I went to a college football game on Saturday, and by chance managed to get some “Club” sets, up where the rich people sit. I ended up seeing a now-famous guy I grew up with who, while never a running buddy, was a family friend; his father played high school football with my father and they were great friends, I worked for a couple of years for his father, his brother lived with me for about six weeks while on a temporary job, Mr. Famous and I had classes together in college, etc., etc., etc. We’re just from the same town.
ANYWAY, It’s the first time I’ve seen the guy in 25 or more years, and I say “Heeeey (Famous Person).” The guy fairly barked at me and walked on by (He might have said “hey,” but he barely looked at me. My wife tried to get me to go talk to his dad while he was standing next to him, and that almost caused a squabble between the two of us, since I didn’t want to go anywhere near the guy.
I have zero need to exchange some much as one pleasantry with this man, and I’ll certainly not greet him in the future with anything other than expletives. But I’m curious if any of you have had similar experiences.
My guess is that he didn’t recognize you. When you greet a non-famous person by name, the person will assume he knows you and will make an efffort to look at you and place you in context. A famous person is likely to have the opposite assumption and motivation. The first assumption is going to be that he doesn’t know you and he is not going to be motivated to try and place you because he will assume you are an unknown fan.
Plus, when you have a famous friend from childhood whom you haven’t seen in years, the friendship will naturally loom larger in your mind because you have been exposed to the person’s name and face in the media and have been thinking about the person. The famous friend may not have thought of you for years. So you might have an unrealistic expectation for how long it will take for the person to place you.
Because of all this, whenever I greet relatively famous acquaintances, I never just say “Hi Bob.”" Instead I say, “Hi Bob, I’m Mary Jones; we went to high school together” or whatever. I do this even when I am very certain they will know who I am. The person still may have no interest in talking to you but chances are improved.
Exactly, nottelling. My brother’s one of those “Heeeey (Famous Person I used to know)” sorts and he does know a lot of them, going back…
But he doesn’t stop there and expect the other guy to recognize him, especially after years. He does what you do. Sometimes it helps, sometimes not. But my bro is satisfied he made the approach.
Did he really tell you to “go to hades” or just not respond the way that you expected ? I agree that you probably should have spoken to the father first as he is the person you truly know better.
I would agree with the others, that Mr Famous should get the BOTD. I tend to have trouble sometimes placing people when I see them in a different context than usual. If I saw an old classmate at a sporting event they might say hi and I would say hi back as I racked my brain trying to place where I know them from. Since I’m not famous, I would know it’s someone I know from somewhere. I can’t imagine it if I was famous and had it often happen where I didn’t know the person.
I used to volunteer 3 times a week at my kids’ elementary school. I was also a preschool teacher. I once went on a field trip to a pumpkin patch (with my class) and a mom there with another group greeted me by name. I said hello and made small talk. After we walked away I was asking my coteacher if she knew who the woman was, she didn’t. I kept trying to picture her in places I frequent: grocery store, gym, church, PTA… nothing clicked. The next day I was volunteering at the elementary and when I walked into the building it clicked, she is a teacher I pass in the halls and chat with at least once a week.
I think you’re jumping to conclusions. He’s used to lots of people saying that and it’s easier to just not make eye contact and keep going.
Mr R and I had to practically tackle his cousin who is in a famous band to get him to slow down and pay attention. It wasn’t that he was ignoring us, it’s that we blended in to the crowd shrug
DH and DS are “super recognizers.” They could each see someone they knew in 4th grade, and they would recognize that person today and probably remember his birthday and favorite food. It’s a gift, or maybe a curse, because people don’t always recognize them. I can barely remember the names of the people I served on committees with. There’s a wide range of ability here, I’d assume famous person is tired of strangers greeting him by name, and didn’t remember you. Maybe his dad would have.
I was in the dentist’s office last Friday. The former dentist, who sold his practice, came in wearing shorts. I walked past him. He said, “Don’t u recognize me? I’m Dr. N…” We proceeded to talk about his photography, his daughter who was in Tower 2, who left NY after that, etc.
I’m glad he took the initiative and identified himself. OP, too bad u didn’t do the same. That way, no feelings would have been hurt.
Funny. I know someone who has a skill for recognizing famous people in unexpected settings, and he also has a sort of “routine of familiarity” that he uses to engage the famous person for a while. Things like “great to see you again!”, or “how have you been?” and other more clever things that I can’t remember. I suspect that he’s not the only guy like this out there, and that if you are a celebrity, you might get more than your fair share of fellows like this who take a bit of advantage of you if you are normally polite.
Agree that you overreacted. He didn’t tell you to go to Hades. He just didn’t recognize you. People probably call him by name and want to chat all the time, and they are usually people he doesn’t know. Stop bristling and assuming the worst.
One of my high school classmates ended up playing pro baseball. He even got a Gold Glove Award one year (another classmate pitched for the Red Sox and Indians - no wonder our HS team won the state baseball championship!).
Mr. Gold Glove was quite the popular guy in HS. But at our 30th reunion, he stayed isolated and hardly spoke to anyone, and hardly anyone spoke to him. It was the strangest thing. Meanwhile, I was jabbering away and dancing up a storm, which was funny since I was the wallflower in high school.
In college I knew a guy who is now a well-known TV actor. A mutual friend – who knew Actor much, much better than I did – ran into him at LAX and said hello. Actor was polite but cool and distant. My friend started to walk away, disappointed. “Dave, is that you?” Actor suddenly called out. When Dave confirmed who he was, Actor was thrilled, hugged my friend, and insisted they get together for a drink.
Turned out, time changes all of us. Actor simply didn’t recognize his former college buddy decades later. It happens to even non-famous people.
I didn’t even recognize my “new” neighbor, at the market. He’s been here 2 years and I was at 2 neighborhood parties with him this summer. Context can matter. Plus, don’t we tell our kids: you don’t know what he experienced that day, anything from rotten news to 5 others trying to buttonhole their “former friend” they haven’t ha contact with in decades.
I hope you come back and tell us you rethought this.
My brother is a famous person and you wouldn’t believe how many people are constantly bombarding and interrupting him and his family wherever he goes. And some of those intrusions are just downright rude! Though I’ve never seen my brother respond harshly to fans, I can understand famous people developing a bit of a short temper with those intrusions at times.