking that you don’t have grey hair or that you’re Goth—and if you are Goth, you’re just faking that you’re interesting. If you dye your hair red, you’re faking out guys (AKA tricking them into having sex with you). If you dye your hair any kind of primary color or shade, you’re faking out the world by breaking the rules!!
Entrepreneur: My friend Chelsea was talking to a strange guy at a coffee shop, when the subject of what they both did for a living came up. He starts telling her that he owns his own business, and that he’s a painter, an actor, an inventor, a DJ… you get the idea. The longer your resume is, the less qualified you seem. If you want to fake like you’re important, stick to lying about one career. Make it have something to do with a hedge fund. No one knows what that is, but it sounds fancy.
Footwear: If you’re poor and want to seem rich, invest in really nice shoes. Make sure the label is classic and well known and if they get some wear and tear, take them to the cobbler to get them fixed. Or you can just paint the Chanel logo on all your Payless shoes. Some of them might pass?
Friends: For every real friend, there are five fake ones. You have to be careful about fake friends, because they multiply like Mogwai in water. Having a fake friend isn’t always mean-spirited, as sometimes it’s necessary to be nice to a real friend’s friend. Even if she won’t stop playing the bongos or reading her slam poetry and you hate her with a burning passion, you still have to fake-friend her for a bit. You also have to play nice with someone who could influence your future (like a business acquaintance or a potential cat-sitter). In fact, we at Missbehave are slowly coming to realize we probably have more fake friends than real ones... including each other.
Gucci: Fake Gucci bags are okay. Fake Gucci belts are awesome. Buy them on Canal Street. Any other fake label can be borderline cheesy, but for some reason we think Gucci is okay. Maybe it’s because the label itself is cheesy to begin with. Goyard is epicly later’d, which is how you say something is “played out” if you want to be down with the streets.
Home, sick: Getting out of work is totally necessary sometimes, like when you just want to bail and go sightseeing with your friend Ferris Bueller. Faking you’re sick to get out of work is easy… if you don’t fuck it up. If you do fuck it up, it’s kind of like you want to get caught. Don’t ever lie and say you have food poisoning. Food poisoning sucks so hard that when you lie about it, it makes the rest of us who aren’t lying look bad. If you really need to fake out the office, go with an ear infection. It’s painful, slightly gross, and possibly contagious; the trifecta of good excuses. Don’t say someone died (you’ll go to hell) and don’t say you have the flu (your co-workers will start thinking they may have caught it, and power of suggestion is so strong that they might actually get it, and then you’ll go to hell). Period cramps are a pussy excuse, but if you have a male boss, just make sure to say “vagina”. Guys hate the word vagina.
“I’m sooo broke”: Only people who have money talk about how broke they are. Real broke people gross you out by being overly excited about getting a paycheck. Fake broke people whine, “I have no money!”, which, we all know means “I have no money… until I go to the ATM”. It doesn’t make you sound like you’re slumming it, so if you’re going for that look, don’t wear a fucking Debbie Gibson hat and pink jeans from American Apparel and talk about how you have no money. Instead, try to be as irony-free as you can. We know it’s hard. Shop at Rainbow, work at Burger King, and always use your change when you pay. You get bonus points if you score food stamps.
Jailtime: If you want people to think you’re hard, you can do like James Frey and fake jailtime. Unless you’re writing a tell-all memoir that gets translated into 10 different languages and Oprah’s giving you the rub, chances are no one will find out the truth. It can also be something you exaggerate. For example when I was sixteen I got arrested for shoplifting and they took me to mall-jail. I usually just say, “I was in jail.” It’s a stretch, but at least I get street cred.
Kissing: It’s harder to fake then sex. If someone intends to kiss you and you’re pretending to be in love because said dude is taking you on an all expense paid trip to Acapulco, then you’re gonna have to fake-enjoy his kisses. Fake-kiss him right after eating a breath mint so that you won’t have to taste him too much. If possible, do a coke numbie. The numbness will allow him to play with your flaccid tongue like it’s a dead fish in your mouth. Or just tell him you have a cold sore and don’t want to give him mouth herpes. Actually, don’t tell him that. That’ll be a surprise.
Lube It Up: Lube it up in the bathroom secretly if you can’t get your pussy wet. With enough lube, you won’t feel a thing AND he’ll think you like him, which is all that really matters since it’s all about control. The secret-lubing usually comes right after the fake-kissing. And right before the fake marriage and the real divorce.
Marijuana: Drop a marijuana reference and you’re automatically cool. It’s gone full circle irony so that even if you are JK, it still sounds cool. “Hey it’s 4:19…got a minute?” That’s cool. “What’s up Burnt Reynolds?” Now you’re talking. Drop words like gravity bong, vaporizer, chillum, and maybe something that has to do with Amsterdam. Avoid phrases that include Mary Jane, Legalize it, “wacky tobacky”, mara-Jew-wanna… (that might be cool. I’m so stoned right now I can’t even tell).
Nails: Manicured nails make you look fancier. If you’ve got enough money to drop on weekly manicures, you’re obviously “making it.” If you’re ambidextrous and can do it yourself, even better, cause then you can spend money on other expensive things that last more than um… a day.
Orgasms: Sometimes you won’t care about getting yours. Maybe it’s just not happening and you’re over it. Or maybe you’re tired, your pussy is sore, you want a burger, Mad Men is on, etc… The way to fake an orgasm is to seem hornier than you are; so when you’re all “Ooooh oooh I’m gonna come! I’m coming! Don’t stop!” the guy gets so turned on he’ll explode like an illegal firecracker in the hands of a 14-year-old. Don’t lie all the time though, dude will start thinking it’s easy to have vaginal orgasms, you’ll ruin the bar for every other girl out there and said asshole will think his penis is made of magic. It’s not.
Pretending not to be a little bit racist: Avoiding the topic alltogether usually means you are a lot racist and feel so ashamed that you refuse to talk about it. Race is such a big deal in this country that it’s virtuallyimpossible to not have the fear of a different race or culture. We live in the most homogenized white-bread, bullshit, cheese-doodles-and-fucking-Arby’s wasteland, where black and whites weren’t allowed to use the same water fountain…50 years ago. So you’d feel more comfortable if I said “African-American” because you’re so afraid a black person is gonna get mad, and if they do get mad maybe they’ll…what? Shoot you? Steal your money? Since you love bitching so much about how gentrified Williamsburg has become, why don’t you move to Brownsville? Why don’t you live in a project? It’s okay to be scared of stuff you don’t know about, and it’s okay to admit it too.
Quirky Personality Traits: like collecting Madame Alexander dolls, saying you’re deaf in one ear, or having a bunny on a leash is a surefire way to get people to think you’re more interesting than you actually are. Saying something like, “I’m so crazy,” or “I have a lot of issues and I’m really intense,” usually means you are none of those things, but rather a boring person who is just your standard human being, your run-of-the-mill self absorbed individual, grasping at straws to get others to think you’re worth knowing. Being on medication and telling everyone is yet another obvious attempt to appear interesting. How about taking up something random like Foxtrot lessons or magic marker connoisseur-ing? Remember, actions speak louder than words. And guess what? When you have no personality and you know it, weirdly enough you become (kinda) interesting.
Reading: What books have you lied about reading? Infinite Jest? The Heart is a Lonely Hunter? Lolita? Nausea? The list goes on. Does it make you sound smarter when you say you’ve read these? It sure does!
Sonic Youth: It’s true that Sonic Youth is good, and people genuinely like them. We genuinely like them…or do we? Sometimes we can’t even tell. Did I not like Sonic Youth but realize I kind of had to, or did I sort of like them and realized that by admitting it, it made me sound like I had cool taste in music? We can’t remember which came first but the bottom line is that if you want to impress a normie with your musical preferences, dropping Sonic Youth will usually make you sound pretty legit. It’s like the most obvious, go-to “legit” sounding cool band, but weirdly enough their vibe has stood through the test of time. I guess that means they’re actually pretty good, even though no one seriously listens to them. Busted!
Tempeh: We know and encourage that your diet consists of the 5 B’s: burgers, bourbon, bagels, burritos, and beer. Your mom and dentist think you should eat healthier. Just tell them you subsist on a diet of organic vegetables, soy, bee pollen, seiten, tofu and wheatgrass. Have you ever had a shot of wheatgrass? Besides it tasting like a floor, it makes your stomach hurt for hours. You know what makes that hurt go away? Vitamin B…also known as vitamin Bagel Bite!
Unicorns: Unicorns are fake creatures for fake girls with fake dreams. They are also dazzling and only virgins can see them. Also people who wear unicorn shirts are being fake funny or fay or gay. You can bring unicorns to life with your very own Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper. Then everyone will like you and you’ll never get old.
Valentine’s Day: is a fake holiday. It’s not meant to celebrate love, but rather humiliate those who aren’t in it. It’s bullshit! Corporate lies! Gross consumerism! A good way to recognize a fake friend is if they take Valentine’s Day seriously.
“Where did you get that shirt?” This is a surefire way for a rich person to know you’re not one of them. Rich people don’t ask where you get things so if you are trying to fake like you have money, don’t ask someone where they got their shirt/coat/Rolex/shoes, etc. If you do ask a rich person where they got their “thing” they will usually say something like, “Oh I’ve had it forever…it was my mother’s” or something like that and then get annoyed and walk away and find someone who is part of their world to talk to. Don’t blow it!
Xtra-curricular Activities: Just like in high school when you needed to lie to look accomplished, it's important to keep pretending that you're super busy accomplishing lots of things. People will be less offended when you ditch them if they think you've got charity work, cooking classes, and Kung Fu workouts. No one wants to know you just prefer Lifetime movies and binge eating to their exclusive company. (PS we also just faked YOU out by using “Xtra” instead of “extra.”)
Yusuf Islam: is a fake name. So is Cat Stevens. His real name is Steven Demetre Georgiou but no one knows who that is or cares.
- Lesley Arfin
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