Dating a star

One of my friends, who’s also a journalist, recently met at a party a famous news anchor. She told me they spent the night talking to each other, but then, he asked her if she could become his sex friend. “Just like that” she said.

My friend refused his proposal. But since then, he’s been pursuing her and tried to invite her to every party he’s hosting.

The problem is: he doesn’t want to accompany my friend to her events. He’s constantly telling her it’s boring. While his parties are so much better, as he said.

So far, my friend has been refusing all his invites. But I find it curious he keeps on inviting her. And I’m a bit worried for her, as she seems hesitating to yield to his” advances”. Because so far, he’s not really making an effort to win her.

If he really cares about her, no matter his social status, he should follow her to her events, which are not so boring by the way.

But in the marvelous world of journalism, there’s a different reality for the journalists who work for the TV than for the print newspaper, especially the ones specialized in Business and finance like my publication.

Those who work for TV are stars. I’m not one. My friend’s not really a star either.

When I was younger, I used to work for that TV and I remember how i didn’t like very much the journalists working there, because they didn’t give a damn about me or the other assistants in the newsroom. Few were really genuinely kind with me and the other.

But now, as a journalist, I know how closed are the newsrooms for newcomers. Even my newsroom is like that. You’ve got to have skin in the game and build your career on your own. Nobody will ever help you. So, as we evolve in this environment, everyone is building a shell to protect themselves. And some of us even create a flamboyant character and get used to that.

My friend’s pretender used to be a very quiet and shy man. One of my friends used to study in the same college than he, and he told me he wasn’t very much expansive. Years later, my friend’s pretender is now a very narcissistic person who seems to have a problem with alcohol.

So, he doesn’t seem to be the dreamboat my friend deserves.

Why we lose our BFF

I read recently a well written post by Caitlin Kelly on her blog about BFFs who go AWOL. And this reminds me how I lost my BFF almost fifteen years ago now.

I met her when I entered my new high school where I knew nobody there. She immediately asked me if I wanted to join her group during the break, and that’s how we became friends. She was like my sister at the time. People who didn’t know us would even ask if we were related. I spent a lot of time at her house, and she spent a lot of time at mine too. She was the shoulder I could cry on whenever I had a heartbreak at the time.

We had an exclusive bond, even though we had other friends and she had a permanent boyfriend. We even joked we would end up in a sanatorium together when we will be very old.

We thought our bond was indestructible, until her parents divorced.

She reacted very badly to this separation. She lost her appetite and became almost anorexic. Her boyfriend at the time and I were completely disarmed. She became moody, and began to pull away from him and from me. Eventually, she broke off with him. But I was still on her side.

But she became distant with me. And wouldn’t invite me to her house anymore. Instead, she invited another friend of her. When I discovered this, I felt so betrayed I couldn’t say anything to her. And I took my distance with her. Maybe I should have told her how I felt at the time. Maybe she would have realized where she was going.

And then, I met F.. I was head over heels for this man. But he didn’t like her, and at the time, I was so pissed against her that I decided to back him instead of her.

F. invited me everywhere with him. And I spent all my time with him, until he decided to call it quits. By that time, we knew both of us would go study in different towns. Strangely, it didn’t hurt me. As I realized I wasn’t in love with him. I fell in love with his best friend. That’s why I didn’t reach for my BFF at the time, like I used to do with all my other ex’s.

I was already in a relationship with him when I learned F. slept with my BFF during a drunken night. Strangely, I was mad at her, but not at F. I decided my friendship with her was over. And instead of confronting her about this, I just took my distance with her even more.

But our common friends did all they could to patch things up between my BFF and me. When we were in College, she invited me once to her place, but she didn’t explain why she invited me out of the blue like that. When I got there, I didn’t know what to say to her. She introduced me to her new boyfriend in a very crowded bar in the center of town she used to live, where all the students used to gather. She warned me we might get separated during the evening, and if it was the case, I should ask the barman (who’s a friend of mine)  to bring me back to her place.  And of course, I lost her in the crowd. But there, I met a lot of old classmates and chatted with them, instead of looking for her. I didn’t find her at the end of the night, so I asked our friend to bring me back at her place. There, her roommate opened the door, and said my BFF wouldn’t come back as she would stay at her boyfriend’s place. The next morning, my BFF came back to her place, but I was on my way to  the train station, so we didn’t exchange a real conversation.

After this visit, I wrote her a letter, asking her why she invited me. I asked her if she wanted us to be like we were before. But the letter came back to me, with the mention: the person doesn’t live in this address. I wondered if she sent it back immediately to me. It was almost the end of the year in College, and I already took the decision to choose another study and another town, far from everyone I knew. Everything went so fast, I didn’t think about her, and had other things in mind.

She never reacted. I could have call her, but I didn’t have her phone number. I only had her mom’s number. And it changed, because her mom moved in with another man and sold their old house.

Five years later, my mom bumped into her mom while she was doing her grocery shopping. I haven’t told my mom what happened with my BFF.  But my mom and her spent a lot of time talking with each other. That’s how I learned my BFF was now a teacher in my old school. That she had a new boyfriend who’s a common friend of ours…

Then, two weeks later, I met my BFF in my old town, while I was shopping with my mom. My mom left us, and we talked a little bit about what we became. At the end of the conversation, she asked if I would join her and her friends in a bar, during the evening. But I had other plans, so I declined the invitation.

I didn’t hear from her anymore afterwards.

Then, three years ago, a young lady came to visit me in my newsroom. She asked me a few questions about how I became journalist. She said her teacher told me to contact me. She said her teacher knows me well. I was really surprise when she told me this. But then, again, I didn’t try to contact her.

So far, I know she’s a mother of two children now. And that she lives with a man who’s a cheating liar. I don’t think she’s married.

So, this is how I lost my BFF.

Have you lost yours?

The gala dinners that suck

As a journalist, I’m sometimes invited to gala dinners. And I guess the more recognition I will have in my career, the more I will be invited to those events.

But so far, for me, it’s been difficult to attend those events, because I don’t really know all the people present there, and I often feel I’m not really in my place in those events. The only ones I really enjoy are those where I can see all my fellow journalists and the people I’m the most acquainted with in my professional world. Last year, I was at a cocktail in London invited by an investment firm, where I spent the evening chatting with French journalists and two fund managers, and we had a great time.

With experience, I tend to reach the people in those gala dinners who seem as lost as I am. And believe me, there are quite some people there who just wished they were elsewhere. The last time it was the case, it was in Berlin. I wasn’t invited at the CEOs tables. And except one or two CEO there, I didn’t know anyone. But I saw a table where one lady was sitting alone, and I sat next to her and started chatting. People started to join us at our table, and I ended my evening learning a lot of things on a company currently about to merge with another one.

But in my country, it’s different. I don’t feel at ease at all here. Especially when there’s my ex around. He’s a very well known economist in my country, and everyone knows him. In cocktails and gala dinners, he’s always surrounded by a lot of people. In other words, he’s always the star of the evening.

Usually, he will come and speak to me just for a few minutes, then leave me to talk to someone else. He also has the nasty habit of introducing me to young and not so important men who try to approach him, just to get rid of them. I find that particularly humiliating. Because usually, the guy just doesn’t get why he’s introduced to me and make very little effort to have a conversation with me. And I don’t feel like talking to them, as I really feel sorry for them. Sometimes, some of them do go into a conversation with me, because they realize they don’t really know many people in the event.

I prefer going to event where my ex is not around. But in my country, and in the financial sector, it’s difficult to find such events. That’s why I prefer going to charity events, or art events, where I’m sure not to bump on him.

And once, a friend of mine told me his recent experience at Davos. He met Nouriel Roubini at a cocktail party. A very well known economist. But in Davos, there are a lot more important people than him. As a result, Nouriel Roubini was left alone in a corner. “Nobody came to speak to him”  said my friend. “I felt a little bit sorry for him” he added. So maybe one day, my ex will be left alone like that.

So, how do you deal with your ex?

Those women who stalk men

Notice “For Willem” in intro MT @TheStalwart: NYU scrubbed @heleenmees‘ PhD thesis from its site. But we have a copy. http://t.co/Qivcyrn55G

— Matthew C. Klein (@M_C_Klein) July 3, 2013

Today, my professional mailbox was inundated with this news: a former NYU professor has been arrested since monday and is facing a one year jail sentence after stalking a well know economist who appears in the documentary “Inside Job“.

It seems she has been long infatuated with this man. As one of my friends says, some women go crazy for intelligent men. As a professor, he’s often solicited by all kind of women, ranging from his female students, to the women he meets in seminars. And unfortunately for him, one of them is now stalking him. He’s currently trying to get her condemned for harassing him.

Most of these women are not stupid. The Buiter’s stalker is a PhD in economics. My friend’s stalker got a MBA from a prestigious university.

Yet, for a reason, they just lose their mind over the guy, the alpha male, as they say. They don’t search for love. It’s not love here, it’s madness. We want to avoid hurting the person we love. And we would accept to let him/her go away.

My friend didn’t see his stalker coming. He says she contacted him because she had a research to do and he agreed to meet her for a coffee. And then, she started to send him numerous SMS (also raunchy) and tried to get into contact with his daughter and his two ex-wives. My friend is scared, and a bit lost. He doesn’t understand why this is happening to him. I just told him to get her condemned by a tribunal.

I guess Willem Buiter didn’t see his stalker coming too. After all, who would suspect a respected professor who just wants to write a thesis?

But it this happens to you, don’t hesitate to call the police and go to justice.