Toby Young Toby Young

Status anxiety

Contrary to popular wisdom, fame has forced me to become a nicer person

issue 25 October 2008

Be careful what you wish for — or, as the old proverb puts it, if God hates you, he grants your deepest wish. All my life I have wanted to be famous and now that I am finally enjoying my 15 minutes I am not sure it is all it is cracked up to be. I mistakenly thought that becoming a celebrity would be liberating — I would shrug off the everyday constraints of being a repressed, middle-class Englishman and get in touch with my inner egomaniac. In fact, the opposite is true. Since How to Lose Friends & Alienate People became the number one film at the British box office I have had to watch my ps and qs to a far greater extent than before.

For instance, if I am introduced to someone at a party, I cannot shake their hand and say ‘pleased to meet you’ just in case I have met them before.

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