Don’t you just hate the people who want to hang out or invite you all the time, just so you can be a cheerleader? You know, the guys who are always self-promoting and only invite you because their band is playing, they are featured somewhere or because they need to discuss how great they are for hours?
Los Angeles has a huge population of people who are trying to be famous. Often they are not interested in attracting friends or a partner but merely new fans or followers. Because as we know, it tends to not be so much about what you know, but whom you know and what better way to get to that goal than networking? This results in tons of superficial, social butterflies who are eager about making friends with you; not because you are cool, nice or someone they want to get to know, but because you could be another potential contact, cash cow or fan; these even spans over dating sites. One friend told me that they are fake profiles on dating sites, trying to promote books, real estate and all kinds of other crap by opening fake profiles in order to attract new clients or buyers.
Years ago I was friends with someone who moved to L.A. to become famous. The only time I would get a call or invited to hang out was to give him a ride, attend shows that he was playing or maybe pay for dinner because he was (and still is) always broke. He came to Hollywood to be famous and Hollywood spat him right back out. The last I heard he is making a living by dating women who pay his rent and bills. He has yet to play a single show or produce a single song.
There is something rather unsettling about people who can never make time for you and then, when they finally do, it is to include you in their newest promotional event. It is annoying when you make plans with people and they are consistently late, because they had to do another “promotional” thing, or took 2 hours in front of the mirror, because “you never know whom you might meet or run into when going out.”
Egomaniacs are boring and tiring. No one likes to hang out with those who merely want to know you so they can add another number to their guest list. It gets very one-sided when all conversations revolve around the genius of one individual, or how big they are going to make it any day now. While perseverance is definitely needed to make it in show biz I would still argue that someone who is genuine might be remembered more than someone who is fake and an opportunist. In my friend’s case, after a while no one wanted to hang out with him anymore, no one took him serious anymore and the only reputation he got was being pretentious, shallow and narcissistic.
It seems a pretty bleak space out there. People are not only self-absorbed and delusional but completely unaware and ignorant. Stuck in their own universe they don’t even get it when people keep telling them “no” and avoid them altogether. Hey, for each person that walks away one can attract at least two others who won’t. After all, there are plenty of those who need attention and the pretentious charmers have a way of making those with low self-esteem feel better by giving them a false sense of belonging. There used to be a time when I would try to confront guys like my ex-friend. Now I simply don’t respond and walk away; and honestly, I think this is the best way to deal with people like this; after all, why waste one’s time and energy on trying to explain what you are thinking and feeling, when they don’t have the capacity of considering anyone else anyway?
