A Theory of Celebrity

Having grown up in Los Angeles, I was a long-time observer of the celebrity phenomenon. I love my shows and I love my performers, and I'm fascinated by the whole shebang: the connection people feel with characters on screen, the courage of the people lending their bodies & emotions to the roles, the experience of same bodies & emotions when they go back to occupying their mortal identities... I find it fascinating, and incredibly complex - a complex context and set of experiences that is constantly oversimplified.

As a clinician, I know something about human relations, how we connect, why we connect, and the wide variety of issues and beliefs and neuroses that get in the way of our connecting.

One truth about connection is that it creates meaning: by listening to your spouse's description of their day, you make it valuable. You are valuing it, by listening, and we feel listeners valuing us as we share. And this gives us meaning. It's healing and emotionally satisfying. Even when you have no comment, even if you can't help with the conundrums, just listening is helping. Just listening is giving.

One night, I watched some particularly poignant movie or TV episode (can't remember what), and after the credits rolled, I felt compelled to get on the internet and look up its creators and stars and learn more about the production.

Now, this is unusual for me. At some point, it faded, my interest in celebrities' lives outside their work. I don't like DVD extras. I'm not usually interested in any behind-the-scenes glimpses. At some point, I let go of the warmth of the illusion of feeling in-the-know, probably because clinical training was offering me many more satisfying alternatives.

But that night, enjoying a post-excellent-entertainment glow, I felt like looking them up. And I realized it was because I had just received profound value from their work, and I wanted to give something back. Being interested in other people is a way of giving back.

So, I've come to a gentler view of the fascination with celebrity. Sure, sometimes it's projection and distraction and dysfunction, but sometimes, it's just a natural compulsion to give something back.

Being interested is an expression of gratitude. And since we can't just call them up and say, "Wow, thanks for that, it really touched me and fed me and helped me see things differently," we jump on IMDB or read People magazine. It's what we can do.

Authenticity vs Good Manners

The 21st century has brought us tons of great stuff -- equality and empowerment are two of my favorites. As usual, our generation is trying to reconcile and marry the values of the past with the shiny new freedoms of the present. Sometimes they don't seem to go together very well.

Case in point. Good manners are considered good. They demonstrate a thorough, working knowledge of appropriate behavior in a variety of contexts. It's a mask we put on. We open doors for people, we bring wine to dinner parties, we're warm and polite to our partner's parents no matter how they treat us... These behaviors "mean" something about us, that we're "good." That we're properly socialized.

(But we all know that being properly socialized comes with baggage.)

In these glorious modern times, authenticity is also considered good. We are empowered to know and express our thoughts & feelings, to free ourselves from the old masks. Being self-aware and articulate is considered healthy. Evolved. Smart. Savvy.

So being polite and being authentic are often at odds. Luckily, there is a healthy middle ground. I'm going to call it integrity.

If you're just polite, wearing the mask and saying only the gracious, socially acceptable things, then people around you can't really trust you. They can't trust that what you present is who-you-really-are, and so they feel guarded. They feel subtly insulted, to have someone interacting with them out of a colorless, rigid old script. It's like they aren't worth the trouble of relating to spontaneously. Authentically.

On the other hand, if you're just authentic, sharing your thoughts & feelings freely without ample consideration for the feelings of others or the rules & mores of the context, then people feel guarded because who-you-are is a volatile quantity. There's no understood, common ground of how to express mutual respect. You might bite, at any time.

In between lies a balance between consideration for others and consideration for self. Integrity: the integration of social health with personal health.

Relationally, the issue is safety. Being worthy of emotional trust. Being a safe person to be around and interact with. How other people feel around you matters. It affects how they treat you and therefore how you treat them.

It's the magic of relationship: how my perception of what-you-think-of-me causes me to adjust my behavior, and then how my behavior affects what you think I-think-of-you and then your behavior. A feedback loop. A dance, in which we draw out different versions of each other, customized to each relationship.

The integrity I describe here makes it much, much easier to cut through the game-playing in relationships, so you can give & receive both consideration and truth.

Next time someone is behaving oddly or formally around you, ask yourself what you might be doing to put them on guard. Sometimes, people are just crazy, but sometimes, you might've started it.

Just a Joke! Not.

Humor is awesome. It breaks ice. It breaks spells. It builds bridges. It helps us take everything less seriously.

It's one way we get out from under the constant oppression of living in civilized society. It gives us a little sense of power, mocking ourselves, each other and our shared, unspoken rules and beliefs.

We always mock from a one-up position. Humor diminishes its target. And it's good to be diminished sometimes. Humility is healthy.

Humor is healthy. Except when it's not.

Humor can also be a trojan horse. It hides the truth of what people really believe in a package of levity. It's a socially acceptable way of expressing unacceptable emotions, like disdain, hostility and just plain meanness.

Sarcasm, for example. Sarcasm is very socially acceptable in our culture, but oftentimes, it's just plain old everyday cowardice.

I myself am a recovering sarcastic who falls off the wagon frequently. I work pretty hard at trying to keep it out of this column (sometimes not so successfully). My siblings and I can barely hold a conversation without sarcasm. It's just part of the family culture. And it was a big part of my identity for a long time.

But it sucks. It's disrespectful and nasty and indirect. It's a safe way to strike out, because you've got plausible deniability. Anyone who tries to call you out "can't take a joke", and just like that, they're the jerk, not you.

Some personalities use this approach almost incessantly. Often they're mothers-in-law, bosses... people whom you hesitate to confront. They end up spouting watered-down poison all over a room, but you're caught, unable to say anything, lest you be accused of having no sense of humor. It's like witnessing a heinous crime committed by someone with diplomatic immunity.

This is another form of indirect communication. And as with all forms of indirect communication, the antidote is direct communication.

After the moment has passed, pull the person aside and engage them in a "serious" conversation about the subject. Say that you've gotten the impression that they don't like something you're doing, or are concerned about blah-blah-blah, whatever they've been hinting at. Listen to their concerns. You can disagree, and you can think they're crazy, but keep it to yourself. Give them a moment to share while thinking you're listening. This is ultimately what they want. Then thank them for being honest. Or something.

There's also the chance they'll just say they were kidding and deny any issue. If they do, it may sting a little to have confronted them, but it makes it less likely they'll joke about it passive-aggressively in the future.

And, all that said, this kind of personality really isn't one you can trust to be respectful, so don't let your guard down. If you can limit your exposure to them, that's a healthy approach. And calling them on it privately, not letting them get away with the "just kidding" thing, will make you a less attractive target.

A key here, though, is for you to stay in your integrity, meaning you don't put on an act. Pretending to find something funny when you don't undermines your own integrity and self-trust. So, it's wise to be guarded, but don't be fake. That will cost you.

Needy Is Creepy

Those of us who spend way too much time thinking & talking about psychology are keen to put words to the unarticulated sensations/experiences we all share.

It's an important part of therapy, actually -- learning to articulate your inner world, because in the process of articulation, your inner world gets witnessed, and in getting witnessed, your inner world is valued. I value your world by listening and being curious about it, and you can feel that esteem, semi- or sub-consciously. Trust me, it's a good thing. (It doesn't matter that you're paying me for it. It still works. Nice, huh?)

So we play with language, metaphors and terminology, trying to find the words, trying to articulate. Poets without paper, perhaps.

One such sensation/experience that I want to discuss is being pulled. It's the experience of being around someone needy, someone who wants something from you -- something intangible, something emotional.

In some cases, they want you to like them, but a normal, appropriate level of liking them isn't adequate. They need you to really like them and to express it outwardly. And they're ready to like you, a lot, even though they hardly know you.

For example, think back to your school days, and that somewhat pathetic kid who wanted to be your friend. And the teacher wanted you to be his/her friend. But you didn't want to. He/she was too pathetic, and you could feel, even at that young age, that being this kid's friend was too much responsibility.

Then there's the new co-worker who glommed onto you, asking personal details about everyone in the workplace and practically begging you to go for drinks after work. Or, the lonely neighbor who engages you in conversation at the mailbox and doesn't allow you to break-off without a touch of abruptness.

In other cases, it's more subtle, like the friend who makes lousy choices and then says they're plagued with bad luck, and they really want you to agree that nothing is their fault.

Whatever the case, you can feel it. It's like an invisible tentacle has attached itself to your midsection and is attempting to suck out of you a warm-fuzzy connection that you don't want to offer this person. You feel pulled.

And it's creepy -- a subtle creepiness that your rational mind can't compute in this context. Where is this feeling coming from? It's dissonant. It's hard to put your finger on it. You're uneasy, but you aren't sure why, and most of us will assume it's us, not them.

Don't worry, it's them.

When a grown person isn't skilled or knowledgeable enough to get their emotional needs met in appropriate ways, they start pulling on people around them. They don't know they're doing it. And we know that they don't know, which also prompts doubt. Makes us think, yeah, it must be us.

It's not. It's them.

We pull back. We withdraw our presence & support as much as possible. We draw boundaries, if we know how. We give off the subtle and not-so-subtle body language cues that mean, "Back off" (unfortunately, needy people don't pick up on them so well). We feel tormented. We feel like bad people. We feel like we're in a minefield. It's so not fun.

If you don't relate to this, if you don't feel a primal anxiety rise around a gooey, glommy, needy person, you may have a high level of trust in yourself and excellent diplomacy/boundary skills, and you know you can respectfully and gracefully extract yourself from such interactions as needed. If this is the case, good for you. You're exemplary! And you're not normal.

If you don't relate to this, the other possibility is that you're needy yourself. That's a painful way to be. And, I'm going to serve you some cold coffee. Ready?

You are not entitled to whatever you want from the world to feel good about yourself. No one is obliged to attend your parties. No one is obliged to reach out to you. No one is obliged to love you just the way you are. If they do, that's lovely, but even so, YOU are obligated to define your own needs, identify healthy & available means for meeting them and then make it happen.

When you do, you become much more interesting and attractive to others. But that can't be the reason you do it! Being needy repels, being whole attracts. You can't fake it -- at least, not for long.

It's our duty and privilege as adults to take care of our own emotional needs. To seek out and form meaningful relationships. To identify activities that feel spiritually nourishing and then to participate in them. To take responsibility for our health and to get enough sleep and nutrition.

When we don't, our tentacles go out, whether we want them to or not, and others feel creeped out by it.

So if you notice people around you having that slightly troubled, sideways, I-gotta-go look in their eye, it may mean you've lost your ground. Get back on your feet, take care of yourself, and they'll like you again. And so will you.