Go Ask Ali

by Ali Wentworth

  My fourteen-year-old daughter forced an account upon me a few months ago, which is the source of endless frustration because I don’t even know my own password and I keep accidentally posting things twice. Okay, I confess: I was so intrigued by my friends’ posts of blooming gardens, homemade apricot chicken dishes, and selfies in front of the Caribbean sunset that I was happy to sign on. There was a voyeuristic quality I found enticing. You gotta keep up with the Joneses (and their friends and their friends and their friends). And soon I was following people I’ve never met! I didn’t even know what city they lived in or their full names, but I knew they got a new puppy, liked competitive bike riding, and were overly invested (to a disturbing degree) in their Halloween costumes. My daughter signed me up to follow some Victoria’s Secret models (new icons to our youth), which does wonders for any middle-aged woman’s ego. Nothing like walking the dogs in baggy sweatpants and a retinol face mask while you scroll through images of bikini-clad models doing yoga. Why am I wasting my time, time that could be used to clean out my kids’ closets or get those cavities filled, on the idealization of COMPLETE STRANGERS!?! Because it’s addictive? If more than five hundred million photos are being uploaded every day, we all (as a culture) obviously need to communicate this way. Yet how disturbing it is that we allow our emotional well-being to be determined by how many followers we get. That is a dangerous, slippery slope. (By the way, if you’re reading this, please follow me @TheRealAliWentworth. My whole worth depends on it.)

  The performed lives we see on Instagram are heavily curated. And not true. It’s an opportunity to play “Whose life is better?” and the stakes are high because this game can lead to isolation and despondency. What are we all trying to prove? We know it’s a farce; they know they’re posting a form of fiction. . . . When was the last time you saw a post of someone in the throes of food poisoning or crying on the toilet? Or any sliver of authentic life? It’s like being blasted with everyone’s Christmas card fifty times a day.

  Before long, everything becomes an opportunity for a brilliant Insta and it doesn’t even matter if you have acne, blemishes, or just don’t like your freckles—there’s a filter for everything! There are apps like SkinneePix, which will shave off fifteen pounds, and DXP, which will make you look dreamy. With all the warm filters and aesthetic manipulation at your literal fingertips, you can just photoshop your life!

  I posted (approved) pictures of my daughters surfing and laughing uproariously while we all shucked corn last summer. Each post was meticulously chosen to present the Merchant-Ivory version of our life. (My girls would call it the Kardashian version.) Even my lawn looked lusher and greener, courtesy of the Perpetua filter. I didn’t post my fourteen-year-old daughter having a complete meltdown when I interrogated her on the whereabouts of her summer-reading book report, or the face her sister wore while she gave me the silent treatment for canceling a sleepover. Nor did I zoom in close enough to betray the fact that my lush lawn was sprinkled with dog shit. My life presented like the cover of Southern Living magazine. And I live way up north.

  I have a routine to the start of each day. First I awake in a panic—was there a terrorist attack, did I take my pill last night, did I remember to buy maple syrup? My ritual also includes spending as much time in my pajamas as possible. My children are usually still asleep when my alarm goes off at 6:00 a.m. most days of the week, most months of the year. Year after year. I pitter-patter to the kitchen to fill my GMA mug with PG Tips and sugar and cream. No food to accompany it. Just tea. (Don’t worry, a huge amount of carbs comes later.) And then I start with emails. Sometimes followed by a quick swipe through Instagram. Then news. Okay, I do a drive-by on Dailymail.uk.com.

  One morning, however, I settled into a rattan chair on the porch and fell straight down the Insta hole. Perhaps because it was summer and the posts were particularly luminous, sprinkled with exotic travel shots. I had a plethora of people I followed: my besties, interior designers whose style I covet, and a few celebrities (just to remind me how mundane and monotonous my own life was). At warp speed I robotically hit the little heart symbol on every photo I passed. And then I stopped at a snapshot of a party. I recognized everyone in the pic. I was head scratching over the name of one particular man, then tapped on the screen and got full recognition. (Instagram actually names names.) Why was he there; the hostess doesn’t even like him? Everyone was beaming, holding wineglasses, arms draped across one another’s shoulders. I felt that pang in my stomach. Why wasn’t I in the photo? Where was I? SAD EMOJI, SAD EMOJI, SAD EMOJI! I hadn’t felt that gutted since I was in middle school and spotted Lucy’s birthday invite (which I never received) smack in the center of Sadie’s ladybug-themed bulletin board. Perhaps I had underestimated my place in the world.

  I’m not a person who likes to dwell on unhappy feelings. Someone once told me that if you let a negative thought fester in your mind, it will eventually turn into brain cancer. And I don’t want brain cancer.

  So I called the hostess of the affair that, in my mind, had become the greatest dinner party (next to Capote’s black and white ball) to ever take place.

  “Of course you were invited!” she swore. “You were in Los Angeles, remember? I just didn’t post it for a couple of weeks.” Complete embarrassment. Did I need to up my meds? Why did I allow the post to rattle my cage so badly? Yes, they served chicken curry and the kinds of cheese that I would commit murder for, but the real point was being tagged in a faux joyous moment. Or as the kids might say, a wicked case of FOMO.

  A few weeks ago I experienced a perfect Instagram storm. I had found an old photo from the 1950s of four women with teased-out-high hairdos and go-go boots that was hysterical. I tagged four friends I thought resembled the crazy gals in the photo. I was expecting the usual #LMAO. Instead I got a text from another close friend who was crushed that she was not part of the silliness, not one of the women “tagged.” At first I was taken aback. We are grown-ups! Didn’t we work through this in middle school? I immediately sent her a text of love and heart emojis and an explanation. And as I was waiting for a text back, I started to scroll through the feed of “My perfect life” posts when I stopped at a photo of one of my BFFs on a rowboat in Central Park with her husband and kids and various godparents. I remembered it had been one of her teenage daughters’ birthdays. They were cuddled up in thick turtleneck sweaters holding wineglasses (not the teenagers) and laughing, laughing, laughing. And in the far corner of the snapshot I could barely make out the face of a woman my friend had met recently at work and instantly become enamored with. What the hell was she doing there? It was just family? And if they were going to open the red velvet rope it would be for close friends, not freshly new, unbaked acquaintances! So while I was waiting to hear from the girlfriend I had triggered with my tagged photo, I texted my friend whose photo had triggered me. And just before I hit the send button I started laughing out loud, alone like the insane woman I know I’m going to be in thirty years. I screamed, “I hate Instagram!” And threw the phone under one of my pillows. And then I heard the faint sound of a ping (which means someone just posted something) and I dove onto the bed digging for the phone like a pig for a white truffle.

  I am so grateful that social media wasn’t as omnipresent when I was single as it is now. If I had to scroll through the ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriends? It would give them real faces and ruin the images of the hideous trolls that I held so dear and that kept me from living in my bathtub with an endless supply of Cheetos. It’s too much! Not only do the hills have eyes, but the sky, grass, and sun do, too, and they’re all going viral!

  My daughters begged us for Instagram accounts. The argument being that all their friends had them. This seemed a valid enough reason for my husband and me, who capitulate (much like our Senate does now) to them daily. We agreed, with the one caveat that the accounts had to be private. Of course, private these days means public to anyone who knows anyone who knows you. But we draw the line at that third degree of sepa
ration.

  One night at dinner we were discussing the story of the group of boys who were admitted to Harvard and then un-admitted when the university saw racist and offensive comments posted on their social media.

  My eldest daughter cocked her head. “How did Harvard even know they were posting these things?”

  “Honey, colleges look into all your social media when you apply! They are not going to accept someone with pornographic images or offensive remarks.”

  She looked spooked. “They look at all that stuff?”

  “Of course!”

  Later that evening she came into my room, her eyeballs particularly large.

  “Umm . . . can colleges find stuff that you deleted?”

  She had not let this conversation die and clearly she had a dog in the hunt. But she’s an innocent fourteen-year-old, so I couldn’t fathom what she could have posted that she was sweating over.

  “What’s going on? Did you put something on social media that I need to be concerned about?”

  She looked down sheepishly. “I think so.”

  “Oh my God, what? How many times have I told you about the dangers of putting images out into the ether? Those photos live forever! What did you do?”

  “Well, I have a mole on my butt and I can’t see it with a mirror, so I took a photo of it with my phone because I wasn’t sure if it was a mole or a pimple. But I deleted it right away!”

  I smiled. “You’re fine. But if you want to start investigating your vagina, use a mirror.”

  She got it. And I stopped imagining her getting unadmitted to Stanford because she was checking for melanoma.

  I check their feeds every day, it seems. My youngest makes ugly faces and showcases cupcakes, alongside her obsession with tiny Japanese puppies and slime. Observing her liking of thousands of Instagrams in rapid succession one weekend morning, I was reminded of those manic old men in Vegas who have been at the blackjack table all night . . . “Hit me . . . Hit me . . . Hit me . . .” She was in Insta rehab last summer at camp, where she was separated from devices for seven weeks and had to do things like breathe air and look her friends in the eye. She sweated and had the shakes but pronounced herself clean the fourth week in.

  Instagram is today’s “I’ll have what she’s having.” Except you can’t because what she’s having has been doctored. As long as we all understand that, then bring on the filters! But don’t freak out when one of your followers comments, “Wow! You look so different in person!” (Translation: In real life.) So proceed with caution. My generation are the guinea pigs of social media. We didn’t grow up with it (thank God), and so the ramifications are based on our experiences. Like Gillette razors on bunnies. And like most pharmaceutical commercials these days: Instagram side effects may include: headaches, diarrhea, low self-esteem, isolation, jealousy, shingles, loss of sexual appetite, insomnia, nausea, blue screen coma, and suicidal thoughts. Take in at small doses. Warning—highly addictive.

  Chapter 3

  Kindness

  I don’t believe in karma, mercury in retrograde, or the healing powers of hemp, but one thing I do believe in is kindness. I know, it sounds trite, a sentiment that should be relegated to mugs and refrigerator magnets, but trust me, stick with it and you can’t go wrong. I’m not saying you should become a missionary or donate all your organs—I’m not talking extreme-sports kindness. Acts of kindness won’t guarantee that your life will be perpetually blessed. But they will make it eleven percent better.

  I live in New York City, where kindness is as rare as grass. People scream profanities if you so much as glance at their latte at Starbucks, strangers give each other the finger the way casual neighbors wave at a small-town parade on Veterans Day. In other words, speak softly and carry a big motherfucking stick! So accessing kindness can be a Herculean task. And I don’t mean dropping change in a homeless person’s cup or picking up your dog’s poop even when nobody is watching. Those are conscience soothers, not acts of authentic, active kindness. That requires turning it up a notch. When someone in line at the grocery store is a nickel short, give it to her. If someone is struggling to cross the street, help him. If you see anybody potentially in harm’s way, scream, jump, call the police. Never capitulate to the notion of “Well, that ain’t my business.”

  Resources vary, of course, especially when it comes to actual giving. I believe generosity is a tributary of kindness. I admire people who donate anonymously—billionaires who don’t need the roar of applause or a building named after them—just as much as I admire someone who donates his or her time to a local women’s shelter.

  And sure, it’s easy to lose it when the waitress gives you Russian dressing instead of blue cheese. But really, what’s the point? Why should the fallback reaction be hostility? As Jackie DeShannon memorably wrote, “Put a little love in your heart and the world will be a better place.” But that was the sixties. That way of thinking only works now if you’re stoned or live in Canada.

  Kindness in acts. Kindness in words. Kindness in how you live in the world. Give it a try. As always, however, there are exceptions. You can be severely unkind to anyone who talks during a movie, chews too loudly, or wears sandals on an airplane. In these cases, go ahead and throw shade.

  Sometimes an act of kindness can backfire. But that should never deter you. I am living proof.

  Back in 2008, I was living in Washington, D.C., with my husband and our firstborn, then a pudgy Buddha, and pregnant with another. For the entirety of George W. Bush’s presidency, the city had been reserved and restrained, as if living under house arrest. I think we were the only people having sex in the whole city. But Barack Obama had just been elected the forty-fourth president of the United States and there was a palpable new energy to the town.

  I was fired up and hormonally unbalanced. It was a few days after the inauguration and I had heard from insiders that the Obamas didn’t know many people in D.C. except for the Chicagoans they brought with them. I could relate; when I moved to Los Angeles years earlier, I only knew my brother, and we shared a bungalow in a sketchy part of Hollywood. True, I wasn’t president, but everyone can relate to being the new kid in town. Even one who sits in the Oval Office and holds the nuclear codes.

  I was shopping in the posh section of D.C., Georgetown, where adorable boutiques alternate with the university’s frat houses along the cobblestoned streets. I walked into a particularly preppy shop adorned with more Lilly Pulitzer than a West Palm Beach AA meeting. And there it was hanging on the wall. A sleeveless blue and white cocktail dress cut like an Oscar de la Renta. The thought hit me like a thunderclap. I would buy that dress for the new First Lady as a welcome to our nation’s capital gift! No, I wasn’t drunk. No, I had no fever. No, it wasn’t a pregnancy side effect. I pulled the dress off the hanger and held it up. I knew the First Lady had famously svelte and muscular arms, so sleeveless wouldn’t be a problem. I surmised that she was about a size 6. I watched with joy as the retailer, in a fuchsia headband adorned with a large gold toad (not sure how she kept her head up), wrapped the dress up like it was a baby on baptism day, white silk ribbon and all. If she only knew the ingenious plan I had hatched right next to her display of monogrammed water bottles in the shape of lobsters.

  Now, for obvious reasons, you can’t send just anything to the White House, but luckily I had an acquaintance who worked in the social office of the new administration. I asked him to present my festive package to Michelle Obama like frankincense for the baby Jesus.

  I was so excited. Like the day after my first date with my husband when he had mentioned Krispy Kreme doughnuts and I had two dozen sent to his office. Not that the box of doughnuts sealed the deal, but the fact that I had listened and taken note and had the whimsy to send them made up for my rather small breasts.

  Now, before you label me a fool, let me remind you that this was a situation wherein my intent was purely selfless. I might seem like the nosey parker who brings a Bundt cake to her new next-door neighbor in or
der to sniff around for gossip to spew at the next block party, but I had no agenda. I neither expected nor wanted anything. Dammit, what woman wouldn’t want to receive the gift of a new dress? For goodness sake, worst case, it still had tags! It was returnable for store credit!

  It took a few days for the dress to pass inspection with the security detail. Or so I imagined—I never actually heard anything. They probably have it locked away in a bombproof box at the FBI. Fine. I was naive. But I stand behind my intentions. In spite of the fact that for years that dress has been a source of constant fodder and ridicule among my friends. To this day whenever Michelle Obama is on TV one of them texts me, “Is she wearing THE dress?” But would I change the sequence of events if I could? Absolutely not.

  Years ago I was told a story that had a profound impact on my worldview. The story involved a man who, destitute and brought low in life, was committed to a psychiatric facility. He had lost his job and his family, and was crippled by depression. In the hospital he befriended another patient, an artist, and they became close. After a year, the artist was discharged, leaving the man alone once again. But before he left, the artist handed the man a canvas he had painted during his stay. A colorful and abstract painting. The man cherished it.

  A year later the man was also discharged, wary of what bad luck awaited him beyond the wrought-iron-barred windows. After a series of wrong turns, he was forced to sell the painting to get back on his feet. But the sale of the painting enabled the man to start his own business, buy a house, and, eventually, start a new family. He was blessed with a chance of a new life.

  The artist’s name was Willem de Kooning. In fact, the story could have ended with the mere act of the artist giving the man the painting. In this case, the painting ended up being worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But you never know what an act of kindness will lead to—maybe not a painting that now hangs in the Museum of Modern Art—but perhaps a fleeting momentary feeling of well-being.