The Lionel Standard

A compulsive liar, an invented life, and the day grace ran out. On why you can't negotiate with someone who has no foundation to negotiate on.

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He slid into my DMs wanting to be friends and get to know me a bit. Which was nice. I like having men as friends. There is an ease there if they are not creepy about it, and he was not. Not at first.

We would talk, send memes, the kind of casual connection that does not demand anything from either of you. I appreciated it. I also kept it right there. I kept it at a distance, would not go out and meet him for a long time, because I had zero intention of dating him.

Then he realized I was me. Smart, resilient, determined. I have my own shit, I am not an idiot, and I am sought after, which I think was more of the reason he would throw tantrums. Almost like he wanted to be the one I picked.

The Invented Life

Let us call him Lionel. He had a rental property in Gresham. A rental property in Cornelius. Three cars, because you cannot depend on anyone, so I have three, so in case one is broken I have two more to pick from. A boat. He was heading to Georgia for two weeks to visit his family and kids.

Then he was actually in Oregon, but told me he was in Atlanta taking care of his grandmother who has dementia. In reality, I saw him the day before by the Marina and just never told him, because it was all I needed to see. Just lies. All of it. Weird, pointless lies about things that did not matter and things he would never show me or prove, because they did not exist.

The strange part is not that he lied. It is how he lied. Not to impress me with real accomplishments or actual money. He lied like he was filling out a character sheet for a man he thought I would want. Somewhere in his brain he had decided the actual human sitting across from me was not enough, so he just invented a whole other guy who owned boats and had rental properties and visited kids in Georgia.

His entire reality bent every time he opened his mouth.

I have known some broken people. Some selfish people. I have even known some manipulative people. But I had never known someone whose whole world rearranged itself with every sentence. He talks to be heard, but what he says holds no value.

The Tantrums

I was dating. I was allowed to date. I was not his girlfriend. But he wanted the benefits of that without any of the honesty or commitment that comes with it. So he would throw fits. Dramatic, exhausting, child-like fits about who I was seeing and what I was doing, as if his invented life and his lies somehow earned him the right to that information.

At some point he suggested we try. Like, for real. Stop with the friendship performance and the secret feelings and just see if there was something there. I did not take it lightly, because I cared about our friendship, but I was curious whether it translated.

That is when I found out he was not just a liar. He was a compulsive one. The kind where the lies are not even connected to anything. He would lie about going to the grocery store. He would lie about a phone call he made yesterday. Nothing was true and nothing mattered, which somehow made it worse. You cannot negotiate with someone like that, because there is no foundation to negotiate on.

The Roof Box

I needed my roof box back. He had offered to store it at his place so I could give my car a break, get it detailed, let it breathe so it would not get moldy underneath from the rainy season. Now I needed it. A simple transaction. Mine. I paid for it. He offered to store it temporarily. Now I wanted it back.

Lionel would not give it back. Giving me the run-around. Telling me he did not want to be around me after I called him out for lying. This went on for a while. The asking. The refusing. The guilt trips. "Why are you treating me like this." "I do not need to do shit for you, and I do not need to meet you to give it back." As if denying me access to my own property was some reasonable negotiating tactic.

I do not negotiate with liars. Not ever. Not over hurt feelings, not over second chances, not over his confusion about why I was not interested in managing his delusions anymore. And I am not going to let someone hold something over my head just because they can.

What I Did

I called the police for a civil standby. I asked them what I could do to get it back and what my options were. They came. They stood in his yard while I got my roof box.

He got to watch a woman he had been trying to manipulate simply not engage with him anymore. Not argue. Not explain. Not try to help him understand. Just call the professionals and solve the problem.

The Standard

That is the standard now. That is what we accept. A man who invents his entire life because he cannot handle the real you, or the real him. Who gets angry when you live your actual life. Who weaponizes your own belongings to keep you tethered to him and his narrative. And when you finally refuse to play, acts like you are the one being unreasonable.

I do not negotiate with liars. Full stop.

The real tea is that he thinks I went too far. The actual tea is that I did not go far enough. I gave him chances to give it back the normal way. I asked. I explained. I tried to make it simple, because I am still the kind of person who extends grace to people.

But grace has limits. And they run out the second someone decides your property, your time, and your emotional labor are things they can just hold hostage because they are uncomfortable with the truth and used to getting their way.

He probably tells people I am crazy. That I called the cops on him over a roof box. That I overreacted. And sure. Call it an overreaction if you want.

I call it the bare minimum standard for a man. For a person.