*****
“You’ve mentioned that Alberta’s parents were against her meeting you. What was, in your opinion, the reason for that and was that resistance really strong?” the lawyer asked me.
“Alberta’s parents held her under close surveillance controlling every step of hers, including where, when and with whom she spent her time. They were concerned with absolutely every single aspect of her everyday life. Moreover, it all went past simple concern. They drove her to school and picked her up at the end of the day, the same was the case with the clinic and other places that she visited. Of course, they weren’t all too happy about the fact that their daughter, who, in their opinion, spent too much time on social networking sites, was dating a convicted hacker, – the fact which, in their eyes, put me on par with an experienced criminal, capable of offering Alberta something “prohibited” – the Internet!”
“Would the word “conflict” be apt for describing the relationship between you and her parents?” the lawyer inquired, writing something down in his notebook.
“I can’t in all fairness describe our relations as conflict, resentment for me would be closer to the truth,” I answered. “Mostly it was aversion on her father Sean Martin’s part!”
“And what, in your opinion, was the reason for Sean Martin’s negative attitude towards you?”
“That is difficult to say for sure, but I think the reason for his resentment for me was the characteristic desire of all fathers to protect their daughters from bad guys. And the assumption invariably is that the guy is a priori bad. I mean, there is no need to have any evidence proving this. Moreover, if any additional evidence of the negative influence appeared, like my hacker’s past in my case, then struggling to overcome this stereotype would become a very complicated task. Also, Sean always had the “example” of a “pleasant” young man – both the son of his best friend Ryan and Alberta’s ex-boyfriend Donovan – near at hand. So Sean tried to keep me away in every manner possible, specifically forbidding to Berry not only to date, but even to communicate with me. He wanted Alberta to understand that breaking down with Donovan was a big mistake. He even helped this guy to find a way to be near her.
The situation was made even worse by the fact that Sean was notorious for his obstinacy. He had made it his habit to achieve his goals by means fair or foul. Himself a professional athlete in the past, he later became a successful entrepreneur and owner of several networks of gyms in his present life. His ambitiousness and vision at first of the role of each member of the team in scoring victory and later of employees as cogs in a business machine whose goal was to make profit, had led him to believe that same rules applied to family life. A football player must obey the team coach if he wishes to score a goal; company’s stuff must obey a manager in order for business to be flourishing; and a daughter must obey her father who knows what is good for his child and what is not. He totally mixed up these things, and even his own motto which he was fond of repeating: “I am running my business like if it was my family and my family like if it was my business!” was a good proof of this.
The sources of bad influence over Alberta, Sean believed, were both social networking websites, because spending time on them was a waste of time in his book, and myself, because of my problems with the law and the firm sense of entitlement to an opinion of my own (and it wasn’t clear, which thing about me he believed to be the worst). He saw these as potential threats to the fulfillment of Alberta’s major goal – getting into Brown. Actually, this goal was set not by Berry herself, but by Sean. She had been taught by him since childhood that the University was her destiny, so to speak. And because she was now a senior at high school, Sean’s pressure reached its apogee. He believed that she was supposed to spend every second of her free time on studying instead of communicating with friends, particularly on the Internet. But Alberta didn’t share his ambition to get into that college. She always wanted to become a model and possessed all necessary qualities for that. Moreover, the giant number of “likes” collected by each of her photos uploaded on social networking websites evidenced as well as possible that she was definitely predestined to find recognition.
The reason for her active “virtual” life had nothing to do with social networking websites as such – those merely became tools for self-expression for Alberta, but rather with her very personality. Being by nature an extravert, she got used to expressing herself through communication with people, demanding to be the centre of attention every single second of her life. And attention simply glued to her as to a magnet. At highschool where she studied nobody could compare to her in terms of popularity – she was cheerleading squad captain, head of several clubs and was interested numerous other activities. As soon as she registered on social networking sites, all of that activity was transferred there – onto her Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages where she had more friends and followers than some celebrities do on their pages. And she gratified those who followed her life with permanent reports of her actions and thoughts which instantly gathered hundreds of “likes” and comments below. I mean, her social networking accounts had actually become something of social media. And she was rarely seen without a smartphone or a tablet in her hands – but it was just the way she was!
However, Sean showed a fantastic inability to understand that, considering time spent on the Internet as wasted. Because of this, he brought Berry to the clinic where she was supposed, in his opinion, to understand just how badly the social networking had been affecting her. He would have never done it, had he not been advised to this effect by his friend Ryan who first frightened Sean with the growing influence of social networking websites on the younger generation and then directed his attention to the “possible sign of addiction” manifested in Alberta’s behavior. Of course, Ryan had made due note to himself of the pleasant fatness of Sean’s checkbook before.
The words of Mr. Roberts who was striving to make money using the common prejudices and fears about the Internet as whole and about social networking websites in particular, took their toll in that case. Alberta was forced to attend Samantha’s office three times a week by her father, who was persuaded by Ryan that it was a guarantee of his daughter receiving “professional medical help” with solving the problem of excessive dependence on social networking. Initially Berry desperately resisted the obligation to visit the clinic. But after having got to know Samantha better, she stopped seeing time spent there as something of penal servitude. Sam managed to win her trust. So Alberta saw Samantha as a friend, and that perception was supported by the fact that Sam didn’t share Sean’s and Ryan’s negative opinions about social networks. Samantha didn’t chastise Berry, did not lecture her. Of course, Sam worked at the clinic and that meant that she worked for Ryan, but unlike him, she saw difference between those who really needed help and those who came to her for consultations for reasons other than that, like Alberta.
As for Berry’s mother – Laura, a former ballerina from Italy, she obeyed Sean on all instances and because of that her attitude towards me was no better,” I said.
“OK,” Mr. Jonson uttered. “Let’s get back to that Monday… July 11”