Get Up, Stand Up

"Some people -- I swear -- they just won't leave me alone!!"

It's a few minutes before my improv class and I've run into a classmate, Melissa, in the ladies' room. She is red-faced and nearly in tears. "What??" I ask, "Who won't leave you alone?"

"You know who!"

The week before, Melissa had invited me to perform with her boyfriend's indie improv group. The boyfriend, Jack, had been a minor celebrity with a few bit parts in big films under his belt, so there was a nice crowd and some good talent onstage. I was honored to join them.

A few days later, I got a Facebook message from a woman named Lynette. She had been brought in to photograph the event and asked if I would like the shots she had of me. Since she was still building her portfolio, she said she would send hi-resolution images for free, as long as I credited her. I agreed and friended her.

We exchanged several more messages about photography and improv and the difficulty of photographing live performances. We were about the same age and had long histories in performing arts (she had been a model and was now transitioning into photography; I had been a comic/actor, now transitioning into improv and bellydance).

I found Lynette to be intelligent, thoughtful and funny. I shared some of my comedy and dance videos, which she enjoyed; she sent a few music videos she appeared in. She was quite a presence on screen -- focused, grounded, and breathtakingly beautiful.

The next day, I got a message from Melissa: "Hey...I just saw [Lynette] come up on your friends list so I have to warn you that this woman is a lil off," and to "please, just be careful ...b/c ...I would feel really bad since you connected with her through me."

This got my spidey sense tingling. I told Melissa I had had a pleasant exchange with Lynette about the photos and asked why she felt the need to "warn" me about her.

She wrote that Lynette had known Jack and his then-improv group many years ago and was an "obsessed fan ... who came to all of his shows and photographed him constantly. One day she just freaked out on him [over a photo]... and he asked her to stay out of his life." She continued to say that when Jack joined Facebook, "he accidentally friended everyone in his address book including her, and she started showing up at his shows again, obsessively photographing him and making him very uncomfortable..."

So now, since the events were public, she "just kept showing up" even though Jack had expressly told her to stay away and now she was "showing up at [their] friends' events on the chance of seeing him or [her] there." She ended the letter by saying, "We haven't yet shared this with everyone we know and asked them to help us keep her away but it's getting to that point. ... Whatever you can do to keep her out of my life (including unfriending her) would help me a lot to regain some peace of mind."

This put me in a tough spot.

I liked Melissa, though I didn't know her well, and while she seemed nice and I was glad to be invited to her boyfriend's events, she did strike me as a bit immature. Plus the person she was describing Lynette to be was completely out-of-line with the person I had experienced her to be.

I was also unnerved with the remark about "[sharing] this with everyone [they] know." She had pretty much called Lynette a stalker, which is a serious accusation (she later used that word directly). Had she sent others the same message she had sent me? This worried me ... because what people do to others they will eventually do to you. So it gave me pause about Melissa's character.

Add to that the fact that I had come to like Lynette quite a lot.

She and I had plans to meet for coffee the following week, and I was not going to do Melissa's bidding and unfriend her. Further I do not like to hide my friendships (or much of anything), so I wrote to Melissa that I had had several conversations with Lynette and had come to like her. It would be inexcusable for me to dump her without a reason that seemed viable to me.

I wrote: "[I've been] thinking about what you mentioned about her freaking out over the photo. My sense is, if she's obsessed with anything, it's with photography... maybe in the same way I'm obsessed with performing, and you know how I can get a little emotional in rehearsals... and I know that can put people off, although I don't mean to. So I was wondering, maybe she was just emotional about the photo because she cared about her work being good, and [Jack] took it the wrong way."

Then I asked if there had been any problems with Lynette lately and added, "I asked if she was coming to the improv show and she said she wasn't because she was asked not to, but she didn't say why."

Melissa responded that there hadn't been any problems with her, but that she'd prefer not to see her at improv events. "[But] I can't control what people do, so if she comes, she comes."

The next week I met Lynette for coffee.

We chatted about this and that, everything but the Elephant in the Room.

I don't even remember how it came up -- but of course, how could it not have come up? -- I think the conversation first went to Melissa. "She's pretty talented," Lynette said, "She has a warm personality on stage. Audiences like that."

I agreed. "Jack has good presence too. Doing improv has helped his acting a lot."

"Yes," I agreed again, adding, "You've known him for a long time."

"Yeah ... we used to hang out a lot. People used to think we were involved, but we never were. I've seen him go through quite a few girlfriends. I hope he treats Melissa better."

Uncomfortable silence.

"I mean. I just don't understand it..." she choked up a little.

"I know. People are strange ... why they ... um... decide to like who they like."

"Yes, but all of a sudden??"

"Well..." I shifted uncertainly. "It wasn't really all of a sudden. I mean... whatever the problem was between you and him in the past... he did tell you to stay away...and you kept coming... I mean, earlier this year..."

Her mouth gaped. "Whaa..? Wh- what are you talking about??"

"When you started showing up at their events this year, Jack told you... I mean ... he invited you accidentally.. I mean... Facebook..."  The words twisted around in my mouth, gummed by their palpable untruthfulness.

And Lynette saw it.

"No... no... I was invited. I mean, what do they think I am, a stalker?"

My breath caught and she saw it. God I am a bad liar.

"Oh my God? What did he say?" she pleaded, "What did he say about me?"

There was no backpedaling now, I realized. And it was a serious thing. She deserved to know. "It wasn't Jack," I breathed, "it was Melissa. She emailed to 'warn' me about you ... that you had been coming to their shows, that you had been told to stay away."

Tears swelled her large blue eyes. "Oh god... how could he do that? We were friends for years. I mean, yeah we had a falling out a long time ago... he yelled at me for no reason in front of everyone, so I walked away. But I ran into him at the Mermaid Parade last year and he gave me a flyer. And I figured, why not let bygones be bygones..." The words spilled out of her, dribbling to a long pause. ".... I-- I just can't... why would he do this? Did he say this to other people??"

"I don't know. I only know what Melissa told me."

"Do you think she said this?? Is she still saying this??"

"I-  I don't know."

Her face hardened. "I'll sue. This is defamation! They have no right--!!" Her voice trailed into sobs. I felt beyond awful.

"Look," I said. "Melissa's just a kid. Let me ask her what she's said. Maybe I can get her to undo any damage she's done."

"You know," Lynette added, "I was wondering why you were the only one who responded about the photos to that show! God!! I'm calling a lawyer tomorrow!"

"Please don't..." I fumbled, "Lawsuits are miserable. I know; I've been through them. Even if you win or they settle, it's really hard and expensive. And Jack and Melissa don't have tons of money, so all you will get is satisfaction of..." I couldn't even finish. I started wondering if the reason I was begging her off had more to do with protecting myself because I was in the middle of it.

But it was pretty certain:  Lynette's reputation had been damaged; she deserved something...

"He made me take down all the photos," she added quietly.

"What?"

"On the Wednesday after the show, Jack called and said I should stop coming to the shows..."

"I thought you said he didn't."

"You said he told me and I kept coming... I didn't. He called out of the blue and said I shouldn't come to photograph the shows anymore. That's why he asked me to come in the first place. He liked my photos..."

"He told you this?"

"Yes. He knew I was building my portfolio and would take pictures for free ... but that day, he called and told me to stop coming. And he made me remove all the photos... all the albums from every show... my whole portfolio..." She choked up again.

I realized, that Wednesday was the very day I'd found Lynette in the bathroom... all teary and red-faced because "people wouldn't leave [her] alone." But it was the other way around: Melissa had just gotten off the phone with Jack. It was she, I now realized, who had demanded in that moment that he bar Lynette from the shows, and it was she who insisted Jack force Lynette to remove all the photos.

It was Melissa who would not leave Lynette alone.

They had really hurt this woman. And who the hell knew why. Maybe because she knew his track record with women, or maybe Melissa was jealous to have a beautiful woman around who had history with her squeeze. But it was rotten.

In any case, it was clear she was far from the screaming banshee they had portrayed. Even suffering this awful blow, she handled it with dignity, rare vulnerability, even compassion for Melissa whom she feared was being manipulated by Jack.

"Let me talk to Melissa," I offered, "Maybe get a read on the damage..." Lynette shrugged. "I guess."

After our next improv class, I took the subway home with Melissa. As we waited for the train, I said, "Uh.. so you know I'm still friends with Lynette, right? That's OK with you?"

She nodded, "Yeah..."

"I have to say... what you said, about her being told not to come to shows ... that wasn't true."

"Jack said he did...."

"Well, she says he didn't ... not until the day he made her take down the photos. And she did that. And she stayed away. That doesn't sound like the way a stalker acts... does it?"

"I-- I don't think she's a stalker," Melissa shrugged, with a sheepish grin, "I just think she's a bitch."

Thinking about all this now, I should have walked away at that point. It was clear what had happened, who did what -- who deserved what, and who didn't. But I was cowardly, and I was new to improv and I liked working with this group.

And this is the central problem of being caught in the middle.

I went over the whole narrative in my mind. Melissa had asked me to dump Lynette... and I think that is what everyone else did whom she'd contacted about this. But I was the only one who had actually gotten to know Lynette. And besides, I really, really don't like being told what to do.

Melissa's urging me to unfriend her reminded me so much of a cliquey high school mean girl going, "Let's not like her!" But all too often I have been the "her" in question. How dare people form a bond by disparaging another. It's disgusting.

A few months went by. I began to distance myself from Jack and Melissa, socializing less with Melissa in class, not going to parties they'd invited me to, and turning up less on Jack's improv nights.

It was harder to pull away from that as I had begun to form bonds with other people in the group -- in particular with the unhappily married Evan, who was always the last to leave any party. One evening after a show, he and I chatted over beers into the wee hours.

Evan had known Jack nearly as long as Lynette; in fact, he said, she had introduced them to each other and to a third person who had formed their first short-form improv group "way back when." In other words, Lynette had been far more than a friend for many years. And there had indeed been a falling out. But this was not Lynette's "freak out" -- rather Jack had yelled at her for some trivial thing, as he had done to her and others before. She told him to go f*ck himself and walked away.

When she turned up at events earlier that year, Evan figured they'd buried the hatchet. And indeed they had; Jack had in fact continued to bring Lynette in as a photographer -- until Melissa decided she didn't want Lynette hanging around ... for reasons only Melissa knows.

Now it is one thing to decide not to have another person around; it is quite another to slander that person to effect this purpose.

Over those months, my friendship with Lynette deepened. She never mentioned Jack or Melissa again, but I knew the wound was still there, still bleeding, and maybe festering. I had convinced her not to sue ... but I had yet to convince myself that this had been the right thing to do.

One day I posted a date-gone-wrong story on my Facebook: I'd gone out with a guy to a bar. Within moments he was chatting up the woman to the other side of him. After four or five minutes of failing to get his attention, I called him a jerk, grabbed my coat and left. He chased me out of the bar, calling me a "Fatal Attraction Glenn Close stalker." I commented that it was amazing what people would say and do just to avoid acknowledging their own bad behavior.

Lynette chimed in, "I know exactly what you mean! Like, imagine being friends with a guy for years and years, and then one day he gets a new young girlfriend and then either she decides she's jealous and doesn't want you around or maybe he decides to have a problem with the fact that you've seen how badly he treats his girlfriends and doesn't want you to tell the new girlfriend. And so they decide to call you a stalker and tell other people you're a stalker, and the next thing you know a whole bunch of people you don't even know are believing this and you can't do anything about it. Imagine THAT happening to you!"

And there it landed ... a 10-ton megabomb right on my Facebook status.

I considered deleting it, but then decided to let it stand. First, the poor woman had held her silence for months. I had convinced her from taking legal recourse, and even from confronting them directly (they would not have listened anyway).

The woman deserved her due.

Plus, given the way she wrote it, without any identification of person or social circle, the only people who would know she was talking about Jack and Melissa were Jack and Melissa themselves -- and anyone to whom they'd spread the slanderous rumor that Lynette was a "stalker." If, indeed, Melissa had been telling the truth -- that I was the only person -- then there should be no problem.

But there was a problem. Within minutes, I got this message from Melissa:

"i can tell by some of the things that she said in that comment that you have been talking to her about me. you're the only person that i've described that situation to from my perspective as it was happening, so that's the only way she would understand it like that. i would appreciate it if you would take down her nasty comment about me and jack and also please stop talking about us."

Now this was strange for many reasons. First, the way Lynette described the situation speculated that Jack had a larger role in this than Melissa has ever admitted to (at least not to me); second, she complains that the comment was "about [her] and jack" -- but only she would know that, unless she had lied to me about spreading the rumor; third, her preoccupation that we were "talking about [them]" -- present tense -- signaled paranoia on her part.

In Melissa's world, everyone was talking about her; the reality was that she was talking about others.

It took a while for me to put all this together in my mind. At first, even though I felt she was justified, I was pretty upset with Lynette and felt she had abused my page to send a message to Jack, Melissa and their circle. I even wrote to Melissa that "I should have believed you more about Lynette" ... which I regretted moments after hitting "send".

In spite of everything there was still that part of me that wanted to smooth things over, to play both sides. But this is contemptible and cowardly behavior. I knew who was right and who was wrong in that situation, and if I had any doubts about it, Melissa's scathing response made it clear:

"What really bothers me is that I trusted you with my feelings and I asked you as a friend not to get involved with this person before you even knew her....and now, you've taken her word over mine, you've repeated to her everything that I told you.... You basically stabbed me in the back so you back develop your friendship with a manipulative liar. ... Well, good luck with that Carol. This is just a preview of the bullshit you can expect from that bitch."

Whoa.

Melissa, in fact, did not "trust [me] with her feelings"; she told me a vicious lie about someone who did not deserve mistreatment. What she "trusted" me to do was to uncritically accept her twisted version of reality, contradicting my own perceptions. That was the unforgivable "stab in the back" she could not tolerate. And I certainly didn't "repeat... everything that [she] told [me]" which I assume refers to her distorted account of events; and there was nothing in Lynette's comment -- beyond having been smeared to a bunch of people she didn't know -- to indicate I had.

Melissa's perception of Lynette's comment was filled out copiously by her own guilty conscience.

Curiously, shortly after, Melissa sent a long letter to Lynette apologizing for having disparaged her, and even admitting to having been jealous. What she was most upset about, apparently, was that Lynette had "stolen" me as her friend.

Suddenly I felt very bad for Melissa. A world ruled by petty alliances that require a very flexible approach to reality must be a sad and frightening one.

Needless to say, I was no longer welcomed by the improv group (which disbanded a year later anyway). I still continued to see Melissa in improv classes. After a few months, her stony cold shoulder was replaced by sheepish grins. We exchanged friendly words now and then, but were never friends again.

Lynette and I are still friends, though, and she has proven to be a kind and honest one, who holds true to her point of view and never shrinks from voicing her opinion regardless of whether it agrees with mine.

And in the end, what more can we hope for or expect from our friends?

Loyalty is important, but there must always be a greater loyalty to the truth and to justice.

I have always regretted not doing better by Lynette sooner; I should have confronted Melissa sooner, or told Lynette sooner ... or ... something. It is always a hard spot when one is stuck in the middle -- especially when one chooses that position, as I had.

But what good are we to our friends and indeed to ourselves if we can't stand up and try to do the right thing, even if it causes us pain in the short term?

We sign petitions and send money and join protests and raise our fists in support of great causes. But what good is all that when we allow cruelty and injustice in our own private spheres -- from the schoolyard bully to the harassing boss?

Standing up for truth and for justice will always make us a target; and sometimes, we end up a greater target than the person we are defending.

But it is still the right thing to do.