From http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/ef1ac182-6ffa-46ad-ad8a-b89fb1295ce1
A dramatic cry for attention from Cate/Invisigoth.
After the 2003 birthday letter went so well, I continued to see mentions of Cate Carter around Portland. I saw her on the street near an outdoor rental place one day. She was mentioned in a local paper I did computer work for. Some clients of mine knew her. A friend of mine who did not know we had parted phoned, asking about her when CLC applied for job. She was behind me once at a stoplight, took part in a crafts fair with a friend, that sort of thing. Having begun to suspect that she was not well, I avoided her, knowing that I was easy to find. When a client of mine suggested in November 2005 that I try hanging out on a social-networking site called Tribe for possible Macintosh consulting gigs, I was a bit surprised to see Carter there, but did nothing. She would see me eventually and contact me if she wished. I was not looking for trouble. How little did I know.
I had been on Tribe for a few weeks when my girlfriend asked me if I had contacted Catherine Lynne Carter (Kate Carter was now known as Cate). No, I responded. Why did she ask? “Because she’s got this weird posting on PDX that I think is about you.” Sure enough, the self-indulgent little twit had posted to the city-wide group under the headline “Personal Security Issue – Need Your Help.” “Dear Family,” it began: “An individual has popped up on Tribe in the last week who should not have access to my contact information,” asking that people “Please, please, please do not give out my phone number or address to ANYONE on tribe,” as if online hipsters gave such data to strangers. This was followed by her change of her screen name from “Cate” to “Invisigoth,” which struck me as very odd, and possibly some kind of self-serving trick.
Having done some actual stalking (the kind that involves a license and ends with a bullet and venison) I have never seen a prey animal sense danger and then announce itself. Some may bolt if approached, but first they freeze. What Carter was doing simply didn’t make sense. I had been on Tribe longer than she asserted. No reasonable person would do what she cautioned against. And why did she not simply “cloak” her profile? There are a lot of reasons for a computer person to be on a social-networking site, and a quick glance at my profile clearly showed I was looking for clients. Had I wished to, Carter has never been difficult to find. I mean, I have a degree in criminal justice, years of martial experience, and am a computer expert. Yet here she was ham-handedly claiming to be a victim. It didn’t smell right. When I contacted a friend and asked what to do, her advice was simple. “Nothing. She’s just playing the drama queen.” I agreed, and ignored her.
Shortly after the city-wide posting stunt, I received my first Tribe “invitation,” to attend a film screening for a project I’d heard of. A colleague of mine who had worked as a technical writer was in a graduate program where a group of PSU students inventoried potential agricultural sites; this “diggable city” project had been featured on KBOO radio, and fit into some long-term interests of mine. I RSVP’ed my acceptance (the third person to do so), and within twenty minutes was followed immediately by Cate. Upon closer examination, the person inviting me was Kevin Balmer, who looked online to be CLC’s boyfriend. Having recently been reading a book called “Peacemaking Among Primates,” I interpreted the invite as back-channel communication and attended the January 28 screening with my sweetie, clearly sitting dead in the center of the theater where I was easy to spot, find or avoid. When I was not approached at the screening I decided this was bullshit: No clients were worth such drama. For my own sense of poetry, I decided to leave Tribe and did so on Cate’s birthday, February 25, as a goodwill gesture.
During much of this Kevin Balmer, the boyfriend who had invited me, had intermittently been changing his avatar to one of him pointing a pistol at the viewer. Such puerility is fairly common on MySpace, but unusual on Tribe. Given Cate’s long history of gaining attention by calling for help, I considered the possibility that she was lying to Balmer, which annoyed me. As a man, I hated being so lied to, so decided to contact Balmer directly, man-to-man. My own brother had been inordinately fond of guns, and fools with guns kill the wrong people. I did not want Balmer getting all worked up, nor either of them living in her fictitious, self-serving fear. Whether this was a classic Karpman drama triangle or something else, I suspected that Carter was crazy, playing a game, or both.
One of the main reasons I could not figure out what Carter thought she was doing was because of the pseudonym she had chosen. “Invisigoth” is a character from an old X-Files episode, which originally aired in February of 1998. It featured an attractive, technically-savvy young woman who was being hunted by an omnipotent artificial intelligence who was out (if memory serves) to kill her and her boyfriend. I remember the episode clearly because watching it was one of the last things Kate and I did together, just before she moved out. Both of us had admired the wit of the name and Cate remarked that she would use that name if she ever needed to go underground. I made some joke that it wouldn’t work to escape my notice and she countered that she would never use it to avoid me. As a literature major from Reed College, I assumed that she would have remembered the character and the circumstances and the conversation. So if she was Invisigoth, was I supposed to be the AI? Why use that name if avoiding me? My clear assumption was that a sane person wouldn’t. She wanted attention, and was trying to draw me in. Fuck that, I said, and left Tribe.
A week or so later, out of respect for her and Balmer, I chose just one more small, parting gesture. I do so love poetry, and narrative completion.
Such gestures have long been my folly.
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/c2caa0d6-5488-4e80-a5a5-db763208aa70
http://askasexywomananything.tribe.net/thread/cadd5309-6f9d-4a7e-8e8d-f68cc09edc6e
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/6ade6ee1-ef37-4f4a-84c7-46d92c425e08
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/fa8692f1-7e81-4934-80a8-66239f2fa4a4
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/2b2ec689-57f0-4e53-8419-948901984656
http://askasexywomananything.tribe.net/thread/6f504dc0-21c0-4ef5-a89f-1466dcf61ac1
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/555af724-0e63-4da4-bd28-4cfa2a3281b2
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/8cf65f99-d9d6-4898-845a-e5d6e27328d2
http://people.tribe.net/rorybowman/blog/7c937de6-6148-468d-9636-243a6bcee4ba
Comment from C on Fri, July 18, 2008 – 8:05 AM
Crazy chix rawk ;-}
Reply to Comment on Sun, July 20, 2008 – 7:14 AM
They can be quite beautiful, and the early sex is often hot, but as a long-term strategy they are unsound. Cate and I were friends for many years before we fucked, and to lose a friend and gain a legal attacker was a questionable trade for a few months of hot, high-status sex.
If I had it to do over again, I suspect I would, but I would recognize the first legal attack as irrationality and have mourned her for dead then. I have thought about this quite a bit over the years, and I think the key information I was missing was her undisclosed drug use. I can forgive a lot of things, given her apparent condition, but the legal stuff is perpetual and designed to stand forever.
“Crazy chix” are frequently frightened and sadly unhappy. Her privilege will protect her somewhat as she ages, but I think she would be happier if she addressed these basic issues. I can guarantee she would be happier were she to call off her legal attack on me. This is not a healthy way to ask one’s friends for attention.
