I'm Natalie Lou and you're listening to the baggage reclaim sessions.

Hello hello.

How are you doing?

Have you ever dealt with someone who talked up themselves or something so that you ended up believing that a relationship or whatever they promised or

intimated would happen in the future, only for it not to or for it to be something radically different?

Well, if so, you've experienced what I call future faking.

And I want to revisit this topic because, oh my gosh, so many people are affected by the disappointment, self-doubt, confusion, and even sense of rejection they experience in the aftermath of future faking. I first recall experiencing future faking in the spring of 98.

I would have been 20 at the time and one weekend myself and my friend were in

boomerang nightclub in Temple Bar shout out to anybody listening who's from

Ireland that used to club back in the 90s. We were obsessed with that place.

We used to go like three or four times a week. We were just in to like going there for a dance and

you know getting our drink on and carrying on. Anyway, I digressed. So we're there partying it up and we bump into a guy from my work who would go on to become my unavailable and shady boyfriend at a later point, but that's another story. And he's there with a very flirty friend who was very much my type.

So we end up having a great night and he asked me out and we basically ended up dating for like I don't know

probably two three weeks like Max now I can't remember if it was on the first or the second

date but he introduced me to his parents. I had only ever

met a guy's parents if we were in a relationship together or it was just in the context of friendship like hanging out like you know like back in my teens and stuff like I definitely had not been introduced to somebody's parents on a first or second date before and so naively I put two and two together and made like 2,500 and was like oh my gosh this guy's like really into me like I felt like it meant something.

And not only did he introduce me to his parents,

but he was like, oh, you know, do you want to stay over?

So like staying over at his parents house with him.

I wouldn't normally have stayed over,

but the whole context of the parents and everything.

I was like, wow, like this guy's really crazy about me.

...