a world made of trust
2004-02-01 : 5:06 p.m.

This melodrama with bluering isn�t as interesting to me as it apparently is to some other folks. It�s also not a particularly complex situation, as far as I�m concerned. Nevertheless, I suppose I should say a few things, lest my silence be misinterpreted. So, for whatever it�s worth, here goes�

Jill, the author of the bluering weblog, is a friend of mine. I met her through a mutual friend about a year ago, and I was immediately attracted to her sharp wit, intelligence, and good humor. The admiration seemed mutual, and we soon became good friends. We shared a lot with each other.

Jill introduced me to diaryland and the world of blogging in general. She told me that blueringexists so that she can develop characters and plot lines for a novel she�s writing. Since most writers I�ve known do a lot of developmental work in journals and diaries, this seemed reasonable to me. I also knew that she had a lot of readers, so I asked if she would add a link to this diary from bluering. She was extremely hesitant, and when she finally agreed, she insisted that I must never mention any concrete details about her, Jill Doyle, in this diary. Again, this seemed a reasonable request, based in privacy concerns, and on the whole, I honored it.

I became good friends with Jill, and also got to know her husband Robert and sister Jaime. I have been to her mom and stepdad�s house for dinner. I consoled her when she found out that Robert was having an affair. We went to craft groups together. We ate a lot of pie at Earl Ables. Some of her stories seemed a bit fantastical, but I couldn�t see any reason for her to lie to me, and I tend to extend a fairly unconditional trust to my friends. How else can you have a friendship? But more about that later�.

As I continued to write on this site, and have gained a reader or two, I have gotten to know a few other bloggers who I admire. Influence is one of them. I knew that he was a friend of Jill�s. She told me that he was in love with her, but that she had made it clear that nothing could come of it, she being a married woman. She told me that he had visited several times, and that they had slept together once (very recently). Still, I was careful to not discuss Jill with Influence. I figured that was between the two of them, and thought it best to stay out.

But I like the man behind Influence. He�s a good writer, and underneath the writing, I sense good humor and a degree of heart. That counts for a lot with me.

So we would occasionally email back and forth, mostly to discuss matters political and cultural. And then came the day when he left me a note saying he was coming to visit. I wrote back to say �I assume you mean that you�re coming to visit Jill; I hope we can meet while you�re here.� That�s it.

And he replied: �Why do you call Claiborne �Jill�?�.

And I suddenly felt dizzy. That�s when all the facts realigned themselves. That�s when I knew. He thought that the protagonist in bluering was a real person. He thought that was Jill. And when I pulled that thread, a lot of things came unraveled, because Claiborne is nothing like Jill. Claiborne isn�t a pseudonym. She�s a con.

Still, I didn�t want to overreact, so I wrote back to Influence requesting a few details about his relationship with �Claiborne�. I wanted to know if he�d ever met her, if he had a picture of her, and how old she was.

His replied astonished me. He confirmed that he believed Bluering to be a true account of this woman�s life (it is not). He believed her to be 22 (she around my age, and I�m about to turn 30). He said that he�d been trying to meet her for almost 2 years, but that she always had some insanely bad luck or hideous illness that prevented her from seeing him.

And then he sent me the pictures, and I understood why she�d always had to drag out some soap-opera tale of cancer or whatever to avoid meeting him. No two of these pictures were of the same person, and I was a little surprised that Influence hadn�t called her on that, but nevertheless there were common characteristics: long, flowing hair. Hard, lithe, young bodies. My stomach turned. This was just weak.

The Jill Doyle that I know would be considered obese in at least the clinical sense.

So Gene and I went back and forth. He was shocked, and hurt I think. There had been romance between them. While I felt dazed and disoriented, the bonds of affection that I had for Jill pretty much just blackened and withered without much pain. I have this peculiar reaction to prevarication. It is as if my affection is predicated on a degree of trust�and when the trust fails, whatever was built on it just evaporates. I feel a certain sense of vertigo as I come to terms with what is now a gap in my life, but�I�m not exactly broken hearted.

Nor am I angry, and I can�t emphasize that enough. It�s simply that the Jill with whom I was friends doesn�t actually exist.

If you�ve read bluering lately, you know that Jill is trying to spin this whole situation as if I am some self-righteous prick who has appointed himself the Truth Police. And if people think that, then I can live with that. �Self-righteous prick� is preferable to �compulsive liar� in my book. But for what it�s worth, I want to say that I didn�t set out to ruin Jill�s little double life in some crusade for honesty. I simply stumbled onto all of this, and then found out that I had been lied to. Lied to in a really big way. And yeah, that does smart a bit.

I may be old-fashioned, but here�s my take on this whole thing:

One�s public self is subject to verification. One does not in any significant sense own basic facts about one�s identity. The practical application of this principle is that when you tell one person certain facts about yourself, it is unreasonable to expect them to never discuss these basic facts with other people you may know. People are allowed to compare notes, which is why it�s better to at least have a consistent story about your self. You can tell wildly inconsistent stories about your self, but eventually a couple of your friends will get together. And then they won�t like you any more, because people don�t like to be lied to for no good reason. This makes people feel badly used. It makes them feel like chumps. And no one wants to be a chump.

Also, it�s generally important that most people tell the truth most of the time. There is no way that any of us can confirm more than a few details about a few people, so in the final analysis, the very possibility of a human social world depends on a basic principle of honesty. When faced with the need to verify everything about everyone, we would have no choice but to withdraw from one another and maintain only those minimal relationships necessary for material survival. And I assume that most of us want a lot more from that out of life. I do, anyway. And that, in my view, is why the timeworn and unglamorous principle that most of us, hopefully, learned in childhood holds true: honesty really is the best policy.

I am not the person to come to if you�re looking to sort all of this out. I�m not sure that the Jill Doyle I know is any more real than the Claiborne some of you may know, and in any case, I tend to think that the explanation for a lie is due from the liar, not the unfortunate chumps who discovered that they were being duped all along. I know that Influence has offered to provide proof of all this to anyone who wants it. I am not making the same offer, because it�s really not my problem any more. I was never out to crucify Jill or make a crusade out of this. I just happened to stumble on the truth. I�ve told Influence what I know, and if you�ve read this far, you�ve got the gist of it too. The rest is up to you.

I know that Jill and Jamie are both positioning themselves as victims of my self-righteous meddling, etc., etc. I know that Jill has posted all of my email addresses and phone numbers on bluering. I can only assume that this is intended as some sort of stab at me. Ironically, the very principle that makes this seem vicious is the idea that got her into this mess to begin with. The concrete specifics of my life aren�t secret.

I haven�t gotten any calls or emails yet, and while I would have preferred that she not post all that crap, if you are so overwrought by this tempest-in-a-website that you feel the need to contact me, I guess you can go ahead and do so. I would ask that you not call me before 5:30 PM central time, as I am at work. Don�t call me after 11 PM central time, as I am in bed. If I don�t answer, c�est la vie. I rarely pick up the phone when I don�t recognize the number. You can email me. If I have time, I�ll get back to you, though I must emphasize that I don�t really think I�m the one who�s obligated to explain all of this.

And when all is said and done, I probably don�t have anything very interesting to tell you. If you want to know about Jill Doyle, I can tell you whatever I know. Of course, that person may be no more real than the fictional character Claiborne. I suppose the only person capable of explaining all of this is Jill herself. Or maybe she isn�t really capable of that. I don�t know. And I don�t care, to be perfectly honest. I�m cutting my losses, trying to learn a lesson about gullibility, and moving on.

A word of caution: Apparently, Jill has a large number of email addresses, and is not above impersonating voices on the telephone. Also, she has floated so many cancer stories to various people that I�d refrain from extending much sympathy if all that comes up again. Her lies all have a couple of common themes: a) that she�s impossibly brilliant and fabulous and talented, and b) that she is a victim�of genetics, disease, bad relationships, men, whatever. No one understands her. Blah blah blah.

We�d all like to be brilliant, of course. We�d like to be the exception, the shining star.

And we�d all like to imagine that our problems are not of our own making.

In the last instance, though, every one of us has to face the truth about our lives: we are creatures of gifts and needs. Each of us is making his or her way through the world with his/her unique set of advantages and handicaps. If we�re lucky, the advantages average out the handicaps. And at some point, each of us has the opportunity to realize that most of our troubles are of our own making. And that hurts. But anyone who�s survived that realization knows that it becomes a gift of its own. We get to learn from our mistakes. We can wander through the world unburdened by the belief that our enemies are legion. We get to be ordinary people.

I guess that�s the heart of it. I love ordinary people. Jill didn�t need to be amazing, because I already liked her. But the lives of ordinary people are held together by trust and truth.

And when all in said and done, what else do we really have?

Updated: I got an email from Jill's sister Jaime (aka Raineforest) ripping me for what I've "been doing". Let me make something perfectly clear: I haven't emailed ANYONE except Influence about all of this. I didn't set out to discover this mess; Influence and I stumbled on to it. He posted the whole sordid tale on his diary, and I suppose everyone else took it from there. I can certainly understand being loyal to one's sister, but these paranoid hystrionics are unbecoming. Neither Jill nor Jaime are victims here.

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last 5 entries:
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because we can't have people DYING! - 2005-05-17
reality check - 2005-05-17
did you get that thing i sent ya? - 2005-05-17
liberals and their fancy "facts"... - 2005-04-26