“unreliable narrator”

Have you ever heard someone call a main character an “unreliable narrator?”

When I first heard this I was confused. 

What do you mean a “main character” is unreliable when telling a story in which they are the center point of the plot?

They are living it and we are just watching. 

It’s confusing

And it honestly angers me that someone else would call you a liar and think you are unreliable in your own life. 

But we only see what we want to. 

We don’t see ourselves as others do. 

We have preconceived notions about people in our lives. 

Preconceived outcomes that we want in our minds. 

We never truly see something for what it is, so in a way, we are unreliable because we aren’t seeing the truth. 

We aren’t seeing the full picture. 

We don’t know all of the components of a story like a reader or watcher sees. 

We only see what we want to see. 

We are all “ unreliable, narrators” in our own stories. 

We will never fully understand just how unreliable we are while telling our own stories.