lying friend

by Lauren
(Australia)

I have this friend. Who a few years ago told my friendship that she had a boyfriend, but her guy best friend was in love with her as well. We all believed her stories about her dates and everything - but whenever we asked details about his school/where he lived/what his surname was she would abruptly change the subject.

So she was telling us all these stories about how he was abusing her, like marking her body and everything. Then she dumped him and it all stopped. But then the next year, she had another boyfriend, and again she wouldn’t tell us anything about him except for stories, which were totally unbelievable, like going on a boat trip after school, flying from England in 4hours just to see her etc. All her facts didn’t add up. We tried confronting her but she insisted that she wasn’t lying and that it was all true, since then she has "made up" other boyfriends, which totally predictable stories (most of them similar to movies + books).

What do we do? we don’t want to ruin our friendship, or make her trust us less, but we are sure that her life revolves around these lies, and we don’t really know much about her, other than all these stories.

Should we talk to her? Or just keep following along with the lies, even though she continues to do it after we have asked her if they were actually true; and we are definite she knows we don’t believe her, but the stories are just not true, there is no way that they are - but we want to make sure that she knows that we are always there for her because she is also not sleeping and eating.. Please help us! We don’t know what to do, and we are so worried about her!
- concerned best friend