Sometimes at a social gathering or a drinking party, theres a girl who seems kind of out of place, sitting on the sidelness and not really ap art of the group. She might quietly say something like. 'i can see spirits.' She might say something like, 'Look, there's an old man with white hair standing in that corner'. Well, that's the kind of thing she says. The mentality of young people hinting at suicide feels somewhat similar to that, in my opinion. At social gatherings, this girl lacks what you might call 'weapons'. For example, beauty, conversational skills, charm--those qualities that would be effective in a gathering like that. She doesn't have them. So, as an easy way to assert her presence, she says, 'I can see things'. She's saying, 'I have this special ability'. Saying 'I can see' becomes her weapon, compensating for her lack of beauty, conversational skills, or charm. Whether it's true or not, only she knows--but if it's real, then it's no small thing. So, the peole around her make a big fuss and focus their attention on her... Saying 'I want to die' as an appeal is, in that sense, the same as saying 'I can see things.' Even though the truth of it is somehting that only she knows, it becomes a form of appeal that others can't just ignore. If you look at those so-called 'suicide-related websites' that were once a hot topic on the Internet, it becomes quite apparent. The posts on the message boards of those sites often take the form of 'asking for advice about their troubles', but in reality, they're saying, 'I'm someone who is troubled and contemplating suicide.' It's a form of self-promotion-- 'this is me'. On those message boards, they're often quite verbose. Most of the posts are fairly well-written and are clearly written with the intent of being read by others as a kind of entertainment. It's not the same as drunkenly scribbling 'Die, Dean!' in a train station bathroom. If you look at the trends like the boom in creating personal homepages, it's clear that humans have a desire to promote themselves, a yearing to talk about 'me'. However, doing so requires a talent that sets you apart from others, and acquiring that talent demands effort. For example, if someone wants to draw attention at a party by declaring, 'Tomorrow, I'll build an atomic bomb and destroy the Parliament!'. that statement requires a certain level of believability or realism. It would need the person making the claim to be someone from a science background or someone with connections to an underground network. In short, it requires a kind of 'license'. But if we turn to somehting that doesn't require a license--for example, claiming, 'Tomorrow, I'm going to the pachinko parlor!' --The level of appeal is much lower. That's when they turn to saying, 'I'm going to kill myself,' or 'I've cut my wrists before.' Suicide doesn't require any kind of license, and because it's a matter of life and death, it has a high level of appeal.