I faked confidence at a networking event and ended up losing my job

I wore a blazer I couldn’t afford to a tech mixer, smiling too wide and nodding at jargon I didn’t understand, pretending I belonged. One guy asked what I did, and instead of saying “I’m trying to get into product management,” I said, “I’m a product manager at a startup.” He looked me dead in the eye and said, “Oh, which one?” I froze. Two weeks later, my manager called me into a room after someone from that startup reached out. I cried, apologized, and expected to be fired. Instead, he said, “You’re clearly hungry. Let’s figure out how to get you there for real.”