Man faked his passion for 'vintage trains' to impress his father-in-law. $200 and one cross-country trip later, he knew it had gone too far
The man saw a vintage train set in his father-in-law's basement, and pretended to be its biggest fan
Almost everyone fakes their personality to be favorable in a given environment at some point in their lives. However, the lies at times return with compound interest, as it happened in the case of a man who goes by u/king_astrophysicist on Reddit. On June 23, 2026, he recalled how a small white lie about liking trains to impress his father-in-law compelled him to keep up the act even after four years. The man's post has received over 1,000 upvotes online.
I have faked an obsession with a niche hobby for four years to connect with my father-in-law, and it has completely spiraled out of control
by u/king_astrophysicist in sillyconfession
A costly lie
The story began when the man started dating his now-wife. He was desperate to get approval from her dad, who was quite intimidating, quiet, and stoic — one who didn’t prefer small talk. "For the first year, we sat in agonizing silence during every family gathering," the author recalled. The other day, he noticed a vintage train set in his father-in-law's basement. And to get his attention, the man lied that he was "fascinated by historical railways" and had "always wanted to get into model railroading." Little did the author know that a simple incident like that would snowball into a whole tangle of complexity. "It was the first time I saw him smile — since that fateful day, my life has been hijacked by locomotives," the author recalled.
A bond built on a lie
At first, the author's father-in-law bought him a $200 starter kit for Christmas and told him to share photos after assembling it. The following year, the two started hanging out at regional train expos. In the third year, the father-in-law finally told the author that he was the “son he never had" and gave him a pocket watch. Recently, the old man planned a two-week cross-country train trip with his son-in-law, where they would "chase the heritage routes." The author confessed that he genuinely loves his wife's father, but their relationship is entirely built on miniature tracks, and he has to keep lying to maintain it. Four years later, the man said he shared his story because the guilt of lying to his father-in-law was eating him alive, and his wife was completely unaware of it.
Why do people lie?
A survey conducted by the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (by Kim B. Serota, Timothy R. Levine, and Tony Docan-Morgan) examined 116,366 lies told by 632 participants over 91 consecutive days, and found that almost 75% of respondents told zero to two lies daily. But why? Well, researchers found that 21% of people lie to avoid others, and 13% lie to impress others. Similarly, the study found that 20% of lies are said as humor, while 14% to protect themselves, and 11% to protect another person. There are usually two categories of lies: the little white lies and the big lies. The lie the man in the Reddit story told to his father-in-law about trains comes under the category of “little white lies,” unaware that it would ultimately spiral into an elaborate charade.
'You're stuck, buddy'
Meanwhile, reacting to the Reddit post, u/SpeakerSame9076 said, “This. Seriously think about everything connected with the train hobby, and find the parts that you can genuinely enjoy or at the very least that connect to things you enjoy, and start leaning into those more.” u/Wonderful_bottle_852 suggested, “Embrace it. It sounds like a fun hobby! Or, tell your father-in-law that you lied, and he will drop you off at the train station.”
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