On the pilot episode of Without a Trace, a drama about an FBI missing persons unit, the team searches for a missing woman named Maggie. While interviewing Maggie's friends and family, the team becomes confused: each description of the woman is markedly varied. Maggie's boss praises her for her professionalism, but other evidence suggests she may have a drug problem and might be doing cocaine with someone from work. Maggie's dad insists she will come back soon and that his daughter tells him everything, but we find out Maggie just wants to get away from everyone for a while. Each conflicting report of the missing woman reveals only a role she plays for different friends and family. As Jack Malone observes: "“Everyone we talk to, we see a different Maggie.”
The idea that we put on masks for the people in our lives is certainly not new. It is how we assimilate. How we bend to societal constructions. How we socialize and interact with humanity. If we do not learn to behave appropriately, we do not fit within society. Yet how many of these personas are reflections of our identity and how many are creations? If I wear the mask long enough, do I become the monster?
After my first blog post last week, I felt exposed. I had vacillated between publicizing my posts and keeping them hidden, but eventually my need to be heard overwhelmed my need for privacy. Only afterward did I consider the repercussions: my masks would be torn away. The friend who had only known me as friendly and bubbly would now see the torment underneath. The mentor who had been proud of my accomplishments would now know how often I had failed. The ex-loves that I was trying to keep a brave face for -- see, I'm completely unfazed by your rejection of me! -- would know that I was fragile. Breakable. Broken.
Let's face it: we like the categories our friends fit into. We don't want our party friend moaning about heartbreak. Sure, we all know our funny friend may have hidden pain, but we don't want to hear about it. We don't want our friends who binge to diet, or our wandering friends to find their way. We want everyone to fill the needs we have, their own identities be damned.
Of course, this is oversimplified, but it brings home the point that our identities are fluid, our masks our constantly changing, and more than the difficulty of truly knowing anyone else is the impossibility of truly knowing oneself.
Right now I'm listening to Columbine by Dave Cullen, a painstakingly researched book about the high school massacre. What most impresses me (besides the fact that everything we know is wrong, and the mythic "outsiders against the cool kids" image was completely fabricated) is that Eric and Dylan were so, well, normal.
Such complexities don't fit into the archetypes we have about high school and its class structures, so the media and students created stories that made sense to themselves. To be sure, I think Eric was likely a sociopath, but that doesn't mean he wasn't charming. For his part, Dylan seems like a caring, if somewhat hot-tempered guy who followed Eric's lead in most things. Eric and Dylan both were sociable and intelligent. They had many friends, but none who knew what they were planning. In fact, the people they had hung out just days before were stunned to find out what the two had done. We never really know anyone.
Interestingly, some of their most candid conversations took place online. With the anonymity the computer provides, Eric was able to fantasize about a world without humans; he was able to speak what he had never spoken to most of his friends in person. It is now commonplace to look to a shooter's online posts after a rampage to find out the person's motives. While all the neighbors may agree that "he seemed like such a nice guy," the online rantings show the anger, confusion, and anxiety the shooter could not show his acquaintances.
This would be fine if the acts of atrocity took place online as well. But the barrier of the anonymous internet is remarkably flimsy, lousy at keeping the angry forum posters from exacting revenge in the flesh. While anonymity is enticing, in the end, we need the real connection. We make a date to meet our online chat companion despite our exaggerations or omissions. The implicit hope is that the relationship will flourish in the person as well: this is me, without my masks, and do you love me still?
In my book you are a good person. Human, to be sure, not a saint but a good person. By "good person" I mean that the world is a better place with you in it. My life is a better life with you in it. That opinion is not based on you being the bubbly fun girl whose distinctive laughter can be heard above the din of any party, but based on the experience that you have been kind, caring, thoughtful and a true friend. I don't know that any revelations here regarding past weakness, malevolence, or indolence will change my opinion.
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