What is hatred? I think of it as a strong, overpowering emotion, which often blinds people to reason.

Hating people you don't know is often a sign of bigotry, but not always. If I say that I hate John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy, I'm not really expected to know them. Just know of them. Likewise, many people hate Nazis and Communists in a general sense, and this is not thought of as bigoted.

But as far as hating a specific person who's a total stranger, that's hard for me to do -- even if everything I have read about the person fills me with revulsion, and even though I think it might be hatred, it's a little illogical for me to claim that I actually hate someone I don't know. Ward Churchill and Cindy Sheehan fill me with loathing, but I cannot honestly say that if I got to know them personally, that I would actually hate them personally.

Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte (of John Edwards campaign fame) complains that James Lileks hates Elissa Terris, a "perfect stranger" at whom Lileks "t[ook] a swipe [...] for no discernible reason." Ms. Marcotte quotes Lileks (the latter quoting from and commenting on the Times):

Anyway. It's nice that the people who don't want to get married don't feel pressured to be married; if they're happy, they're happy, and no one's hurt. But it's the free-to-be-me vibe coupled with the when-I-grow-old-I-shall-wear-purple stuff that gets embarrassing.

Elissa B. Terris, 59, of Marietta, Ga., divorced in 2005 after being married for 34 years and raising a daughter, who is now an adult.

"A gentleman asked me to marry him and I said no," she recalled. "I told him, 'I'm just beginning to fly again, I'm just beginning to be me. Don't take that away.' "

The gentleman should buy a telescope, identify the star responsible for his luck, and thank it.

Apparently Lileks was blustering when he said no one is hurt; the anti-marriage decision of a 59-year-old Georgia woman hurts him to the bone for him to say something like that. How dare she not be married! She's older than Lileks. He hungers for her and everyone like her to be the living embodiment of his nostalgia, to be examples of how people Back Then had it together so that he can point to them and complain about how the rest of us have strayed from the Garden. And indeed, this is roughly is explanation of why he has this irrational hatred towards Elissa Terris, who he doesn't know. That, and of course the perennial male entitlement.

So, I thought I should examine the irrational hatred that James Lileks is said to have for Elissa Terris. How can Ms. Marcotte be so sure he hates her? While what he said could be characterized as snarky, since when is it hateful to say a man was lucky to have been rejected by a woman who obviously didn't want to be married and brags about her single status? How does that indicate hatred of the woman, much less an irrational hatred?

And what about the two paragraphs that follow immediately in Lileks' post. Does this sound like hatred?

"Marriage kind of aged me because there weren't options," Ms. Terris said. "There was only one way to go. Now I have choices. One night I slept on the other side of the bed, and I thought, I like this side."

That's the saddest thing I read in the paper today. I have no doubt she's probably happier, and if she ends up spending the next 20 years throwing pots and taking extension courses, fine. But I'm sure you'll see more of this, and that's not always good news....

It seemed so unfair to level the charge of hatred at Lileks that eventually, my curiosity got the better of me. I wondered what I might be missing, and I wanted to know just who is Elissa Terris -- this woman James Lileks is said to hate? My first concern was whether she existed at all, because I couldn't find any listing for a "Terris" in Marietta, Georgia, or for that matter in the entire state of Georgia.

However, it occurred to me that she might be the same Elissa Terris reported by CNN to be suffering from fibromyalgia in Georgia in 1996:

Samantha and her mother are a perfect example; Elissa Terris was diagnosed four years ago.

Mother and daughter "My end is more the fatigue, the associated symptoms, the irritable bowel, the irritable bladder, severe vertigo at times," she said.

Fibromyalgia affects mostly women. Its cause is unknown; it has no known cure. Most patients get only limited relief from medications.

The one treatment that has been scientifically proven to help is physical exercise.

Elissa Terris and many other fibromyalgia patients find refuge in support groups. They find understanding among fellow sufferers when they found little in friends and family.

After all, what kind of neurotic wants to marry people who are nearly sixty and suffering from fibromyalgia?

And if I put myself in Ms. Terris's position, she looked so worn out in the ten year old picture that just getting out of bed must have been an ordeal. If she's the same Elissa Terris as the one quoted in the Times, little wonder she enjoys the simple pleasure of being allowed to decide for herself which side of the bed to sleep on. Life with fibromyalgia is tough enough without having to take care of some ungrateful husband.

But I should stop with the wisecracks, because this is all speculation, based on a character who for all we know might possibly be a pseudonym. Is it possible to hate a pseudonym? (George Harleigh, where are you?)

Sure, there are the pictures, and they look similar. Here's CNN's 1996 Elissa Terris:

And the New York Times' 2007 Elissa Terris:

Could they be the same person? I don't know, but if they are, I'd have to be honest and speculate that divorce may have done wonders for her.

But wait! This mystery did not end with a picture.

Might Elissa Terris the same Elissa Terris who is described as a Visions Facilitator and Operating Board Member of Visions Anew, the Divorce Resource for Women? She facilitates retreat seminars like the one in this flyer. Vision Anew is described as:

"A support group that helps women going through divorce re-imagine life for themselves and their families."

Shouldn't the Times article have pointed that out? I think divorce counseling (activism, perhaps?) is at least as relevant as what the reportorial team did point out:

Elissa Terris, 59, of Marietta, Georgia, got divorced in 2005 after being married for 34 years and raising a daughter. "A gentleman asked me to marry him and I said 'No'," she recalled. "I told him, 'I'm just beginning to fly again, I'm just beginning to be me. Don't take that away'."

"Marriage kind of aged me because there weren't options," Ms Terris said. "There was only one way to go. Now I have choices. One night I slept on the other side of the bed, and I thought, 'I like this side'."

She is returning to college to get a master's degree - her former husband "didn't want me to do that because I was more educated than he was" - has taken photography classes and is auditioning for a play.

"Once you go through something you think will kill you and it doesn't, every day is like a present," she said.

If she is the same person, why should it devolve upon a blogger like me who had never heard of her before to unmask her?

Anyway, I don't know how long "Elissa Terris" has been a member of the Operating Board (the Google cache only goes back to January 15, but the original Times article is dated January 16) and she's been a facilitator there for well over a year.

I cannot state for certain whether this is the same Elissa Terris. Something just seems fishy, that's all. Four people worked on the Times article, which remains important, widely-circulated, and much-discussed -- and which is still shaping the national debate on divorce. When I read the article, I got the distinct impression that the women quoted were just ordinary American women selected at random to aid readers in understanding the current national trend. Unless the reporters just happened to select a Board Member of a non-profit divorce counseling and retreat seminar center and never asked her, this begins to take on the aroma of calculated, partisan, reporting. (Dare I say deceptive?)

None of this is to suggest that there's any reason for anyone to hate Elissa Terris (much less James Lileks, who I suspect does not hate her at all).

But it might be nice to know whether she's a happily divorced, "perfect stranger" type housewife, or a professional divorce expert with some sort of concealed activist agenda.

I hope she's the former, as I'm not terribly fond of activism, or concealed agendas.

But I still wouldn't hate her. Besides, isn't there a rule that says "hate the concealed activism but love the concealed activist?"

Concealed activists. Gotta love 'em!

MORE: Via Glenn Reynolds, I see that Amanda Marcotte has deleted an embarrassing post without realizing that Google is forever. Why Edwards hired her is another mystery.

Perhaps he should advise her that coverups don't work.