In Defence of Bullshitting

I’ve blagged my way through a lot of things in my life. So much so, you might even say my life mantra is “if in doubt, blag it out”. From heroically fibbing my way out of awkward work situations, to somehow breaking my finger and toe before my A Level Philosophy exam and so being granted my predicted grade, being able to pull bullshit out of thin air when the moment calls for it has served me well in many a situation.

Now, listen, I’m not saying that you that you should start lying about your whereabouts so you feel special when your significant other quadruple texts you, but instead, that good quality bullshitting could serve a legitimate purpose in your life. Picture it this way: lying is me drinking too much wine, and bullshitting is me buying too many berets. The first is bad for everybody involved, whereas the second is a little bit naughty but also kinda useful.

Jumper - Topshop

Trousers - Topshop

Belt - Saint Laurent

Bag - J.W. Anderson

Boots - Zara (old)

Sunglasses - Ray-Ban*

Sometimes you’ve just got to bullshit your way through. Sometimes your life has turned inside out, you don’t know your arse from your elbow and the boy you thought was ~ different ~ has actually turned out to be a raging sexist and thinks that you’re “not that kind of girl”, when in fact, you were definitely DTF on the first date.

Yes, bullshitting is sometimes a necessity, and it’s a skill I’ve learned to finesse. Countless times have I been caught in a meeting with a client and asked “oh, by the way, have you done this?”, with ‘this’ being the thing I’d bookmarked three weeks ago and ‘this’ now being the thing that the client wants to know the results of, and, of course, having not fucking done it, I then have to litter my next few sentences with impressive sounding jargon which both confuses, distracts, and changes the subject. And if you’re a sibling you’ll already be advanced in bullshitting, because you will have ‘borrowed’ and lost countless items from your brother or sister and then had to innocently join in the hunt for its location. “Did you borrow my *blank* without asking?” “Uhh, no, haven’t seen it ages…”

I’m an advocate of bullshitting, because sometimes its the only way to make it to the end of the day with your sanity intact. On those days where everything goes wrong, from you stubbing your toe to accidentally emailing a bitchy email about your boss, to your boss, how else are you going to get through to wrapping up in your double duvet without a little sprinkle of bullshit? Sometimes you have to take a deep breath, mute the Instagram notifications of people asking where an item is from despite it being tagged in the photo, and pull up your proverbial socks until 5pm strikes. Sometimes, when your life is resembling more ‘girl intern’ rather than ‘girl boss’, you just have to pretend your way through it.

And there’s no shame in that. In fact, I actively encourage it, because as cliché as it sounds, sometimes you have to fake it until you make it. Whether its in a job interview that, on paper, you aren’t qualified for, or an excuse for a friend’s birthday that you missed because you’re so busy spinning plates, bridging that gap between truth and reality with a little well-intentioned bullshit can often come in handy.

Talking of jobs, one of the counter-arguments that often comes out of the gender pay divide is that men earn more because they ask for more. Statistically, men also apply for more jobs that they aren’t qualified for than women do. Ignoring the environmental and social complexities that are conducive to why that is, on a surface level, that’s just a whole lot of bullshitting, isn’t it?

I always say I blagged my way into - and through - university. Don’t get me wrong, I produced a corker of an essay or two and my dissertation was actually worth the paper it was printed on, but a lot of my seminars and presentations consisted of me picking up on one small nugget of information and bullshitting at length at what that might mean. And miraculously, somewhere along the line, I will have found something useful and learned something tangible, all from totally blagging it to begin with. Heck I’m even blagging my way through this blog post if I’m totally honest with you, but in between all the nonsense, there is a point to what I’m trying to say.

And that is this: if you feel like you’re not good enough, or today isn’t your day, or you have absolutely no clue what the fuck you’re doing with your life, then just blag it. Bullshit it. Make something up. If you’re on hold, waiting for the perfect version of yourself to come into actualisation, then you’ll be waiting forever. Just wing it and give it a go. If it goes wrong, you’ve lost nothing, and if it goes right, you can make it up as you go along until the bullshit you spun is actually pretty close to the truth. You can’t put your life on pause and dodge potentially life-changing possibilities just because you think you aren’t ready. You’ll probably never be ready. Throw a fuck to the window and try dabbling in a little bullshit - see where it gets you.