I’m looking for words to describe someone who says things or tells stories in a way meant to intentionally create a false impression or imply things that are untrue, but which aren’t outright lies. Basically, saying things that in and of themselves are true, but wording them in a way, or excluding/including or arranging details to make them point to something that is false.
For example: Someone has only been to Paris once in their life, but wants to create the impression they have been there frequently. They say something along the lines of “The last time I was in Paris I had a wonderful time”, which I think implies they’d been there more than once, but if you were to call them on it there’s nothing factually untrue about it.
Words like embellishing or exaggerating, or a term like “a white lie” come to mind as being close to what I’m trying to describe, but they’re not exactly what I’m looking for.
Anecdote alert: I had a friend who would boast, “I was in a band and on MTV.”
He didn’t tell people that those two things were not concurrent. He was in a band in college. After college, he was no longer in a band. Then, he appeared on an MTV dating show and was one of a large pool of guys eliminated in about 2 minutes flat. You can barely see him walking off stage if you pause the video just right and he points it out to you.
It made an impression when he would throw it around to drunk girls in bars.