Wayward Betty

Earlier this month, around 9 a.m. on a Monday morning, a young PayPal executive (only 39) jumped in front of the train in Menlo Park (a suburb of San Francisco north of Stanford/Palo Alto, and now the new home of Facebook). He was formerly the vice president and CFO at Skpye. He had a wife and three young children.

Yes. That. Story.

Normally, this wouldn’t have been news to me, except that I was driving the second car to pull up at the scene. We were stalled at the tracks, and well, at times like this, it is difficult not to take notice.

I didn’t see the man throw himself in front of the train. I wondered though, did he step onto the tracks casually, holding a newspaper, pretending to be distracted? Was his final gesture dramatic? Did he wait for several other trains to pass before he decided it was time? I wondered, did he eat a fibrous breakfast? Did he bother with a usual cup of coffee?

The end result was the same: I saw his body, oddly bent and limp, splayed. Still. In my memory, he was wearing a suit, but that could have been a detail I added later. Perhaps he defiantly wore pajamas, tennis shorts or his golf pants. I wondered how much thought he put into the last pair of pants he would ever step into.

No one was hovering over him or giving him CPR. The police hadn’t arrived and there was only the faint sound of an ambulance, what seemed like miles away. The sound was dull, because there was no sound. There was no panic. There was death.

A woman cupped her hand over her mouth and talked slowly into a cell phone. A jogger passed along the tracks, his dog  tugging him forward, as he kept glancing back.

In many ways, it was like any other Monday morning, it seemed, everyone still had somewhere to be. We waited for instructions. When the police arrived, the body was quickly covered and traffic was redirected. I drove to my favorite neighborhood chain coffee shop which was fraught with screaming toddlers and espresso machines. I was feeling restless, impatient, and a little sick.

Although, I think a Monday in Menlo Park, like a morning in any suburb, can have this effect.

The experience reminded me of being in Japan. Riding trains in Japan was kind of like that saying from It’s a Wonderful Life (also, a great suicide narrative), “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings,” only, “Every time the train stalls, someone jumped into the track.”

Normalized suicide.

While staying with a friend in Yokohama (a thirty minute train ride from Tokyo), this happened often. My friend explained to me that suicide was a serious pain in the ass for commuters.

Suicide rates are high in East Asia, particularly in Japan. It is the leading cause of death in men aged 20-44. While some theories base this on predictable factors (high unemployment, depression and societal pressures), there are also more interesting cultural theories supported by a long history of honorable suicide, including ritual suicide by a Samurai (seppuku or abdomen slice and disembowelment) and the notorious kamikaze suicide bombers of World War II.

Suicide has also been linked to “saving face” or preventing shame to the family. “Face” or mentsu is a traditional concept in Japanese culture, referring to a social image to the extent to which they fulfill their ascribed social roles. Essentially mentsu is a metaphor for an individual’s public image. “Losing face” means failure to meet societal expectations. There is both an occupation with this concept of mentsu, as well what appears to be a very clear divide between the public and the private life in Japan.

I remember sitting on the train thinking everyone was reading really boring books without titles. And for some reason women liked books with  floral patterns. This was until my friend explained that people use book covers so that no one knows what they are reading. Any reading material that was consumed, like many other things, was something to be kept personalized and private.

The other day, a  friend pointed out to me that “Facebook” also has a double meaning, in this way, the “Face” is literally your online persona, or the face that you present to the world (a public image), very different from your private life.

Does a “hidden life” also create a hidden tension? Perhaps creation of “face,” the separation of the public and private is more extreme in Japan. Perhaps Japanese suicide rates are an extension of this extreme.

Fans of Mad Men both revere and also pity the protagonist, Don Draper, who works desperately and painstakingly to keep both a past self and a domestic life hidden. Successfully at first, he orchestrates affairs and even has viewers believing that this clandestine philandering is noble. Interestingly, at the end of Season 4 and the beginning of Season 5, we see this desire to blend the private and public realms. No longer are his wife and affairs kept secret, he remarries a woman who works at the agency. He fondles her in his office and seems not to care that he unveils the real, even affected Draper. Once a critical tension in the plot, it also seems that Don no longer obsesses over the potential exposure of his true identity as Dick Whitman.

Do we harbor a secret desire to reveal ourselves? I would say, yes.

My initial reaction to the executive suicide was cliché:  it was a little selfish. We were all held up in traffic. The train conductor was no doubt traumatized and then, the clean up, but I couldn’t help think that there had to be something else behind this. Why suicide? Why public suicide? Why Monday morning at 9:00?

What struck me more about the executive’s suicide was not his desire to die, or his decision to commit suicide, but the precise manner of his death. What smacked of a modern tragedy,  was his decision to publicly declare who was, even if it was only the mental illness, bipolar disorder and depression he had tried to keep hidden throughout his career (as his family explained in the obituary, he had “lost his battle”) .

At the intersection of the tracks—this man’s private life, could not go unnoticed.

A couple years ago, I received a “Friend Request” accompanied by an overly revealing private message from a man who I hadn’t seen since elementary school. His confession explored some latent emotions he had once felt for me as a child, which I found, both charming and disturbing. More interesting, was that he had equated my online persona with someone he once knew.

And who we are online is clearly a distorted version of reality.

Anyway, this was at the dawn of my Facebooking and I had just begun to understand and navigate the “Friend Request.” Still, I wanted to be honest. In an attempt to create transparency in this bizarre new world of online social networking, I sent him the following response:

Dear _______,

I appreciate your taking a vested interest in my life, despite the reality that we have not seen each other since 4th grade. I don’t have to remind you, that was nearly two decades ago. Though I do not remember you, you seem to have a very vivid memory of me as a 10-year-old. As captivating as I am sure I was, there are some things that you may want to know about me before you invite me to be your adult “friend.”

Revelation 1: I drink too much, and, in fact, pissed off a lot of people at my birthday last week, including the guy I am seeing who I refuse to call my boyfriend because I have commitment issues and apparently cannot find happiness with the attention of one (even the most deserving) individual.

Revelation 2: This “aura” you mention may confuse creative expression with self-absorbed loftiness (a.k.a. narcissism), which has a direct correlation with my uncontrollable ego. I should have you know that this has proven to be strictly problematic in my life. I am not a compellingly tragic artist, but rather inconsolably disappointed and self-loathing in my lack of accomplishment. This pattern has mounted a rash of addictive and generally self-destructive behaviors (see Revelation 1).

Revelation 3: I am characteristically paralyzed by self-doubt… though this seems to have also been a catalyst for me. Despite any productive behavior that has manifested from my constant need to prove myself, I assure you that throughout my adult life this will not rest and I will remain in constant need of attention to substantiate my self-worth. If you are interested in pursuing a friendship, I may require you to remind me of how great I am and continue to be.

While you are thinking about me innocently perched on a swing or seductively consuming a Snack Pack, I think you should consider the spurious reality of my jaded and ego-driven adult life. This response is not intended to destroy any illusions you may have or dissuade you from an outpouring of emotion evoked by your memories of youthful skin or my very contrived Facebook page. By all means, remind me of what a hopeful child I must have been. I will try not to translate the illusions you have indicated into failed potential.

This quaint record and advanced litany of imperfections is not intended to diminish the potential for any adult “friendship.” I don’t know you and, in fact, I don’t remember what you look like, but since you seem to find me so appealing, I am sure that we could engage in a perfectly tender and possibly enduring bond (virtually, of course).

Sincerely,

WWB

Facebook is becoming a leading cause of divorce, in part, because it is an easy way to catch cheaters, but, more dangerously, it allows people to seek out their pasts, to consider old fantasies, and to invoke them when we are feeling lonely, lost, or disconnected from real life.

Online images and the comforting presence of our past can serve us, when historically, those images, like the people in them, would have been, as my mother used to say, “out of sight, out of mind.”

In addition to the fact that Facebook is not an *actual* depiction of who we are (however we like create a version of self through photos, captions, or status updates), it is also a very strange way to “be” in the world.

Lately, it feels that more and more often, Facebook floods our inboxes with all kinds of unwanted “friendships,” many of which seem guided by ulterior motives, others are just downright inappropriate.

I had anticipated that over time, some etiquette would surface, working out the obvious kinks and over-enthusiastic “Friending.” Turns out, Facebook is just getting more awkward.

Feel free to use some form letters I created for the sake of ease and transparency in the world of online social networking!

Message to the Friend of Friend (i.e. A Stranger)

Dear ______,

Until now, I was unaware that someone could actually succeed at being generic. Nice work! Thank you for posting pictures of the dinner you were about to eat! I also really enjoyed your most recent status update—I had no idea it rained in Chicago! Also, the way you described rush hour was, indeed, captivating. I am so glad we are (back?) in touch!

Message to an Estranged Friend

Dear _______,

So, you married _________, you are working at ________, and you live in _________. According to your last status update, “Life is good!” I am going to take that one at face value and assume you were not being sarcastic. Based on the bulk of your excessively earnest status confessions, your overstated politics, and the obvious fact that ironic humor has been lost on you, I have come to appreciate that our real-life friendship did not last.

Interestingly, I will probably watch your children grow up virtually, but never meet them in real life. Ironically (go on, look it up!), our newly established Facebook friendship has comforted me: I know now that I will never, ever see you again.

And that, “my friend,” is clearly, for the best.

Message to a Co-Worker

Dear _______,

It was one thing when you stopped by my cube and asked me about my weekend. I even listened compassionately that day when you were bitching about your break-up with __________. Yes, last week I agreed to get coffee with you when shit was slow. All of this seemed like a perfectly normal office acquaintance.

Until now.

I just saw your Friend Request.

This is what I have to say to you: Really? Did you have to? Do I even have a choice? I would love to hit “Decline,” but that is going to be super awkward and you are definitely the kind of douchebag that would ask for an explanation. Thanks a lot!

Why? Why did you have to find me on FB? (Shaking fist!)

I suppose you think I should be grateful for your efforts to establish a “personal” relationship out of the office.

But, seriously—are you spying on me?

Message to an Ex

Dear _________,

If I accept this friend request, does that mean our relationship was as meaningless as this FB connection? If so, count me in!

Well, let’s admit it, we are not friends. Arguably, we hate each other. But, by mutually establishing our virtual “friendship”, we can better convince ourselves (and each other!) how thoroughly “over it,” we are.

This passive/aggressive posting and messaging is going to be awesome! And, of course, I am judging you! As, I know you are me.

It’s a good thing we have FB to remind us how terrible we were together.

Really, I am so glad we are mature enough to be “friends.”

Message to That Guy From the Coffee Shop

Dear ________,

When you asked me for my number and I said, “No,” I thought that would be a pretty clear indication that I did not want to interact with you. Evidently, you distinguish “actual rejection” from “virtual rejection” and you managed to online stalk me all the way into my inbox.

For your efforts, I’ll take it. But don’t even think this means you can sit at my table.

Message to the Estranged Cousin

Dear ___________,

Wow! I heard that you had disappeared somewhere in Mexico, so it was a shocking relief to see that you weren’t dead! It looks like some of your legal troubles have cleared up. And,  I’m really glad that the sex offender registry isn’t a total buzz kill! Watch out for the school zones (heyyyooo!).

Also, it appears as though you were able to get some tooth implants since I last saw you—lookin good!

Please don’t be offended that I am not going to list you as my “cousin.”

Really, it’s not you, it’s your felon status.

Message to a Grandparent

Dear __________,

Not that I wasn’t ecstatic to see that someone who was alive circa Hitler figured out how to use Facebook, but I must admit, I was a little confused when I saw your full name, not simply, ________, the name I have called you since before I graduated from the anal stage.

I had no idea your full legal name was  _____________      ___________________    __________________.

No really, I had to do some serious research to figure out who you were.

Also, I thought that Fox News had scared you out of using the Internet?

In any event, welcome!

I hope that you use FB to keep us updated on your ailments—Mom says your hemorrhoids are a pain in the ass (no pun intended). Also, please ignore my friend, _______. Those posts are definitely not representative of our routine banter—usually we are joking about puppies and sports, not circle jerks and rape!

Oh, and don’t ask me what “circle jerk” means. Remember how awkward it got when I said you shouldn’t use the expression “pearl necklace” so loosely?

Also, if you could, please refrain from using racial epithets on my wall. I know that things were “different back then,” and you never modified your pre-emancipation vocabulary, but (okay, don’t freak out!) I do have “colored” friends.

Love ya!
WWB

The last time I was in Seattle, I got arrested. I was 20 years old and flew in from Tucson to meet my family. On the second night, my younger sister and I were wrangled to go to a party somewhere in Bothell. If you are not from the area, Bothell is sort of like, the slums of the suburbs.

Everything at the party seemed pretty standard— cases of Bud Light stacked in the fridge, kids making out on the carpeted floor, pot smokers on the balconies, terrible 90’s house music. The situation was this:  some naively optimistic parents had moved out and left both an abandoned house and a teenager with keys.

As expected, the neighbors called the cops.

When the police came, they weren’t wasting anytime. There was a helicopter flooding lights through the windows and they surrounded the house. Some partiers ran, but I had hatched a boozey scheme to hide in a closet upstairs until they were gone. Alone, I listened as the cops busted down the door and the party hushed. I waited about a half hour, then when it was quiet, I snuck down the stairs. Just before I thought I was in the clear, I heard a cop yell, “Grab her!” While all the other kids were sitting on their hands like naughty school children, I was cuffed and thrown in the back of the cop car, like they had already seen my profile on America’s Most Wanted.

Since I was a drunk, a kid, and raised in the suburbs, at that moment,  I didn’t have a clear understanding of the legal system or, at the very least, how to mitigate the consequences of getting caught doing something illegal. This wasn’t like The Wire where kids in gangs and ghettos are taught to placate the police just to avoid some superfluous nightstick beating.  Ironically, I was slated to start law school the following year, but this did not help matters. Lesson being, when you don’t  *actually* understand Miranda or the 4^th Amendment, best not be trying to kick out the windows of a cop car and yelling about your rights.

They booked me and set the bail at $1000.00.

My biggest regret is the mug shot. I am crying, caught in a moment of weakness (very Lindsey Lohan). We still have copies of it, which my brother likes to occasionally post on Facebook to remind me of my indiscretionary youth. I think if I could do it over, I would be smiling or mocking the cops with a slight smirk as if to say, “Yeah, I’m busted. You can’t scare me. I like handcuffs.”

Truth be told, I was scared shitless: I had been stripped searched, fingerprinted and forced to wear what I considered to be a very unflattering orange jumpsuit.  Sobering up quickly, I waited the night for my parents to pick me up from the cell. In the meantime, I did a lot of handstands, which, apparently, were some indication of “crazy” and I got moved to the “padded room” (which is sort of a gymnasts dream, actually).

Ultimately I was charged with underage drinking and disorderly conduct, a fun little conviction I had to explain to the Minnesota Supreme Court when all of the police records were sent over in my application to the State Bar. Turns out, the reporting officer was very descriptive in exposing my character, including such lively quotes as, “You, officer, are a loser, ” and “I hate this fucking state.”

Even though Washington still holds my personal record for “longest time in one place” and I still have family there, I haven’t entered the state since my court date in 2001. When I was supposed to meet some friends in Seattle last fall, I turned around right before I reached the Washington border.  I think it was subconscious, as I contrived several other reasons NOT to go: too much work, the drive too long, and simply, I was tired of traveling. But, why did I make the drive all the way from San Francisco, through Oregon and only then make the decision to turn around?

Seattle is one place in a string of many that I have been avoiding.

Since returning to the States, I have thought a lot about the places I chose not to go. There were obvious refusals—I was in Turkey during the revolution in Cairo and was invited to tag along with some of those adventurous types who don’t mind being in war zones. In addition to the fact that it was dangerous and most Americans were trying to get OUT of Cairo, I couldn’t help but feel like I didn’t belong there, like if I actually showed up, it would be something like wedding crashing.

Last year, I had every intention of making it to Italy. And I was only a border cross away. Despite the fantasy of eating nothing but bread and pasta through Naples, Milan, and Rome, I couldn’t help but remember that psychic—the one who told me that I would fall in love with an Italian. After all the trouble I went through to get out of marriage, why would I want to go to fatefully fall in love again and (gasp) even settle with some sprightly Italian: “No love for me!  Even if by fate!”

I like to trick fate when possible. So yes, Italy seemed like a bad choice, regardless of how hot and young the psychic told me my new Italian lover would be.

Speaking of love, I avoided France because the last time I was there I was traveling with my French ex-boyfriend.  We had basically fought our way through Toulon, Nice, Cannes, and Monaco. For me, when I look at a map, France is like a black hole of baguettes and cigarettes, and films that I once loved. Now, there was too much associated, too much past wrapped up in my memories and my former life.  While part of me thought I could somehow “replace” older memories, I was also feeling too fraught about having to recall some of those frustrating (admittedly painful) experiences to even bother.

This is the same reason I hate Boston, although, to be fair, the subway system, accents, drivers, and it’s inferiority complex with NYC are also supporting my cause.

With freedom comes choice, and inevitably, too much freedom can impose unregulated questions: where would you go if you could go anywhere? Also interesting to consider: where wouldn’t you go? It seems a bit like the spots on the crossword puzzle that must be left negative, even with their potential.

Deciding to “arrive” has a lot to do with fantasy—and most of the time,  that fantasy will be destroyed. For example, I knew that Casablanca would never meet my expectations. Even though I was only a few hours away, I purposely never made an effort, wanting to maintain the vision I had of Humphrey Bogart and that iconic scene when Ingrid Bergman walks into the club: “ Of all the gin joints in all of the towns in all of the  world, she walks into mine.”

The truth was, I had already heard Casablanca was  a shithole, and I wanted to preserve my memory and fantasy—in black and white, the texture of the scratchy film, so much more  compelling than anything I could have experienced myself.

Sometimes, for this reason, I wish I had never been to New York (cue Jay-Z/ Alicia Keys).

I never made it to Eastern Europe either, even though I had a flight booked to Bulgaria and had planned several weeks of travel  through Poland, Romania, Hungary and Ukraine—last minute I backed out and flew to meet a friend in London instead. This seemed like a natural avoidance. A friend who used to live in Ukraine wrote me the following email the week I was supposed to begin my Eastern European trek:

Honestly, as a single woman, I don’t think North Eastern Europe would be all that much fun right now (but perhaps that’s what you’re looking for?). I don’t mean in terms of safety. I mean, it’s cold. Really cold.  And probably covered in snow. I spent a few very isolating months there when I first arrived. There’s barely any ex-pats, and most others don’t speak much English. There’s also almost no tourists until May–and those are mostly looking for sex. I say this only as someone who had to deal with the three single Western women I knew there complain constantly about what a paradise the place was for men (true) and what monotony it was for women (unless you’re into ugly uneducated abusive alcoholics who all look like skinheads).

Oddly, the part about “perhaps that’s what you’re looking for,” was kind of fitting. I remember thinking that I needed a masochistic, painful, kind of travel experience, something harrowing to remember, something to make me feel like I had really “been there.” Not unlike that 30 hour train ride from Saigon to Hanoi.

In the end, I couldn’t do it. I knew that my going to Eastern Europe was more about the kind of trying experience I could mark down—but I just didn’t care about that anymore—and truth be told, I was sick of being alone. And no uneducated, abusive alcoholic who looked like a skinhead was going to make that any better.

Then there were the places that just didn’t make the cut (this time), particularly India, a place that is to me, romantic, and not in a Slumdog Millionaire kind of way. Just that the food, the people, it’s religious diversity, and still operative caste system have always been compelling  (and jarring). I have a friend who was traveling south through India and got stuck on a train where everyone was sick. By the end of the trip, he was covered in vomit because the passengers above him were throwing up out the window. 

I had heard so many stories about traveling through India, that when I do go, I want to be ready.  Yes, like in Home Alone. Only instead of setting booby traps for crooks in the suburbs of Chicago, I am going to be getting malaria shots, brushing up on my knowledge of protozoan infections and figuring out how to avoid that puke-train.

I sort of like the negative space in the world, the places I haven’t been or seen, possibly more than the ones that have already been marked…some  will remain a mystery, that won’t be contaminated with realities, or stories, or marked by experience.  I like that whether I make it there or not, those places occupy a  place in my mind. There is something to be said about “being there,” but sometimes reality can be twisted, and leave a mark (and then, even more twisted, is memory.)