A little white lie about age. A law student boyfriend with strong principles. And a looming 21st birthday bash that’s about to blow everything up.
Let’s be honest – we’ve all told small fibs when dating. But rarely do those little lies snowball quite like this one did for a young guy who shared his predicament on Reddit.
“I met my boyfriend on Grindr almost a year ago,” he writes. “I didn’t have my age on my profile. But in my boyfriend’s description thingy it said ’21+ only’. Well I was only 20 at the time.”
Obviously, that’s when things started to go wrong.
“We started messaging each other, and I asked about his age requirement. He said it was because he’s 26 and not interested in dating someone too much younger. He said ideally he would want someone his own age,” the poster revealed.
The boyfriend’s reasoning made sense – he wanted someone who could hit the bars with him without hassle.
Faced with potentially losing his shot with this hot law student, our guy made a split-second decision that would come back to haunt him.
“So I ended up saying I was 22,” he admitted.
Fast forward nearly a year (!), and what began as a tiny fib had mushroomed into a full-blown identity crisis. Their relationship had gotten serious, but the lie had only grown more complicated with each passing month.
“Fast forward. Now my bf is 27 and studying for the Bar. (He just graduated law school). Meanwhile, my 21st birthday is coming up in a few days. And all of my friends are planning this big celebration since it’s a milestone.”
Talk about terrible timing. His actual 21st birthday – which friends typically celebrate with Instagram stories, bar crawls, and all manner of public festivities – was about to blow his cover in spectacular fashion.
“I feel like he’s gonna be pissed that I’ve been lying this whole time or think I’m crazy or something,” he worried. “And what if he doesn’t wanna date someone six years younger? He already calls me a ‘baby’ even though he thinks I’m turning 23 instead of 21…”
After sharing his dilemma and receiving a flood of advice ranging from “keep lying forever” to “confess immediately,” our anxiety-ridden Romeo returned with an update.
The Moment of Truth
“I ended up talking to my boyfriend. It was good and bad,” he began. “The bad part was that I realized this is worse than I thought in terms of the lying.
“I guess I didn’t see how this had spiraled out of control so much until I had to sit down and actually talk about it.”
What followed was the kind of painfully awkward conversation that makes you want to crawl under the bed and never come out.
“I asked if I could come over to his apartment to talk to him. He was super busy but I said it was really important.”
Imagine the scene – the boyfriend buried in law books, our protagonist sweating bullets, about to detonate a truth bomb right in the middle of Bar exam prep:
“So I sit down on the bed and I’m like ‘promise you won’t break up with me or hate me.'”
Cue immediate panic from the boyfriend, who jumped to the worst conclusion possible: “Then he asked if I had cheated or something. I was almost glad he asked that because anything else I told him would be better than that.”
Finding a tiny sliver of courage in this misunderstanding, he finally blurted out the truth: “On my birthday I’ll be 21 and not 23.”
“He was really surprised and at first he thought I was kidding and then told me to tell him what I really came to talk about. And I told him that was it.”
As the truth sank in, the boyfriend’s reaction wasn’t quite the furious law-school-dropout-worthy tirade our guy had been dreading: “And then he looked and was like ‘oh my god you’re such a liar.’ But it was weird because he honestly looked like he was trying not to laugh.”
But one confession led to another, and another, as the full extent of the year-long deception unraveled: “And then he started asking if there was anything else I had lied about. And I mean, there is. But it’s all related to my age….”
Every sketchy moment from their relationship suddenly needed its own explanation and apology – like those close calls with bouncers that could have ended very differently.
When the full confession was finally out in the open, his boyfriend’s response hit him where it hurt: “Anyway, when I finished, he said he felt like a complete idiot and that if he couldn’t even figure this out he’ll probably be a terrible lawyer.
“And even though he was half-joking that made me feel awful because he’s really not dumb. He just trusted me way more than I deserved.”
Plot Twist
What happened next wasn’t in any relationship advice column our guy had frantically Googled before his confession.
“But he didn’t dump me (at least not yet lol),” he shared, clearly still processing the shock himself. “I don’t know if he was oddly flattered that I went through so much just to date him or if he was just looking for a distraction from studying. But we ended up in bed together in a way that was surprisingly passionate and intense.”
After nearly a year of relationship anxiety, the tension between them apparently found a different outlet entirely.
Only afterward, in that vulnerable post-intimacy moment, did his boyfriend lay down the law: “And then when that was over he told me not to lie anymore.”
The message landed with crystal clarity: “And believe me, I’m not going to because this was STRESSFUL”
This story hits home because we’ve all been there in some form – maybe not lying about our age to a future lawyer, but caught in that hellish space where coming clean feels impossible but continuing the deception feels unbearable.
That moment when you realize the small shortcut you took around the truth has somehow become a marathon of lies you never signed up to run.
For this guy, the gamble paid off in ways he never expected. Not only did he keep the relationship (for now), but he also freed himself from the exhausting job of maintaining a fictional persona.
Sometimes the very thing we’re terrified to reveal becomes the thing that brings real intimacy – messy, complicated, and authentic.