Status Anxiety: Who’s afraid of Michael Wolff?

In the current issue of GQ, the writer Michael Wolff has rather an amusing piece about his predilection for feuding with his friends. ‘My longest feud was 15 years,’ he writes. ‘At that point, I met my feuding companion on Madison Avenue and we immediately took up where we left off. Feuds are, in a sense, a courtship. Even a seduction: has my absence, my resistance, my resolve, impressed you — or worn you down?’

The subject of the piece is his latest feud, which happens to be with me. I first met Michael in New York when I was working at Vanity Fair. I’d read his book about his stint as an unsuccessful dotcom entrepreneur — Burn Rate — and wrote him a fan letter. He responded by inviting me to lunch at Michael’s, his favourite restaurant (which he no longer goes to because he’s feuding with the owner). It wasn’t love at first sight, but we had lunch again in Los Angeles and this time we bonded.