You Won't Believe Who I Met

 I'm filling in for Beth Trissel. 

I have a friend who’s a namedropper. She’s a lot of fun and she’s quite nice, so I just smile and try to look impressed. She’s had a very interesting career, or really two careers, and in her retirement she volunteers, so she’s had many opportunities to rub elbows with the famous. Her stories are peppered with the local movers and shakers, local celebrities, and politicians (even a former president, but I didn’t vote for him so I wasn’t really impressed). I wonder sometimes if the people she mentions knowing even realize she considers them acquaintances.

In the town where I live, the local arts community holds an annual Gallery Night. All the art galleries in the city have open houses, most with wine and light refreshments. People travel from place to place socializing, eating, drinking, and purchasing. A family friend of mine talked me into going to Gallery Night with her one year. She bragged about knowing a specific artist who was well known in the area. She considered him a friend of hers and her recently deceased husband’s and thought the artist would be so pleased to see her. When we arrived at that particular gallery, my friend bounced up to him and greeted him effusively. He looked at her without any sign of recognition, curled his lip, and turned around to continue his conversation with an obviously wealthy woman who was considering a purchase. My friend was hurt and humiliated. Absolutely mortified. I made light of it and rushed her along. It did seem to me that this stranger could have at least been polite.

One of my friends is a locally famous jazz singer, who’s name I will not reveal because, well, it  would make me a terrible hypocrite. I do get amused watching her fans react to her the way they do. She came to my church to perform a couple of years ago and I was also amused to see the reactions of various congregational members who saw that we were obviously really friends. One couple had always been a bit snobbish to me, but they were very friendly the next Sunday. When I met her, it was because she was temping at the placed I worked, so I didn’t actually see her perform until we were friends.

What is it that makes us act so oddly around those who have acquired more than their 15 minutes of fame? Are they really so different from us? And those women who are so sure that if they could just meet their crush, he would be squiring them down the red carpet within a year. Does it make us seem like we’ve somehow accomplished something by knowing these people?  Most people are good at something. And we all have jobs at some time during our lifetime.  It just happens that some people are teachers, some people are letter carriers, and some people are famous actors, etc.

That said, I’m sure that there are some people who would cause me to have my own fan girl moment.  Of course, I won’t tell you exactly who. I just can’t abide name dropping.

Photo Credits: 

Andrea Piacquadio "Two Women Holding Long-Stem Wine Glasses with Red Liquid"                   Darya Sannikova  "Woman Leaning on Man Standing Inside Room"                                               Nappy "Photo of Woman Teaching"                                                                                                  Artistic Operations/1996 "Mail Truck"                                                                                          Cottonbro "Woman in White Floral Lace Dress Smiling"                                                                Mikhail Nilov "A Woman Wearing Masquerade Mask While Posing"