When I befriended Sara, I did not expect her value to extend to me.
When my best friend (let’s call her Sara) first started playing pickleball, she sucked at it. “I only get invited because I’m on TV,” she said.
I’d never considered that, but after she pointed it out, I thought, Oh, maybe that’s true.
Sara, by the mere fact of her fame, was more valuable than players with better serves and dinkier dinks.
And I, by the mere fact of my proximity to Sara, might have been a polite add-on.
The group we were invited to join was called Lez Pickle, which is exactly what it sounds like: lesbians playing pickleball. We’d take a photo at the end of every meet-up in the early days. That photo was posted to Instagram, and then most of us would repost it. This led to DMs from pickle-curious lesbians that said, either literally or essentially, “I wanna join!” I suspect that all of these inquiries were borne out of a genuine interest in pickleball. I also suspect that the famous people in our photos gave us a little something extra. We weren’t just a bunch of sweaty dykes with paddles. We had Sara. And we had other actresses, too. We had cache.
Sara and I met a few years ago on a dating app called Raya. It’s the one famous people use, but it’s not only for famous people. It’s for anyone who Raya deems worthy of entry. Whether this is based on follower count, IMDB credits, or the personal preferences of Raya’s gatekeepers is unclear.
I felt like I was at the bottom of the barrel, and Sara was on the pedestal I’d crafted for her in my mind. Next to her on that pedestal was everyone else who had the success that I wanted.
When I first saw Sara’s profile, I recognized her immediately as the adult version of the unforgettable character she’d played as a kid. The first message I ever sent her was something like, “I’m going to ask you the same question I’m asking everyone else right now. Are you still sane?” Because it was Covid, and none of us were sane. I don’t remember exactly what she wrote back, but I do know that I thought she was funny and smart. After a few exchanges, I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk (this was my signature Covid move), and she responded, “I’m feeling friends.” I wrote back, “Great!” And then, for the next four months, we became pen pals in the same city. I was living in a shit box of an apartment at the time, seeing other humans about once a week, and feeling depressed and unsuccessful. Sara was an incredibly loving and understanding person who consistently made me feel better. Also, she was just fun to talk to. We got each other’s jokes.
In the beginning, Sara’s fame was exotic to me. I’d never had a famous friend before. And it was amusing. She’d mention some Hollywood thing, like how her makeup stylist gave her an array of mints from which to choose, and I’d think, What a specific life. It was also alluring in the way fame is supposed to be alluring — and it was extra alluring because of my opinions of myself at the time. I felt like I was at the bottom of the barrel, and Sara was on the pedestal I’d crafted for her in my mind. Next to her on that pedestal was everyone else who had the success that I wanted.
Writing about Sara’s fame and its effects feels both obvious (of course, there’s a deference paid to celebrities) and taboo. I might be giving you the impression that I care about fame more than I should and that, therefore, I’m shallow.
I’m going to be as honest as I can in this essay — not only because honesty is good but also because I feel a strong pull to be slightly dishonest when it comes to the discussion of fame. I think I’m supposed to tell you that I’m unaffected by it—while admitting that sometimes I am affected by it. In other words, I’m conflicted. Of course, I am. We live in a world that’s trained us to value fame and to be above valuing it. These are conflicting messages.
The first time I met Sara in person was at her house. I brought her olives because she told me she liked them. I’d formed a crush on her by then. Yes, I’d heard her when she told me she wanted to be friends, but had I really heard her? I guess the most accurate thing to say would be that 50 percent of me heard her. The other 50 percent was in a fantasy about how one day, she would change her mind and want to date me.
Hanging out with Sara at her house, I noticed that she had the things that a lot of people have in their houses. Like a kitchen, for example. With a sink. And packages from Amazon. And sunglasses on a countertop. We talked on the couch for a while. Like many other humans, Sara chatted with friends while sitting in her living room. The more time I spent with Sara in her private habitat, the more often I forgot that she was a celebrity. But then we’d go out, and I’d remember again.
People have varied reactions to Sara in public. Some ask for a photo, which I always offer to take. Some say, “Love your show,” and then look at me in a way that makes me think they’re trying to figure out if I’m famous, too. A lot of people clock Sara and then avert their eyes as if she’s as unimportant as a lamp post. Sometimes, the motive behind this move, the Pretend Not To See You Move, is politeness. Fans don’t want to bother Sara while she’s filling her water bottle at the pickleball courts or shopping for pants. Other times, the motive is feigned apathy. The people who are feigning apathy avert their eyes faster.
In all of these people, I see myself.
When I befriended Sara, I did not expect how her value would extend to me. To put it harshly, I am more valuable because my friend is famous. Sometimes, when people find out that I know Sara, they’re suddenly nicer to me. Sometimes, they invite me somewhere and then say, “Does Sara want to come, too?” When I tell Sara that I’m a mere pawn in other people’s schemes to bask in her celebrity rays, she’s quick to point out that she’s not that famous. “It’s not like I’m Beyoncé,” she says.
Sometimes, I wonder if the person who knows the least about her fame is Sara. When I ask her about it, she sort of shrugs me off. “I try not to think about it,” she says. “If I think about it for too long, I feel weird.”
Our social structure is a pyramid. The most powerful people sit at the top, and the least powerful sit at the bottom.
Our expectations of ourselves are unrealistic when it comes to the subject of fame. On the one hand, we think we’re supposed to be enlightened beings who’ve received the memo that we are all one. On the other hand, we live within a system that’s constantly reinforcing the idea that, in fact, we’re not all one. And we made this system up, by the way. And it’s not because we’re stupid. It’s because we’re animals. Like all tribes, we abide by a pecking order. Dominance in non-human societies is usually connected to the ability to reproduce. In our society, dominance is defined by money, fame, beauty, and other currencies of power.
Here’s the reality: Our social structure is a pyramid. The most powerful people sit at the top, and the least powerful sit at the bottom.
Here’s the delusion: We want to believe that this structure is not our birthright. We want to believe that it’s our confusion. Our true shape, we think, is a circle — a great big kumbaya circle of oneness.
On a spiritual level, of course, we’re all one. I’m the same as you, you’re the same as a tree, the tree is the same as an ant, and the ant is the same as Sara. But if this were reflected in the way we treat one another, then we wouldn’t be talking about it to the extent that we do.
In high school, I had a friend who would ask me, “Would you be friends with me if my face were perfectly round?” And then she’d puff out her cheeks because I guess she assumed I couldn’t visualize the round face myself. I thought her question was a waste of time because it’s not possible to theoretically eliminate one part of a person and assume all the other parts of them would remain unchanged.
What my high school friend was truly asking, though, was, “Can you see beyond the surface of things to what’s inside?” And the implication was that the inside is more important than the outside.
Is that true? Or are they both important?
We think we’re not supposed to admit that the external matters, even though we live in a culture that is completely obsessed with the external. We say, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts,” not because that statement feels true but because we want it to be true.
My favorite pages of Us Weekly are the ones that feature celebrities pumping gas, paying their parking meters, and doing other basic human activities next to a caption that says, “Stars—They’re just like us!”
As an alcoholic who spent many years telling herself she did not have a drinking problem, and as a lesbian who spent many years telling herself she was not a lesbian, and as a person who wanders around her house saying, “You’re OK” only when she is not OK, I have a question: If stars were really just like us, would we need to remind ourselves of that on a weekly basis?
I’ve been playing pickleball for about a year now. While writing this essay, I played a game with two actresses. At some point, one of them made a joke, and I thought, Did I just laugh harder because this person is an actress?
And then I thought, If you’re asking yourself this question, then the answer is probably yes.
And then I thought, Or maybe you only think that because you’ve been writing this essay about fame in an attempt to figure out how you feel about it.
And then I thought, I’ve been playing pickleball with a lot of actresses lately.
Swan Huntley’s novels include I Want You More, Getting Clean with Stevie Green, The Goddesses, and We Could Be Beautiful. She’s also the writer/illustrator of the darkly humorous The Bad Mood Book and You’re Grounded: An Anti-Self-Help Book to Calm You the F*ck Down. Swan earned an MFA at Columbia University and has received fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo. She lives in Los Angeles.
