It happened to us

Ken and I both recently read Alec Baldwin’s book A Promise to Ourselves, after I got it for him for Christmas. Baldwin describes his messy divorce with Kim Basinger, and his struggles when it came to maintaining a relationship with their daughter. Undoubtedly, he bore some culpability in things going wrong, and he does not deny that. However, what struck us both was his description of Parental Alienation Syndrome.

Many of you know that Ken and I went through something similar with his kids from his previous marriage. I have described at length some of the things that occurred as the alienation progressed. Ken has also written about Parental Alienation, but I felt the need to write about it as well. Like Baldwin, we both realize that there were some things we should have done differently, and would change if we could. For example, we felt that we were removing the stress from the kids by stepping out of the picture and letting them enjoy their high school years by not adding to conflict (which was occurring constantly with their mother); instead, it was portrayed as us not caring about them and “writing them off.” Simply untrue, but we had no idea that our actions would be portrayed as such. We also made it clear that we were not cutting off contact...numerous phone calls and messages left were unanswered, and email addresses were changed. We had no way of contacting them short of knocking on their door, and we were threatened by their mother that she would call the police if we did that. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

There is quite a bit of controversy surrounding Parental Alienation Syndrome. Some feel that it is not a legitimate syndrome, and it has not been included in the DSM, the diagnostic manual for psychological disorders. Some feel that it should be classified as a disorder rather than a syndrome, which if I understand correctly is a matter of one physical or mental abnormality versus a collection of associated abnormalities. I am not qualified to weigh in on which it is, but I can tell you that of the eight symptoms listed, we experienced every single one. Whether it is ultimately dubbed a disorder or syndrome, I would argue that it is very real. I will list them here, and give a brief description as to how it applied to our case. Some of these things we experienced via emails and phone calls. Others we gleaned through reading their mother’s blog, which was publicly available, both to us and to the children.

1. Campaign of Denigration

The custodial parent targets the noncustodial parent, often portraying the target as dangerous, angry, and mentally unstable. The target is blamed for the divorce, often labeled as “walking away” from the marriage and from the children. Phone calls are often refused and messages are not delivered, and the children are then told that the other parent never calls, or doesn’t care enough about them to call. Key events are not mentioned to the target parent until after the fact, as in, “He doesn’t care enough about you to show up,” although no notice of the event was ever mentioned. The target parent is often portrayed as not supporting them financially; in our case, although Ken never missed what was a substantial child support payment, it was written that many of the kids’ toys had to be sold in order to put food on the table.

2. Weak, Frivolous, and Absurd Rationalizations for the Deprecation

When asked about why they do not want to be around the target parent, the kids will often use nonexistent and exaggerated reasons. For us, it was that we were forcing them to do hours of yard work, or that the “lazy step-parent” (that would be me, I guess) was making them do all the housework. Ken was portrayed as some sort of angry monster, with one child expressing fear that he would hit them. That couldn’t be further from the truth, and further from Ken’s personality. For such thinking to have become entrenched, there could be only one source.

3. Lack of Ambivalence Toward Both the Alienating and Targeted Parents

Rather than the reality that everyone has both good and bad characteristics, the kids see the alienating parent as completely good and the targeted parent as completely bad. How could anyone love a monster that is completely bad? Even when evidence showing “good times” is presented, it is brushed off as the child putting on an act, or behaving in a happy way only because they were afraid of what the target parent would do to them if they didn’t act happy. For us, it seemed that all fun times—and there were plenty—were completely obliterated and forgotten in the shroud of anger at Ken and me. Fun vacations, being around loving family, Christmas and birthday celebrations, funny ghost stories told around a bonfire...all good things were negated and ignored.

4. The “Independent-Thinker” Phenomenon

Even when one parent is accused of alienating the child from the other parent, this is denied by the alienating parent. They say that they have always encouraged the kids to come for visitation, even when they didn’t want to come. The children pick up on this, and deny that the alienating parent is engaging in any sort of campaign of alienation. We heard this one verbatim, as in “My mom always encouraged us to come and see you, even when we didn’t want to.”

5. Reflexive Support of the Alienating Parent in the Parental Conflict

This often happens when parents make children feel as though they have to make a choice between the two parents. Ken never did this, but was accused of doing so. At one point, he told one of the kids that if they wanted to come and stay with us, they were welcome to. There was no, “If you don’t come stay with us, you don’t love me,” or any sort of coercion whatsoever. It was simply stating a fact that it was an option they could think about. Ken’s statement was portrayed as “putting pressure” on the children to move. This was undoubtedly framed to the children in such a manner, and Ken’s comment was portrayed as coercion and seen as a bad thing, while the alienating parent was portrayed as the victim. The alienating parent was sided with completely, and Ken’s remarks were seen as wrong and mean.

6. Absence of Guilt over Cruelty to and/or Exploitation of the Alienated Parent

There were many instances of the kids ignoring or forgetting Ken’s birthday or Father’s Day, even when we were seeing them on a regular basis. When he would try to contact the kids, his efforts were labeled as ‘harassment’ by the alienating parent. Ken got very few responses to emails, but would get requests for extra money for a new MP3 player, or for school trips, etc. In other words, contact was initiated only when something was desired. Even when these requests were granted, there was an attitude of entitlement. As the book states, quoting the psychiatrist Richard Gardner, who first wrote about Parental Alienation Syndrome:

Commonly they will say that they never want to see the hated parent again, or not until their late teens or early twenties. To such a child I might say: “So you want your father to continue paying for all your food, clothing, rent, and education—even private high school and college—and yet you still don’t want to see him at all, ever again. Is that right?” Such a child might respond: “That’s right. He doesn’t deserve to see me. He’s mean and paying all that money is a good punishment for him.”

Even after Ken received letters from both children saying that they did not want him in their lives (one of the letters addressed him as “Ken,” not as “Dad”), he was denigrated for removing one child from health insurance when they graduated from high school. I believe it was something like, “Fuck you, asshole. I’m sorry I have your last name.” In their mother’s blog, Ken was portrayed as loving money so much he didn’t want to pay for their health insurance or college costs (although we were willing to do that if we’d had any contact with them). Our feeling was that once they were legal adults, if they wanted nothing to do with either of us, why would we continue to voluntarily give them money?

7. Presence of Borrowed Scenarios

In this case the children will often describe situations with the target parent that they would have no way of experiencing, e.g., an argument that occurred between the alienating parent and the target parent with no one else around, or describing the circumstances of the divorce without knowing all the details (“You abandoned me.”). False accusations might also be leveled against the target parent, especially accusations of abuse, including sexual abuse. In our case, the accusations were made not against us (although for all I know, they may very well think that now), but someone we had befriended who previously had a place in the children’s lives. Because we had befriended this person, we were said to be horrible people, because that person had “abused them.” This was the first we had ever heard of it. If such abuse was going on, why wasn’t Ken informed before, either by the children or by their mother? Ken would have taken immediate action to remove them from the situation and from the abuse. If such abuse was going on, why did their mother keep them in such a situation? These are legitimate questions, and we never received any answers. We remain unconvinced that any “abuse” took place.

8. The Spread of the Animosity to the Extended Family and Friends of the Alienated Parent

Both Ken’s small family and my larger one were subjected to this aspect. Ken’s family was portrayed in writings as “dysfunctional,” and I’m sure that was said in front of the kids. My parents were called “pseudo grandparents” and it was written that they should stop calling the house (my Mom would call to wish the kids a happy birthday) and “disrupting” their family. The kids’ godparents, our friends Kim and Steve, were personae non gratae (I believe the actual quote was, “They are dead to me now.”), and the kids’ mother wanted them to have no contact with the kids. My sisters were also left out. These were all people who would be positive influences in any child’s life: a WWII veteran, a woman who grew up in the Depression, a former police officer, a woman who had lived through life-threatening illnesses, a science teacher, a community college teacher, a museum director, a nurse...all good people who could have provided positive feedback and support for the kids, and possibly career advice and help. Ken and I aren’t chopped liver, either...an engineer/project manager and a medical technologist/microbiologist could have helped with science classes or careers. The systematic dismantling of our relationship with the kids extended to these good people, too, and I can honestly say that it is a loss to the children. The more positive influences in a child’s life, the better!

Those are the eight points, and as I said at the beginning, we experienced them all. As I was reading through that chapter, my responses were something like, “Wow. WOW.” I told Ken, “All of these happened. Some of this stuff we heard verbatim!” It was quite an eye-opener for me. Although I know it has happened to others, including some in my own family, I had never seen all the symptoms laid out like that, and to have them apply so perfectly to our own situation was astonishing. It made me feel like someone really understood what we went through, and at a level of detail that was amazing. I actually tweeted to Alec Baldwin to thank him for writing this book!

We bear no animosity towards the kids. We understand that they were manipulated to a degree that even they don’t realize. Our hope is that one day, the anger will fade, and their eyes will be opened the way mine were when I read this book. It is so tempting to send it to them, but I doubt that they would receive it...or be receptive to it, for that matter. But as long as I live, I will never understand any person who is so lacking in self-awareness and so unable to put their own feelings of hurt, anger, and bitterness aside that they would systematically destroy a relationship between their own children and their father, someone with a strong work ethic, a sense of compassion and generosity, and an all-around decent human being.

THAT is unforgivable.

Getting it horribly wrong

Yesterday, we got a piece of good news out of Ohio, when the judge found the two high school football players in Steubenville guilty of rape. It was a horrible incident, with a 16-year-old girl drunk, passed out, and violated by two young men. Some of the super geniuses involved decided to take pictures and video, and you know the rest.

The fact that they were guilty was the good part, but CNN and other news outlets had to go mess it up by talking about how these boys got good grades and now their lives are ruined and they have to register as sex offenders and blah di fucking blah.

Seriously? As if they had no culpability in this matter? As if they were good kids who just...got caught being rapists? What the hell was the point of this bizarre defense of these two rapists? If they didn’t want their lives messed up, perhaps they shouldn’t have, you know...RAPED A GIRL.

This is nothing new. We’ve heard it all before. “She shouldn’t have gotten so drunk.” “She shouldn’t have been out that late.” And that extra-special one, “She shouldn’t have dressed like a slut.” It’s called blaming the victim, and I’m sick of it. How about we start blaming the rapist instead of the woman? Let’s understand, once and for all, that rape is a crime of violence, not one of sex.

This is offensive enough to women, but men should find it equally as insulting. It implies that they are idiot creatures who have no control over their testosterone, and are driven simply mad by the sight of a woman in a short skirt. If I were a guy, I don’t think I’d appreciate being thought of as that stupid and out of control.

It’s a dumb argument on both sides, and it’s time to alter the discussion. Instead of slut-shaming or portraying men as a bunch of dumbasses who can’t control themselves, let’s start sending the message that rape is rape, and it is always wrong. It’s not wrong only if you get caught, it’s not wrong only if the woman is aware enough to fight back, it is wrong. From the time I was a young woman, I was taught to stay out of dark alleys, not walk anywhere by myself, and to not dress provocatively. This is the wrong conversation and the wrong audience. Start teaching young men at an early age that it is. Wrong, wrong, wrong. What is so difficult about this concept?

If we have failed these young men, it is a failure of our society and culture. The message needs to be sent early and often: not to young women about dressing appropriately, but to young men about respecting boundaries and understanding that an assault is always wrong, no matter the circumstances. The blame is not on a woman for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is squarely on the shoulders of those who assault her. That includes those two young men, sobbing so pitifully in court. Their lives are ruined? I would imagine that it would be more than a little disturbing and ruinous to see the video of your sexual assault all over YouTube.

Shame on the media for driving this false perception and feeding the “oh, those poor boys” paradigm. Time to change the conversation.

The Return of the Grifter

Because I’m a glutton for punishment, I’ve been watching a little coverage of CPAC, the conservative conference going on right now in Maryland. I can’t watch much of it—one can only handle so much negativity and lunacy—but I watched Sarah Palin’s speech earlier today.

You haven’t seen me write much about ol’ Scarah lately, and that has been for a couple of reasons. First of all, I don’t like wasting blog space on her or giving her any attention whatsoever. (That is why I’m not including a picture of her here, even a funny one. So here’s a moose instead.) Secondly, there really hasn’t been much to write about. She has pretty much faded from the scene, even losing her job on ClusterFox. The biggest news about her lately is that “she” is “writing” another book, this one about the nonexistent “war on Christmas.”

But she got invited to CPAC, so I watched and took notes.

The specifics really don’t matter, because there were none. There was the usual stuff about Obama taking our guns away, the cornpone delivery with lots of “ain’ts” thrown in, the hockey mom jokes (is Piper playing hockey now?), gimmicks like pulling a Big Gulp out from under the podium, taking a swig, and making fun of Mayor Bloomberg, a stale TelePrompTer joke, a delivery that almost sounded like baby talk, and of course, plenty of Obama-bashing. She told a joke about Todd getting her a gun rack and him getting a gun: “He got the rifle, I got the rack!” Gross! What woman who wants to be taken seriously tells a joke like that? “Washington has become a reality show,” said the woman who had her own reality show and a daughter who appeared on a reality show and then had HER own reality show. She ridiculed green energy and mentioned the bogus “Obamaphone” claim. At one point, she channeled Joe Wilson and said, “Barack Obama, you lie!” At another point, she compared President Obama to Bernie Madoff.

In other words, she was tossing out chunks of bloody meat to the crowd, and the poor saps were just eating it up. It was pretty disgusting, and I was reminded all over again why I despise Palin. However, I take consolation in knowing that she really is essentially irrelevant now. Idiots will keep contributing to her PAC, and she’ll spend a fraction of it on actual candidates and the rest on “expenditures.” But her time as a political contender has passed. As Ken said, she’ll never run for national office again, because she’s just not smart enough. I’ll add that she also doesn’t want to work that hard. I’ll give credit where credit is due: she knows how to work a crowd. But so do pro wrestlers, and she has about as much legitimacy.

I’m sure that plenty of her supporters will continue to clamor for her to “Run, Sarah, run!” Personally, I would love it if she did. Not only would it be an endless source of amusement, but if by some bizarre chance she ever got the nomination, it would guarantee a Democrat victory. (I actually had someone ask me, “Why do so many liberals want her to run? She’s obviously a conservative.” Yeah...not the sharpest tool in the shed there, are ya, Skippy?) I find it a little sad, though, that so many people continue to love and support her and want her to run...and she just sits back and rakes in their money. She’s never going to run, you sad, sad people. But she’ll be happy to continue taking your cash.

So that was the brief return of the Governor. I suspect we won’t hear much from her going forward, other than a book tour for “her” book. You won’t read anything about her here again, either, unless she generates some genuine news.

Senator McCain, this is your legacy. You will be remembered for several things, some good, some bad, but one of the main things will be that you were the one who foisted this vapid, vindictive, greedy grifter upon the country, and put her within a stone’s throw of the Presidency. It is to our great fortune that you did not succeed, and it will be to your lasting shame that you even tried.

Beth’s Music Moment: Sympathy for the Devil

I’ve been very busy lately with getting our Route 66 photo book done, and I’m finally on the last steps: proofreading and uploading. I’ve missed writing here on this little blog o’ mine!

I’ve also been paying close attention to what is going on with the Rolling Stones. I’ve heard from those who keep their ears to the ground that after their five 50th anniversary shows, they would be doing a U.S. and European tour, and sure enough, it was reported by Rolling Stone a couple of days ago that they will be doing 18 shows in the U.S., and Glastonbury in the U.K. Ken and I will be going, no matter where we have to go!

So I’ve been on a bit of a Stones kick lately, listening to the remastered “Some Girls” and their latest greatest hits compilation, “GRRR!” One of the songs on the latter is my favorite Rolling Stones song, and it is, in fact, my favorite song of all time! (Feel free to insert echo there.) I could have sworn that I’ve written about this song before, but I couldn’t find it, so forgive me if I am repeating myself.

“Sympathy for the Devil” is THE perfect song, in my opinion. It begins with just percussion, a beat that makes you start to move a little bit. Then we get to the lyrics, sung in Mick’s tasty baritone:

Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and fate

I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moments of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game

I stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the Czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain

I rode a tank
Held a General's rank
When the Blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
What's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah

I watched the glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the Gods they made

I shouted out
"Who killed the Kennedys?"
Well after all
It was you and me

Let me please introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah

Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails just call me Lucifer
I'm in need of some restraint

So if you meet me, have some courtesy
Have some sympathy and some taste
Use all your well learned politics
Or I'll lay your soul to waste, mmm yeah

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, mmm yeah
But what's puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, get down
Woo hoo, ah yeah, get on down, oh yeah

Tell me, baby, what's my name?
Tell me, honey, baby guess my name
Tell me, baby, what's my name?
I'll tell ya one time you're to blame

I remember that in my youth, this song was condemned as being “satanic” and “glorifying the devil.” I guess it’s an easy mistake to make, considering the title. But if you spend any time listening to the song and paying attention to the lyrics, you’ll find that it is not sympathetic whatsoever. It is, in fact, a condemnation of our own actions. “I shouted out who killed the Kennedys, when after all, it was you and me.” The song builds slowly, with the instruments gradually joining in, and then the background vocals kick in. It is one of the most insidious, subtle songs I’ve ever heard, and it is perfection. A few minutes in, if you’re not dancing, you’re dead.

The cleverness of the lyrics, mentioning Jesus Christ and Pilate, the Bolshevik revolution, the evil of the Third Reich, the assassination of JFK and RFK. The mention of the kings and queens and the “gods they’ve made.” The ultimate indictment of us all: “Every cop is a criminal, and all the sinners saints. I’ll tell ya one time, you’re to blame.” Man, how perfect is that? And how true?

I do not subscribe to the belief that Satan is the one causing evil on our planet. That is purely our own doing, and this song articulates that perfectly: we invented Satan to explain our own flaws and our own capacity for hatred and evil. WE are what is evil in this world, and there is no sympathy for us, as long as we allow the evil to continue.

“Sympathy for the Devil” is everything that is right and true in rock and roll. It’s not just a great groove...it’s the basic truth of the world distilled into less than ten minutes. It is my favorite song.

The Party in the Plastic Bubble

I was intrigued this past weekend to see the start-up of a new social community website. I won’t give it any publicity here by even mentioning its name, but it caters to those who are politically right wing. It seems that the folks who began this site, and those who are embracing it, feel that they are subject to “liberal bullying” on sites like Facebook. Some tell tales of being reported and banned on Facebook, so they feel they have found their Interwebz “home.”

First of all, Facebook doesn’t easily ban people. If you post nudie pics, you’ll probably be warned to cut it out (but I’m guessing these folks aren’t into nudie pics...at least not publicly). If you post hate speech or pictures that show abuse, you will be banned. If you advocate violence, you will be banned. But you really have to be pretty in-your-face about it before they ban you. I’ve reported racist pages, and it’s hard to get them removed. So I’m not sure what these right wing folks have been doing in order to get banned from Facebook, but it couldn’t have been by posting pictures of kittens, okay?

Out of morbid curiosity, I checked out the page. Based on what I saw there, I would guess that some of them may have been banned for hate speech or for advocating treason. There are people there who think it would be a fine idea to kill all the gays. There are some who think it would be an equally fine idea to take up arms against the federal government, apparently not understanding that that is the definition of treason. There are a whole bunch who like to post photoshopped (or as one person put it, “photobombed”) pictures of the President, and like to speak of his wife as “Moochelle.” Well, I guess there’s no law against grade school humor, is there?

I don’t doubt that there are people there who genuinely love our country. We just have different opinions on what that means and how we want to solve our problems...even what our problems ARE, for that matter. I don’t demonize folks like that. I just recognize that we have a difference of opinion. I’m afraid that not too many of them would feel the same way about me, though. I’m one of those “libtards” they like to talk about, and they seem to think that I’m a socialist. (I do not think that word means what they think it means.) And for the record, although I have plenty of friends who like to use terms like “Republitards,” I try to stay away from such name-calling. I do sort of like “teahadist,” though.

Anyway, this site is one of those mildly amusing things to me, like an odd little bug that I watch trundling around for a while. It strikes me as the social network equivalent to the conservative version of Wikipedia. Again, I won’t promote that “pedia” here by mentioning its name, but it was formed by conservatives who felt that Wikipedia had a liberal bias. It is laughable in its lack of facts and complete revision of history and even definitions of words. A five-minute glance at this network shows numerous misleading stories and many outright lies easily disproven by a quick online search.

So I’m not all hot and bothered by the existence of this site. [Side note: I wonder if Mark Zuckerberg might be a little bothered by it, though? It copies the Facebook format almost exactly. I don’t know what kind of copyright Zuck has on the Bookface, but I’m sure he and his lawyers are already aware of this site. At not even 100,000 members so far, I’m not sure how worried they’ll be about it, though.] What bothers me the most is the “You guys are mean so I’m taking my ball and going home” mentality.

We are all guilty of confirmation bias. We tend to gravitate towards those individuals, news organizations, and websites that confirm our own feelings. I’m guilty of it myself, and try to fight my bias. While I don’t listen to people like Limbaugh, or read Glenn Beck’s rantings (there is reasonable discourse and then there is the hatemongering of Limbaugh...and then there is the completely paranoid ramblings of Beck), I do try to pay attention to the other side and to their arguments. I can’t say that I agree with them very often—if ever—but I try to make sure I stay exposed to the ideas and policies they espouse. That’s not really hard to do here in red Indiana, believe me!

The gathering of conservatives on this new social network is nothing more than circling the wagons and saying, “I don’t want to deal with any opinions other than my own. I want to reinforce my opinions, and I don’t want to deal with anyone who challenges them.” This is an insular view that fosters intellectual stagnation, as well as condemnation of those we perceive as “others.” It does not promote the finding of common ground, and it is exactly what has caused the cogs of our legislative branch to grind to a halt.

This benefits no one, and this does not benefit the country. There is nothing wrong with people joining organizations that promote their cause. But when you remove yourself from all dissenting opinions, you are closing yourself off from a large portion of the country...and from reality. Outside the Republican bubble, there are people who think that universal background checks will not lead to the confiscation of all guns. Quite a few of us think that marriage equality will not lead to the breakdown of society. And there are plenty of us who feel just as strongly, just as passionately, that we have a great country, one that we can continue to make better for ALL Americans. If we don’t buy into the “We’re Number One!” mentality, it’s not because we don’t think we have an exceptional nation...it’s because we recognize that in many areas, we are NOT #1. This is reality, and we want to improve on that.

Running away from facts and numbers, and surrounding yourself with those who believe exactly the way you do and who reinforce those beliefs is not a solution. It is merely a way to calm your fears and soothe you because there are plenty of others who share those beliefs. That may be true...but a network of 100,000 or so does not a majority make. Getting away from Facebook doesn’t mean that all those people just go away. We’re still here, we still discuss amongst ourselves, and we still are working on our own agenda. You might want to pay attention to that.

Today was a good day

Despite the frigid temperatures here today, I was feeling all warm and fuzzy as I watched President Obama’s inauguration ceremony. I’ve been watching all day. The CNN coverage I’m watching now is incredibly annoying, but I’m going to keep watching.

I was very pleased with the President’s inaugural address, and most of my fellow progressives were also pleased. It reminded me all over again why I supported him early on. It was after I read The Audacity of Hope, and I felt that he articulated perfectly the direction in which I wanted our country to go. I liked and agreed with his vision then, and I still like and agree with it. I remain hopeful that he will be able to get several important things done in this term, and I will do all I can to support him.

A happy day. Here’s to a productive and prosperous four years, and beyond...for ALL Americans.

Breaking radio silence

My next entry was going to be about the fun time we had in Miami during the weekend of the BCS championship game (except for the three hours of the game!), but I managed to dick around for a couple of weeks and not get it written, so now I need to write about this big scandal involving Manti Te’o and his fake dead girlfriend.

::sigh::

As soon as the story broke, I had friends messaging me and posting to my Wall on Facebook asking for my reaction and thoughts. My initial reaction was to wait and see what else comes out about it...this is an ongoing story, and I think there is still much to learn about it. I actually had to say that I was not taking any questions on it at this time! I didn’t want to comment until I learned more about it, and there are more and more reports coming out that made me decide to write about it.

I’m not going to go into details about what has been reported so far, or any sort of timeline about what was said by whom and when it was said. There is plenty out there about it, and it’s all a Google search away for you. Suffice it to say that it’s one of the biggest sports stories at the moment, and if you follow sports or watch any news at all, you’ll have heard about it. What it comes down to is whether Manti was complicit in this hoax, or whether he was the victim of the hoax.

I’ve read quite a few things that have said that there is no way he wasn’t involved in it. I’m going to have to disagree with that, and this comes from gut instinct based on what I’ve heard and read about the guy, and on my own personal experience with online relationships.

First, I’ve watched this kid play for four years. You tend to hear things in South Bend about whether a player is a decent guy or a jerk; I have never heard a bad word about Manti. Everyone who knows him says that he’s a good guy. My impression is that he is a kind and decent kid with a strong work ethic and a good heart.

Second, many have questioned how anyone could be taken in by an online relationship like that. I’m here to tell you that it is entirely too possible, and I speak from painful and personal experience. One of the reasons that this story has gotten to me the way it has is that it has dredged up some hurtful memories.

Several years ago, I entered into an online correspondence with a minor celebrity. (I won’t tell you who it was, although some of my close friends know. He’s the reason my Bacon Number is 3.)  It was quite exciting and flattering to have the attention of someone on TV and in a few movies. My situation was a little different, because I did eventually end up meeting him a few times when he stopped to see me during his travels. I saw lots of things online about him having similar correspondences with several other women, but I just ignored all that and didn't believe that it was all true. Stupid, right? Yeah, when I look back now, it was, and I could just kick myself. I really wanted there to be more there than there was, so I ignored my good sense and just went along with it. I guess I knew deep down, though, that something wasn't right, because although he came to see me a few times, I never got a phone call from him. NOT ONE. Finally, I had had it and sent him a rather nasty email saying something to that effect (I believe it was “How come I have never gotten one single fucking phone call from you??” or something similar), and then he stopped responding to any of my emails. Just a complete cut-off.

A mutual friend told me that he told her that I was "mean to him" so he stopped writing to me. ::eye roll:: Whatever. I eventually got vindication when he wrote me a letter maybe a year later and apologized, hoping we could be friends again, and he promised to be a "better friend than he was a boyfriend." I was still angry and hurt, and was engaged to Ken by that time, and I told him that I wished him well, but please do not contact me again. That felt pretty good! I've gotten a little more mellow as I've gotten older, so I do genuinely wish him well.

Anyway, I write about this to illustrate that good, intelligent people can be deluded into believing things that others would look at and say, "What are you THINKING?" There are malicious people out there who know exactly what to say to sucker someone in, especially someone who is sort of gullible and trusting. This happened to me when I was in my thirties, so here you've got this college kid, 20 years old, a Mormon, sort of insulated as a star on the Notre Dame team...I can see how he got suckered into believing this was real. He wanted it to be real, he wanted to make that connection with someone who understood him...I don't know their motivation for doing this, any more than I know the motivation for my online friend who liked having plenty of chickens in the henhouse, if you know what I mean and I think you do! I guess maybe the attention? I really don't know.

I think you all know me well enough to know that I stand up for myself and don’t take shit from anyone. So it IS rather embarrassing to me that I took that sort of treatment for as long as I did. I can see why Manti is embarrassed about being duped that way. This happened to me about 15 years ago, and it still makes me cringe that I was so gullible and so willing to believe that there was more there than there really was. Older Beth wants to kick Younger Beth in the ass and say, “Wake up!”

There are a lot of us who want to believe the best of people. I’d honestly rather be this way than have a hard heart and be cynical and untrusting. But there is a price to be paid for that sort of mindset. We are vulnerable to being played for suckers, and that sort of experience only comes with time...and occasionally with painful lessons.

I think this is what is playing out for Manti right now. I could be wrong, and believe me, I’ll be the first to admit it if I am. My heart just aches for this young man, and I hope that my gut instinct is right in this case. I know how much such a betrayal can hurt, and how angry it can make you at yourself for your gullibility. We have yet to hear anything further from him other than his initial statement, and I hope he speaks sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt. Because I’ve been there.