How can I repair my past mistakes without losing my close friends in the process?
How big of a deal this is depends to some extent upon how old you are and the dynamic within your circle of friends. It also depends upon on the level of detail and how much a part of the friends-bonding-experience your stories were. Here’s the worst case scenario from the point of view of your friends: We feel like fools when we think back to the times that we had that hilarious/profound/involved/interesting conversation about x with you, just to find out that you were pulling it out of your ass. We wonder whether you were secretly laughing at us for believing the stories. I had a friend once who was quite possibly a pathological liar. We found out (he didn’t ‘fess up) that most of the details of his life and experiences were not true/didn’t happen. It was pretty bad. But we were in our early twenties. The same situation now that I’m in my mid-thirties would not be nearly as big of a deal. The good news: if you confess instead of letting them discover it, this goes a long way. If you
