Missing you already...
Nov. 18th, 2003 09:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyA few years ago, circumstances resulted in me spending a day in a small town in the middle of nowhere. It was an old English seaside town, once, briefly, very popular with holidaymakers for miles about but which had been in slow decline for the last hundred years or so as foreign travel became more popular and affordable.
It had an old-world decaying grandeur about the place that really attracted me and I found myself thinking that, if I decide ever to just up and disappear, this would be a very nice place indeed to vanish to. The chances of ever meeting anyone who knew me would be miniscule, and it’s a nice old town with low property prices.
So it is that, if I ever vanish leaving behind several squalling brats and £1,000,000 in debts you can rest assured that I’m comfortable and happy at the seaside.
I think that everyone occasionally has fantasies about just vanishing. Simply walking out on their life and leaving all their problems behind, starting afresh somewhere else. Of course, nobody ever does that. People don’t simply walk out and disappear, do they?
You might be surprised to learn that the UK currently has in excess of 210,000 people simply listed as ‘missing’.
This includes not just the people who leave their clothes and a note reading ‘Goodbye Cruel World’ on the beach; but it’s the people who leave the house saying they’re just off to walk the dog and just never come back; people who walk out of the office for lunch and aren’t seen again. People who do, indeed, just vanish.
A lot of these missing persons plainly made preparations to leave – they aren’t just random murder victims. Bank accounts seem surprisingly empty and bags of clothes have gone. What investigations into these cases indicate is actually pretty clear – a lot of these missing persons aren’t dead. They’re here, all around us, setting up new lives and identities. There are a lot of them, they aren’t dead, and they’re not coming back. Most of them, incidentally, are men.
210,000 people is the equivalent of a large town.
In other words, a town the size of Leicester is missing. You’d think someone might have noticed.
If Leicester just vanished one night, it’s likely that the rest of the country would notice within a week or two. However, people walking out in dribs and drabs, at a rate of 3 or 4 a day nationwide, is such a small number that nobody notices in any meaningful way. It’s just a lot of silent, individual tragedies and the world carries on without really caring.
However, think about it for a moment – 210,000 people is about 0.5% of the population and what that means is that if you’re one of these people who has over 200 people on their friends list, then the chances are that at least one of those people isn’t who they say they are.
Sobering thought, eh?
However, back to my original story. Whilst in this little town, as part of my fantasy, I looked at a flat: purely speculatively, of course. As I did so, the man in the next one along came out and I greeted him cheerfully and asked his name. He looked shifty for a moment before muttering “Errr…Smith. John Smith” Then he turned up his collar, pulled his hat down, and shuffled furtively off.
He seemed such a nice chap. I can’t wait to get to know him better.
It had an old-world decaying grandeur about the place that really attracted me and I found myself thinking that, if I decide ever to just up and disappear, this would be a very nice place indeed to vanish to. The chances of ever meeting anyone who knew me would be miniscule, and it’s a nice old town with low property prices.
So it is that, if I ever vanish leaving behind several squalling brats and £1,000,000 in debts you can rest assured that I’m comfortable and happy at the seaside.
I think that everyone occasionally has fantasies about just vanishing. Simply walking out on their life and leaving all their problems behind, starting afresh somewhere else. Of course, nobody ever does that. People don’t simply walk out and disappear, do they?
You might be surprised to learn that the UK currently has in excess of 210,000 people simply listed as ‘missing’.
This includes not just the people who leave their clothes and a note reading ‘Goodbye Cruel World’ on the beach; but it’s the people who leave the house saying they’re just off to walk the dog and just never come back; people who walk out of the office for lunch and aren’t seen again. People who do, indeed, just vanish.
A lot of these missing persons plainly made preparations to leave – they aren’t just random murder victims. Bank accounts seem surprisingly empty and bags of clothes have gone. What investigations into these cases indicate is actually pretty clear – a lot of these missing persons aren’t dead. They’re here, all around us, setting up new lives and identities. There are a lot of them, they aren’t dead, and they’re not coming back. Most of them, incidentally, are men.
210,000 people is the equivalent of a large town.
In other words, a town the size of Leicester is missing. You’d think someone might have noticed.
If Leicester just vanished one night, it’s likely that the rest of the country would notice within a week or two. However, people walking out in dribs and drabs, at a rate of 3 or 4 a day nationwide, is such a small number that nobody notices in any meaningful way. It’s just a lot of silent, individual tragedies and the world carries on without really caring.
However, think about it for a moment – 210,000 people is about 0.5% of the population and what that means is that if you’re one of these people who has over 200 people on their friends list, then the chances are that at least one of those people isn’t who they say they are.
Sobering thought, eh?
However, back to my original story. Whilst in this little town, as part of my fantasy, I looked at a flat: purely speculatively, of course. As I did so, the man in the next one along came out and I greeted him cheerfully and asked his name. He looked shifty for a moment before muttering “Errr…Smith. John Smith” Then he turned up his collar, pulled his hat down, and shuffled furtively off.
He seemed such a nice chap. I can’t wait to get to know him better.
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-18 01:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-18 02:11 am (UTC)I told 1 person I was pregnant and leaving the country. I saw most of my friends the night before I escaped and never said a word. After I disappeared I kept in touch with 3 people, none of whom knew each other, and none of whom knew my reason for fleeing.
I always felt guilty that the vast majority of my friends would always wonder what had happened to me. Did they try and ring? Pop round? How long did it take them to realise that I was gone and wouldn't be back? I left the landlady one months rent in lieu of notice and no forwarding address. I told work I had been signed off sick for a month, and sent them a letter of resignation instead of a sick note. No forwarding address.
Even now I never tell people the actual place I lived, I always say a town near there.
In my case it was the only way my son and I would survive, I felt. But I do occasionally wonder if my old friends think of me, and if they think I died. I do know I was reported as missing by someone, because the police contacted my parents (who had been registered as my next of kin on all that damned German bureaucracritic stuff) and checked if I was OK.
So there we go folks. I'm the one on your friends list...
no subject
Date: 2003-11-18 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-18 02:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-18 02:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-18 11:53 am (UTC)He's upped & moved to China to get married. He told around 20 people. While the news is slowly filtering round, it's a realy odd feeling to know that someone I used to know, well, could have vanished if I weren't still in touch with one certain person.
Not that I'd have *minded* if he'd vanished, mind you...
no subject
Date: 2003-11-18 12:05 pm (UTC)Then, one day, I walked into Slimelight and he was there. I did the only sensible thing - found my friends and had screaming hysterics! We talk nowadays, but we're not friends
no subject
Date: 2003-11-18 04:30 am (UTC)By way of warning and comparison
Date: 2003-11-18 04:33 am (UTC)I always thought
Date: 2003-11-18 06:38 am (UTC)Re: I always thought
Date: 2003-11-18 06:39 am (UTC)Bognor Regis
no subject
Date: 2003-11-18 06:49 am (UTC)Anyway, if you want to give up your identity and live as an anonymous face in the crowd, moving to London is as good a way as any ;-)