Scrappy Little Nobody(52)
Paparazzi
Generally speaking (knock on wood) I don’t have many problems with paparazzi. Occasionally I’ll see a photo of myself online that I didn’t know was being taken. It’s unsettling. Usually, I’m just worried I got caught picking my nose. So far, so good, but keep me in your prayers!
When Up in the Air came out, there was a period where some paparazzi staked out my apartment. Of course, I didn’t know this for a while. The first time I spotted a paparazzo was in the basement of an Ikea in Burbank. I’d gone to get some storage boxes (the all-time greatest stress-relieving activity), and about half an hour into my shopping trip I looked up from my cart and saw a man taking photos of me.
Okay, I thought, so this is it, this is the first time this happens.
I put my throw pillows into the cart (yes, I know I was there to get storage boxes; perhaps you don’t understand how Ikea works) and walked over to him. He put his camera down. He looked bewildered but not defensive, like this wasn’t normal, but he didn’t anticipate a Colin Farrell situation.
I pulled on the sleeves of my hoodie. “Hi. Um . . . how did you . . .” Know I’d be here? Find me? It all sounded so espionage. He knew what I meant.
“Oh, I was just in here.”
I knew that didn’t sound right, but I was so out of my element, I just accepted that he happened to be in the basement of Ikea with his long-lens camera at the same time I was.
He nodded sympathetically. “Oh right, you’re new to the game.”
Ew.
I wasn’t offended in a righteous indignation way, like, My life is not some game! It was just a cringey thing to say.
I suppressed an eye roll and said, “Right, so . . . what happens now? Are you gonna, like, follow me around the store?”
“If I can get a good shot of you now, I’ll just leave, no problem. I promise I won’t follow you home.”
Follow me home. I hadn’t even thought of that.
Letting this guy take my picture so that he would go away seemed like the path of least resistance, so I went back to my cart and stood there.
“Grab something off the shelf, and you can look up like you just spotted me. Don’t smile or anything, you can look annoyed.”
Yeah, I’ll try to manage that.
He took the picture, and, true to his word, he left. He called someone else from his agency to follow me home, so technically, he kept his promise. For the next three weeks or so, someone was outside my apartment. What they didn’t count on was my god-given ability to stay indoors and do nothing. The real beauty of it was I didn’t even have to alter my behavior. I wasn’t holed up Waco-style; I was just doing me. Every now and then a similar thing will happen. I’ll notice a strange car outside, and, as an experiment, I’ll take a trip to Home Depot, and when the car follows me, I think, Looks like a two-week stretch of takeout and Netflix is in order; this poor man doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.
On Being Nice
The word “nice” means a couple different things for me now. In one area of my life, I can earn this descriptor very easily, almost too easily. People I meet who want to say hello or take a picture often say, “You’re so nice.” Don’t worry—never once have I deluded myself into thinking I’ve done something to deserve this compliment. It’s often said after a twenty-second interaction at a restaurant or in a hotel lobby. I could have no other redeeming qualities, but I’m “nice” as long as I haven’t crippled a bellboy.
Don’t get me wrong, I find it incredibly sweet that anyone would say it, and I get that maybe they don’t mean anything more than “Thanks” but it comes out “You’re so nice.” Plus, people have said some weird-ass shit to me over the years, so I will take “You’re so nice” ANY day.
In a professional sense, “nice” is harder to earn. Harder for me anyway. Because “nice” often means she did what we told her to, no questions asked. I’ve seen nice defined as: In working with XXXXX, I encountered no conflict which might have forced me to acknowledge this person as a fellow human capable of discomfort or creative input. Not all people in my industry feel this way—certainly none of the people I’ve talked about in this book—but many do. This is highlighted by the fact that, in the professional realm, the opposite of nice is not “mean”; the opposite of nice is “difficult.”
Ninety percent of the people I’ve worked with who are disruptive or lazy or unskilled or addicts or likely to throw a tantrum are men. Ninety percent of the ones who get called “difficult” are women. Lest we be besmirched with that most damning label, it feels imperative that we strive for “nice.” When I’m put in an uncomfortable position or when someone asks something of me that I feel borders on taking advantage, the threat of “so nice” being snatched away from me hangs in the air. Should I stand my ground, or be a doormat? How many concessions would I have to make, how much crap would I have to swallow to stay a “nice girl”? Usually more than I am willing.
Women encounter this in social situations as well. Let me take you out. Don’t be so uptight. Just have one more drink. And if you don’t, someone might strip you of an adjective you’ve been convinced has value, and label you as something else. Professional people are usually clever enough not to use this term, but in social situations, the threatened brand is “bitch.”