Rumors can take on a mind of their own. Before you know it, everyone in school may think that you’re secretly married to a sheep. But, the silver lining is that these silly little whispers may never make it past high school and soon become a ridiculous story to tell your friends.
#1 No Idea She Cared
That I was deceased. I was late getting back to university so my “buddies” decided it'd be funny to tell people I'd lost my life in Europe. The story started with “lost their life in an accident” and blossomed to “got a girl pregnant, wouldn't marry her, decided to marry her, lost their life in an accident.” One girl I knew actually believed it and cried when we bumped into each other. I had no idea she cared.
#2 They Got Me Good
In the fifth grade, I was getting along with this guy in the grade below, call him Carl. We weren't best friends but I would go over to his house sometimes. We lost touch over the summer. Sixth grade rolled around and he wasn’t there, so I asked around. A few kids from his grade said Carl passed away from a brain aneurysm over the summer.
I heard it from multiple people, so I believed it. I was sad for a while. Approximately five years later, I saw Carl at the grocery store. I was like, “What the heck? I thought you passed away from a brain aneurysm?!" Then it occurred to me that I'd been pranked. They got me good, I'll admit. Too bad I lost him as a friend though. He'd just switched schools.
#3 Bad Roommate
I went camping with my family for a long weekend in university as my Friday and Monday classes were canceled. I lived on campus. so I checked out with the RA in desk duty that day. When I came back, I had people I barely knew coming up and asking me if I was okay and wanted to talk. The head of student services called me into her office and tried to get me to “open up” about what had happened and where I was getting my money.
My roommate told everyone she had seen me leave with a sketchy looking much older man who introduced himself as my pimp and that I had told her that I was pregnant. She also said that the older man found an illegal clinic across the border. It was a big deal. They even had a floor-wide discussion about it in my dorm and no one expected to see me back. At the time, I just turned 18 and was a virgin. Also, I never had any money and spent 90% of my time in the library or my dorm room, so I never did understand why anyone would believe that.
#4 She Was Not Pleased
When I was in high school, a kid decided to tell everyone his brother passed away in a car accident the night before (he was just out sick). Friends, girlfriend, teachers were all super shook up until the counselors called the kid's mom to suggest she come pick up the "living" brother due to his grief. She was not pleased. Actually, neither was anyone else.
#5 Assembly Presentation
When I was in grade one, some girls thought it would be funny to tell everyone I had “boy private parts,” which upset me greatly. I don’t remember this but my mother told me that during an assembly I was talking with the people around me and it was brought up. Apparently, I felt the need to stand up and pull down my pants and undies in front of everyone. I cringe every time I think about it.
#6 Very Much Alive
This didn’t happen to me, but my ex. I was with a hairstylist I hadn't been to before, engaging in small talk. I found out she went to the same large high school as my fiance and graduated the same year. I asked, "Did you know (my idiot ex)?" She exclaimed that she did and she went, “Isn't it sad how he passed away?" Before I could get a word in, she went into this story about how he moved to Las Vegas after high school, got heavy into substances and took his own life. I said, "Well, I don't know where you heard that, but he's my fiance and he's very much alive."
#7 Gestures of Kindness
That my parents were dealers and they involved me in selling substances at my elementary school. What actually happened was that I gave my friends a dollar each from my lunch money so we could all buy cookies. Somehow the rumor spread all the way to the principal, so he dragged me to his office and lectured me about not giving my money away in front of other people.
#8 Horrible Slander
The rumor spread around that I was gay. At the time (early 90's), I remember feeling like it was a horrible slander and questioning my very manhood. Of course, I was a stupid high school kid then and didn't know any better. I actually had had crushes on a few girls by that time, but was completely socially awkward and hadn't dated anyone at all. Back then "hasn't dated anyone" was used as ammo for "must be gay."
The person would pull this in the boy's locker room before or after gym. His locker was near mine and he'd wait for me to start changing before making "homosexual remarks" towards me. This person was also part of a group that used to follow me from class to class, harassing me multiple times a day. I hated high school and was so happy when I went to college.
#9 Still Hate Christmas
Mine is that I told my entire pre-school class that Santa wasn't real. It was actually a different child with the same first name as me. Not to mention, I hadn't even been there when it happened. So, I learned the truth about Claus from my enraged and screaming mother calling me a liar. I'm now 32 and still hate Christmas.
#10 Allergic Reaction
One of my friends is allergic to peanuts and someone started a rumor that he was lying. So, someone waved a peanut butter sandwich in front of him. That started an allergic reaction. I don’t know why they thought that was a good idea, but we were only in the fifth grade at the time, so I guess kids are just mean.
#11 Still at School
In middle school, some sub that no one knew looked like a nark. They pulled me from class because of a family issue and walked me out of the school to my mom. Somehow this turned into the sub being a cop, and it being a cop car, and I was in trouble for something. One rumor a few weeks later was that I had gotten in trouble. I was like, “Guys, I'm still at school. I told you what happened.”
#12 Being Cheeky
I was once sick for an entire week back in the ninth grade. Somehow, a rumor spread that I went to Hawaii. Even a teacher made a comment when I came back. I have no idea how the heck that started and nobody would tell me why they thought it because they thought I was just being cheeky by denying this “vacation.”
#13 Butt of the Joke
A rumor spread in college that I gave my boyfriend a special treat on the bus. I very much did not. At that point in my life, I hadn’t even seen a man’s private area. It was so outrageous that the people who tried to spread it became the butt of the joke for spreading something that literally nobody would believe.
#14 High Turnover Rate
At my last job, there was a girl the company kept for years, but no one wanted to be near her because she always spread lies. I once joked about a rash on my hand, saying I wanted to bite it like a dog because that’s how much it itched. She reported it to the boss and I was brought in and told about it. I made it very clear that I wanted nothing to do with any of them. It was no wonder they had a high turnover rate.
#15 Running for President
When I was at the tender age of 13, there was a rumor spreading around that I was born in Iraq, used to live in Moscow, and was a die-hard gay communist who wanted to run for president and pass a law that everyone was required to have gay relations with me. It was a complicated tale that must have taken on a mind of its own.
#16 Anything to Win
This was spread by an adult in a volunteer organization I was part of. I was happily married, running for a leadership position. She was married to someone, running for one of the other positions. Apparently, she didn’t want me on the leadership team because she told people I had the hots for her husband? He was, bless his heart, a nice guy, but homely. I respected what he’d done to achieve leadership in the organization, but could not have been more uninterested in that aspect of him if he had been a cow pattie.
I didn’t know anything about this until after I lost the election. She also started a rumor about two other adults who were friendly, but not doing anything untoward. Unfortunately, the wife of the man believed that rumor and it totally ruined a number of relationships and events because she wouldn’t permit them to attend the same meeting or event. I never understood what motivated that person to spread those types of rumors.
#17 Comfortable Chairs
I remember a rumor spreading in college that a platonic male friend and I were dating because we studied in the same part of the library every night Sunday through Thursday. I mean, it’s stupid but I guess I get it. But that spot in the library was just the part with the most comfortable chairs, so we went there.
#18 It Was Jake
Someone said I attacked a girl at school. At the time, there was drama going around that someone in my group of friends had attacked this girl who was a friend of a friend of mine. Later we found out the guy our entire group hated (we'll call him Jake) actually did it and was suspended and arrested. But before that, the school was trying to figure out what happened.
Jake told the admins that I did it and they questioned me but couldn't pin it to me. I was the mediator of the group so if there was an argument, I was usually the middle ground. Basically everyone in our group knew it wasn't me, which saved me. But because of that, we name-dropped Jake to the admins and they ended up pinning it to him. The girl eventually gave a description of the guy who did it and it was Jake.
#19 Topic of Conversation
When I was 21 and in college, I worked with a boy who was a senior in high school. His girlfriend broke up with him about two weeks before prom for another guy. I offered to go with him. The girl was dumped by her new boyfriend a few days before prom and wanted my co-worker to take her. He said no as he was going with an “older woman.”
At prom, I was quite the topic of conversation. This girl had come by our store when I was working and she and her friend told everyone I had multiple children with multiple baby daddies. I don't even go here! Anyway, prom was nice, dinner before was great, and after the dance, I went home (alone) and had many drinks in my child-free house.
#20 A Twofer Rumor
It’s kind of a twofer. My ex was spreading rumours that my new girlfriend was pregnant by someone else. While my girlfriend-now-wife was dating a girl. Then the rumours grew to me only dating her so the kid would have a dad. Once we got engaged, it spread to we were only getting married to “save her the disgrace” of having a baby out of wedlock.
My favorite part of this whole thing is the timeline. We dated for 11 months until we got engaged. We were engaged for about 14 months. After that, we had our first kid after almost three years of marriage. So, that’s quite the gestational period she had! And the kid looks a lot like me, so that’s suspicious for him to be someone else’s.
#21 Kept Getting Crazier
My husband had the flu in February. The rumor around his work was that he had something much worse and I gave it to him because I worked with the first infected patient in my county. I never was sick. I don’t work in the same city as the first infected and I have no idea who she is. The rumor kept getting crazier every day.
#22 Bing Strikes Again
Back when 5 Nights at Freddy's was popular, I was in middle school and working on a computer. I wanted a cool desktop background of one of the characters, so I searched it up on Bing images, which was the default search engine on our school network. Bing had a tab between the search bar and the images where it says "other people searched for..." and lists a bunch of other popular terms.
Well, it just so happened that a lot of people were searching up fnaf adult material on Bing. Unfortunately, I had no idea at the time. Regardless, a classmate saw what I was looking up and I then became the kid who searched that kind of stuff on the school computers. Thanks a lot, Bing. You’re the absolute worst.
#23 The Best and Worst
The funniest was in high school. My classmates thought that I could blow things up with my brain. To this day, I wish that were true. The worst was also in high school. I had a teacher (one I liked and trusted) stage an intervention because the rumor was that I was a lesbian and that I was hurting my girlfriend (a friend and nothing more.) To this day, the idea that this teacher could believe such a thing still bothers me. Her delivery was very much "you need to stop this" as opposed to "let's talk."
#24 Yearbook Signature
In middle school, someone started a rumor that I was a voodoo priestess. I'm white and live in Canada. People believed it, though, and they'd shriek and run when they saw me. At the end of one year, a girl who had been nothing but awful to me asked if she could sign my yearbook and her signature was basically her pleading with me not to curse her. Even in my first year of high school, I had a few people who didn't go to my middle school walk up and ask me if it was true that I did voodoo. Thankfully it stopped after that.
#25 Fake Pregnancy
When I was pregnant with my youngest, I was looking for baby stuff straight away. I was looking to buy a babywearing sling and I spoke to this local woman who was much older than me (I was 23). She befriended me and added me to a babywearing group as I was wanting to babywear. Everything was fine until I told her how far along I was ( 6 weeks) and then she deleted me.
I was removed from the group and very confused. Turns out, she thought I was faking my pregnancy because if I was only six weeks along, I wouldn't be buying baby stuff. She told the admin of the group to delete me. She told some other people in town I was faking and someone told me. I was quite upset but everyone knew it was nonsense when they saw my belly and then saw my baby after I had her.
After I had her, I sold my babywearing sling and the woman who bought it was in the original group. I told her my story and she was horrified. She also talked to the admin who apologized to me and invited me back to the group. I accepted her apology but declined the offer of being in the group. I still see the woman who started the rumor every so often with my clearly real child with me.
#26 Loudly Gay Man
After a few disastrously bad relationships in high school, I decided I was gay (actually bi) and was quite vocal about it when I got to college. A teen girl moved to the area where I went to college and was already three months pregnant when she moved there. She obviously had never met anyone there. She told everyone that I was the baby’s father and somehow people believed it. Even after the baby was born, people believed that the loudly gay black man had somehow had a blond, white baby.
#27 Purity Ring
I was raised Christian and was all about purity. I had the purity ring and not only did I pledge to save myself for marriage, but also kissing and anything of that sort. I’m a guy but had a few female friends in high school. At one point, senior year guys would go up to me about one of my friends and ask, “I heard you hit that. How was it?” It really surprised me since people knew how religious I was. I didn’t even curse, so it really threw me off that people thought I was sleeping around because I chatted with a girl.
#28 Didn’t Bother
A rumor spread about me that I was a lesbian. Growing up, a guy was convinced I was a lesbian, but I just didn't fancy him. I didn't bother correcting him either. He told everyone I was but you know what? Who cares? It didn't bother me and definitely didn't affect my love life. I got hit on by a few women, but I was flattered.
#29 Are You Kidding Me?
Mine was that I got married because my bully got married. I looked at my theatre teacher like, "Are you kidding me?” Then her sister said, "Aren’t you also the one who threatened her?" I wasn’t able to respond before we had to do something else, but I wish I could’ve told her no, it was another girl who threatened her because your sister joked about throwing my project in the trash. She also laughed at me.
#30 Very Much Alive
I was working in the mall about seven years after high school as a sales rep for the phone company. Out of nowhere, a friend from high school ran up to me, gave me a big hug and said, “Dude, so and so, told me you had passed away." I was confused at first and told them I was very much alive. Apparently, a few people got the wrong idea when they heard I got into a really bad car wreck. They said I went underneath an 18 wheeler and turned an S10 truck into a convertible.
#31 Best Week Ever
Someone spread a rumor I was sleeping with the teachers to get good grades. I guess they thought they could get away with it considering I was kind of dumb outside of class. The twist is I'm a guy so I full-on embraced the rumor and called everyone else virgins for a full week before the one about me cooled down. It was the best week ever!
#32 Can You Do That?
Someone was spreading a rumor that I didn't have my license and wasn't allowed to drive. I had been licensed for years and was regularly seen driving work vehicles around the property. On top of that, it was even one of my job duties to drive a 26-foot box truck up a winding mountain pass about twice a week for supplies and was seen in it a lot. I never figured out who started the rumor.
#33 Just Friends
This happened to me back when I was in school. For some reason, everyone thought I was gay because I only had girls around, but wasn't sleeping with any of them. No, I'm not gay. I just don't hit on my female friends and get mad when they tell me that we're just friends. I guess that’s just how people thought back then.
#34 In a Small Town
That my boyfriend attacked or pressured me. We haven't even had relations yet, we were both virgins and wanted to wait. We lived in a small town of 800, though, so word spread fast. A woman even wanted me to press charges against him because she thought he was older than me. I was actually older than him. It was stupid but thankfully stopped after a month.
#35 First Girlfriend
This happened to my first girlfriend in the seventh grade. When it became clear that we liked each other and things were about to go down, this other girl who was jealous tried to spread rumors that she had an STD so that I would want to be with her. To the surprise of no one, nobody believed pizza face girl and we ended up together.
#36 Quickly Became Embarrassed
One of my guy "friends" told our whole friend group that not only I had slept with him but also another girl in our friend group had also slept with him. We were both virgins. Luckily, my ex from that friend group had a new girlfriend. He not only told us what he was saying, but also stood up for us both. The guy quickly became embarrassed when he was called out and left early that night.
#37 Had a Good Laugh
A guy I worked with was in town visiting. The same week he was in town, my dog knocked me over and I hyperextended my knee. It got all swollen and I couldn’t walk on it for a couple of days, so I had been calling into work. When I got back to work, everyone told me they figured I had called in because I was off having relations with ex-coworker and I had hurt my leg from all the crazy stuff we were doing. I told him about the rumor and we had a good laugh.
#38 Getting Homeschooled
That I was contagious because I have eczema, asthma and allergies. One girl threw open a door while I was changing at a sleepover to show all the other kids I had sores. She was a huge bully who pretended to be my friend but constantly did stuff like this to me. I ended up being homeschooled due to what was happening.
#39 I’m Scottish Now
I moved from Scotland to England at like 13. I had a thick accent and I got a lot of trouble for it, so almost subconsciously I slowly started to like fake an English accent. It was really stupid as I'd flip back to Scottish as soon as I got home. After I left school, I dropped the accent. But by that time, the majority of people I knew in the small town I was in had met me as English. So, when I'd see people they'd be like, “What happened to you?! Why are you suddenly Scottish?” I used to just make things up like, "I had a voice transplant and this is all they had," but eventually it stopped.
Roll on a few years and I'm back in town having a drink with some friends. I got talking to two guys and when I mentioned my name one was like, "Oh, you're that guy who pretends to be Scottish." So now apparently there's a fable around the town of some English kid who one day was just like “I'm Scottish now,” and the kid is me.
#40 A Running Joke
When I was in college, I had a job interview and decided to stop by my parents’ house before driving back to campus. I got into an accident in my hometown. The other driver was hospitalized and I didn't know anything about her status until proceedings began. My parents drove me back to campus and I spent the evening drinking. I went to a party, told one friend that I was drinking to forget the accident. A few weeks later, I passed a group of people from my social circle and they said, "Dude, I heard you ended a guy’s life." It was a running joke from then until graduation.
#41 Missing Hat
When I was in the third grade, I lost my favorite hat. Man, I loved this hat so much and wore it constantly, even in the middle of summer. I was so distraught that my mom helped me put up missing posters for it. She said to use a photo of the hat with me wearing it so people would know who to give it back to. Well, thanks to the posters, the janitor found and returned my hat but everyone thought that it was me who went missing. It was really embarrassing but totally worth it. I still have my hat.
#42 Around for Years
I quit my job as a kitchen manager at a small café in my small town. They hired a guy with my same first name. He looked nothing like me: he was six inches taller, fat, 20 years younger, and had a full beard. He was also the worst person ever. After a while, I started hearing weird rumors about the guy. A year later, he was busted in a sting operation trading substances for underage boys. He went to prison and I never heard any more about him. But we'd had the same name and the same job, so rumors followed me around for years.
#43 That’s Not Sexy
During my freshman year of college, I went to Colorado on vacation with two close guy friends. They had been my classmates from kindergarten to senior year. When I came back, I found out that two moms of other classmates told everyone who would listen that they only took me so they could sleep with me. These guys were literally like brothers and I found it horribly pathetic that a middle-aged women would make up such a thing. Also, I had terrible gas the whole 8-hour trip back and did not try to hold it in. If that’s not sexy, I don’t know what is.
#44 Spread My Own
One was that I was trying to take some girl’s boyfriend at age 14. When she confronted him about whether the rumor she started was true or not, he said we had done the deed (I was 14 and didn't lose my V card until I was 19). Then, I had two nasty rumors to deal with, so I spread my own rumor that I was a lesbian. I was only half-lying.
#45 Snake With Legs
When I was in the first grade, I had a lizard and I told everyone that it was a snake with legs as a joke. Sadly, kids tend to take that stuff seriously. Then everyone took it a little too far and everyone began avoiding me for some reason. But still, why avoid me? I mean a lizard is kind of like a snake with legs, isn’t it?
#46 The New Boy
I was in middle school and someone who I considered my friend spread rumors that I was a lesbian because I didn’t think the new guy was cute. I didn’t care if people thought I was a lesbian because I knew I wasn’t. But a group of girls during gym class cornered me and were angry because I didn’t think the new guy was cute. People that age are really, really stupid.
#47 Which is It?
Someone said a boy in my class and I were dating. This wasn’t such a dumb rumor as we did talk a bit and I sat at his table in homeroom. However, we both denied what was being said about us constantly. But, it kept going around for about a year. Oh, and also, there was quite the rumor that I was also a lesbian. So, I don’t know.
#48 Useless Boss
I used to work for a terrible boss at work. Basically, it was bad enough that I never wanted to be in the same space as him. He started telling people that I was depressed. Everyone at work thought it was hilarious as I like being funny and joking around a lot, just not with my completely useless and inept boss.
#49 High School English
People said I was in love with my high school English teacher. He was super nice and contributed so much to my personal growth as a young adult. He gave me so much life advice and even after all this time, I truly look up to him as a mentor. It really upset me that people tried to turn it into something that it wasn't.
#50 Recording Girls
When I was in high school, I used to record audio notes when I was coming up with story ideas for stuff I was writing. This was before smartphones, so I had an actual tape recorder. After talking to one of my female friends in the morning (which spurred some ideas), I did a quick audio note and went on with my day. By lunchtime, a friend of mine told me that people were saying that I was recording girls’ voices so I could use them later during my alone time. I laughed so hard when I heard that.
