The single most important individual in a social climber’s life, other than themselves of course, are members of that rare breed who, due to a combination of talent, influence, and newsworthy achievement, possess a kind of celebrity that has such magical properties their celebrity status rubs off on those around them. The climber who is smart and lucky enough to become their friend not only gets to enjoy the perks and privileges normally accorded to those who have done something extraordinary, he or she also gets to enjoy the thrill of being semifamous for simply having become the friend of someone who’s genuinely famous.
Whereas a Big Fish or, better yet, a Whale can give you a huge boost up the ladder, friendship with one of these game changers can beam you up to a universe where everyone is a somebody. Because of the magical effect they can have on a social climber’s life, we like to think of game changers as “Unicorns.”
Neither money nor fame nor power nor beauty nor talent alone make someone a Unicorn. A Unicorn’s good fortune must come in multiples. For example, the Clintons, George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Jay Z, Beyoncé, Prince William, Anna Wintour, and Sir Paul and Stella McCartney are certified Unicorns. The alchemy of that Holy Trinity of accomplishment, power, and bold-faced fame makes Unicorns sexy even if they’re totally lacking in sex appeal. Examples: Henry Kissinger and Chelsea Clinton.
Movie stars and directors of movies that gross over $500 million worldwide or have won an Oscar are Unicorns until they have three flops in a row. However, celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Bono have lifetime status as game changers because they not only have fame and fortune and sex appeal, they are also professional do-gooders. All ex-presidents are Unicorns, except Jimmy Carter, who lacked Unicorn status even when he was president. Madonna still thinks she is a Unicorn, because her friends are afraid to tell her that she’s not.
Unicorns’ status is relative and can have geographical limitations. For example, if you live in Minneapolis, becoming new best friends with the local legendary Purple Unicorn, Prince, or pals with Zygi Wilf, owner of the Minnesota Vikings, will make you the toast of Minneapolis. However, the magic of those friendships will get you invited to little more than the grand opening of a Taco Bell in LA or New York.
For those who think they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever knowing the excitement and unearned access that comes to those who have the good fortune to hitch a ride to the top on the back of a Unicorn, ponder this: Since every one of the aforementioned Unicorns is surrounded by social climbers, why not you? There’s always room for one more hanger-on.
Remember, because of the fame factor, their high-profile public persona, Unicorns are far more skittish than Whales. They should never be approached directly.
Whereas Big Fish and Whales are suckers for blatant flattery, Unicorns are so used to being fawned over that direct praise will raise the short hairs on the back of their necks and send them running. Your garden variety of suck-up compliment, “I loved your last movie,” “My son/daughter wrote a history report about you,” “I can’t believe I’m meeting you,” “What’s it like to win the Nobel Prize?” is as much of a social no-no as asking a major league ballplayer to autograph your genitalia.
Unicorns already have fans: You are a social climber, not a fan. As such, you should know what the Unicorn needs and lacks is a friend like you—a Mountaineer equipped with the wit, charm, and self-confidence to make the Unicorn believe that you are attracted to them as a person, not the bold-faced name they worked so hard to become.
The narcissism of the Unicorn is paradoxical. The need to be special, which coupled with talent makes them special, also eventually and inevitably makes them feel they’re so extra-special that they’re entitled to be both special and normal at the same time. Though this is physically impossible, it does open the door for Unicorn–social climber friendships. Make Unicorns feel that they are normal. Pretend to be immune to their magic, oblivious to their superstar status, and they will be the ones who will be pursuing you for friendship.
The trick to befriending celebrities, aka Unicorns, is making them think they have singled you out for friendship because you, unlike 99.99 percent of the rest of the world, treat them as if they are normal, when in fact you have been stalking them for years.
How does one get close enough to a Unicorn to give them the false impression that they are a normal person and you are unfazed by the magical powers that come from their Unicorn status?
If you live in a major city and have done your homework, you will eventually succeed in social climbing your way, via a Big Fish, to a charity gala and/or a Whale party where the invite will indicate a Unicorn will be the guest of honor. Do not be intimidated. Remember that none of the above-mentioned game changers started out life as a Unicorn.
Rupert Murdoch, at the age of twenty-one, was an Australian Turtle. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was just another Swan until she hooked JFK.
Remind yourself, Unicorns are just like you in that they have to put their trousers on one leg at a time, even if they do have someone on staff to tie their shoelaces.
As always, planning is the key to making a success of your first encounter with a Unicorn. Say, for the purpose of this exercise, you have wangled a Big Fish into inviting you to a World Wildlife Fund charity event at which Bill Clinton and Angelina Jolie are being honored. Naturally, as a social climber, you would love to get to know Bill and/or Angelina. Fat chance of that happening, unless you think out of the box when it comes to your conversation starter.
Just as a professional soccer player might feign a limp to put an opponent off guard, you need to make a move that will shift the game in your favor. For example, before you put on your tux or dress, apply a large bandage to your calf if you’re a man and to your thigh if you’re a woman. Now dab a bit of ketchup on the bandage as if you have a leaking wound. Make no mention of your imaginary injury to anyone you are sitting with at the party.
When you see Bill and/or Angelina or whatever Unicorn you’re stalking being bored by less cunning social climbers than yourself, approach the feeding frenzy with a limp—but do not make eye contact with the Unicorn. When you are within three feet of the Unicorn, stop short and wince in seemingly excruciating pain. Now, still ignoring the Unicorn, raise the pant leg of your tuxedo or the hem of your dress and expose the bandage.
Unicorns like to show off the fact that along with having more talent, influence, and celebrity than mere mortals, they also possess a superior sense of empathy when it comes to the suffering of non-Unicorns. Nine times out of ten, the sight of your wound and your obvious discomfiture will prompt curiosity and concern, especially if they are bored with the conversation they are having and looking for a way out.
Now, if you are a woman displaying a bandaged thigh to a Unicorn like Bill Clinton, chances are you will have to do little else to get his immediate and undivided attention. But even as skittish a Unicorn as Angelina Jolie will not be able to resist an opportunity to show her superior empathy by taking the time to ask you some version of the following: “What happened to your leg?”
At which point, you will stop wincing and answer casually, “I got bit by a baby cheetah I was rescuing from a poacher’s trap on the Serengeti.”
No matter what they think of your legs, the odds are that neither Angelina nor Bill will have encountered anyone suffering so noble a wound, at least not in the last twenty-four hours. Hence, the Unicorn is going to be impressed, sympathetic, and interested enough to ask you who you are. Resist the temptation to give the Unicorn your last name. Only give your first name.
This will make them charmed and curious, and most important, put you on equal footing. They will then introduce themselves. Which is something Unicorns haven’t had to do in so long, they will get a kick out of saying their own name. When they ask what you were doing in the Serengeti rescuing the baby cheetah, simply say, “I’m an accountant/yoga instructor/insurance salesperson who likes animals.”
They will think you are being modest and then invite you over to their table so you can tell Brad Pitt/Hillary Clinton about saving the cheetah. Important: Keep the cheetah story to a minimum. Talk about the boring details of your own life. How the bloodstains from your nonexistent baby cheetah bite have ruined three pairs of pants/dresses and the dry-cleaning bill is cleaning you out, i.e., discuss things they used to talk about before they became Unicorns. If you remind them of the person they used to be before they became magical, they will like you. Why? Not because you saved a cheetah, but because you make them feel normal.
Now, before they get bored with you, excuse yourself from the conversation. But before you leave, write your name down on a matchbook and as you hand it to them say, “Give me a call next time you’re in town. We’ll hang.”
Guaranteed, you will be the first person who has given Angela or Bill a matchbook with a name and number and invited them to “hang” in over twenty years. Obviously, the chances of their responding to this simple and unpretentious invitation and calling you are slim to none. But because by now you are a great social climber, odds are you’ll run into them again at another big party where they will undoubtedly be surrounded by even more obvious climbers. Which means there is a better than fifty-fifty chance that they will use you and your story of your imaginary cheetah bite to escape yet another boring conversation, i.e., the Unicorn will actually say hello to you. You have now begun to flip the power dynamic.
If you’re lucky, a photographer will take your picture with the Unicorn, and when that appears in a magazine or on a blog, you will now be officially friends with a Unicorn. Female readers who were discreet enough not to have mentioned to the press that, when they first showed their wounded thigh to Bill Clinton, he offered to change their bandage in the back of his limousine will now also be officially trustworthy to both Bill and Hillary, giving them yet another reason to call you when they are in town.
Of course, if you pull off the above, you will either have to wear pants whenever you next see Bill/Angelina or self-mutilate a wound worthy of a baby cheetah. But there is no arguing that is a small price to pay for the entrée to be gained by being new best friends with a Unicorn.
Note: We are not being facetious about the cheetah bite ploy. In our research we came across an ex-supermodel who charmed the New York social set with tales of a tropical childhood that she would illustrate by revealing a jagged scar just above her bikini line, which she would heroically explain was the result of a childhood shark bite. Men felt particularly sorry for her when she detailed the number of lingerie jobs she lost to the unsightly wound, and in a few short years, her scar helped her hobnob her way to a marriage with an Italian industrialist with a textile empire. It was only later, when we tried to locate the account of the shark bite in her hometown newspaper, that we discovered the scar was in fact the result of an infected boil.
But to fully understand the benefits of tricking a Unicorn into thinking you’ve been bitten by a wild animal, let’s backtrack for a moment to the World Wildlife Fund charity event at which you first encountered the Unicorn. When you return to the table of the Big Fish who invited you, he or she will have observed you talking to Bill or Angelina. Because of this, he or she will not be annoyed you’ve stayed away from the table for an unacceptable length of time. Instead, he or she will be overjoyed and inquire, “Why didn’t you tell me you were friends with Bill/Angelina?”
To which you will answer, “You never asked me.”
When your Big Fish host wants to know the details of your conversation, do not push your luck with the cheetah bite story, simply say, “Just gabbing with old friends.” Which in the alternate universe the social climber lives in, they are.
As a “friend” of Bill Clinton or Angelina Jolie, your value to the Big Fish who invited you to the charity gala has been exponentially raised to the tenth power. In short, the game has been changed.
Because of your newfound status, you will be invited to twice as many galas and parties as before, thus increasing the likelihood that you’ll bump into your Unicorns again into an inevitability. They won’t remember your name or your face, but they will recall your wound. If you have been doing your homework and, say, discovered from reading the tabloids while waiting in line at the supermarket that your Unicorn has a ten-year-old daughter, ask them how she’s doing in math. Because Unicorns talk to too many people to remember what they say to anyone, they will assume that in a previous encounter, they must have confided in you. Because most people whom they encounter at galas are either embarrassingly flattering or trying to get them to attend yet another fund-raiser party, they will be relieved to have run into someone real enough to talk about what is real to them, i.e., their daughter’s inability to master long division.
A Whale, seeing you talking earnestly with a Unicorn about their daughter, will assume that someone so comfortable with one Unicorn must know many Unicorns, and will invite you to the next dinner they are throwing for Prince William or George Soros, and most game-changing of all for you, when you meet Prince William or George Soros, you’ll be introduced as the old friend of Bill Clinton or Angelina Jolie.
No Unicorn wants to be the first Unicorn friend of a non-Unicorn. But now that you’re Angelina’s or Bill’s pal, it will be safe for them to become your new best friend.
The rules of Unicorn friendship are as follows:
1. If a Unicorn asks you to do anything with them, you must always say yes even if you have a surgical procedure scheduled for that day.
2. When a Unicorn calls you on the phone, you must be willing to talk as long as they want to talk about anything, most especially about themselves and the unfair burdens of fame.
3. Never, never, never talk to the press, unless instructed by the Unicorn to disseminate their side of a story, i.e., be prepared to lie on spec.
4. The Unicorn is always right, especially when they contradict themselves.
5. If they contradict themselves in public, merely point out that their statement reflects the paradoxical nature of the universe, as opposed to confirming their rumored alcohol or drug dependency.
6. Though it is easier to become new best friends with Unicorns who do drugs and/or drink to excess, they will inevitably blame you for their addiction. Better to use alcohol/drugs to cement the relationship, and then suggest that you both take a few weeks off and go to a rehab facility with five-star spa service together.
Unicorns are hard work; being friends with one is a full-time job. Though they will buy you costly presents, pick up the checks for obscenely expensive meals, send their limos to collect you, and treat you to lavish holidays in Unicorn watering holes, it’s important you periodically say no to the freebies their other social climbing friends are accepting. Never say no to spending time with them or to a freebie Unicorn holiday, but occasionally say no when the limo is offered, and insist on paying for your own taxi. Once a year, pass on the ride in the private jet and fly on your own dime. Doing this accomplishes two things: a) It separates you from their other freeloading friends, and b) since normal people pay their own way, by doing so on occasion, you maintain the illusion that you are normal, which then gives Unicorns the illusion that they are normal because they are friends with a normal person as opposed to a total freeloader. Remember, no matter how generous Unicorns may seem, they are always paranoid that they are being used by social climbers.
Never try to repay the generosity of a celebrity with Unicorn status by inviting them to your home. Though famous people will be amused to hear anecdotes about the little headaches of your normal life—your toilet that requires a plunger to flush fully or the family of mice that lives in your oven—they will not be amused by firsthand encounters with your faulty toilet or rodent problem.
EMPOWERING THOUGHT #40
The key to maintaining a long-term friendship with a Unicorn is to identify a specific need that the Unicorn keeps hidden from the rest of the world, the most common being the Unicorn’s desire for unconditional love.
If your Unicorn asks you if you think so-and-so is taking advantage of their generosity, i.e., using them, do not answer directly. A definitive yes or no will risk making an enemy of a rival social climber. Better to respond with a question that will expose the nature of their closeted neediness, such as, “Do you feel used?” which will open the door for them to inadvertently reveal how much they spend a year buying friends. This is an important figure for you to remember—ask yourself, are you being appropriately compensated for all the hours you’ve spent listening to them complain about how hard it is to be famous? Then volunteer, “I just think someone in your position has to be very careful to avoid becoming friends with takers, as opposed to givers.” You have now subliminally identified yourself as a giver.
To deepen your budding friendship with your Unicorns, you must separate them from as many of their old friends as possible. If, for example, your Unicorn is a movie star, and his or her friends suggest that he or she is too thin, and you hear them encouraging the Unicorn to put on a few pounds, in private suggest that those seemingly concerned about the Unicorn being underweight have selfish reasons for wanting the Unicorn to get fat.
Unicorns need to hear what they want to hear. It is your job to cater to that need before they ask one of their other new best friends if they think you are taking advantage of them. In short, think of the Unicorn as Stalin and yourself as the head of the secret police, Beria.
Set yourself apart as a new best friend above suspicion. If you and the rest of your Unicorn’s entourage have been invited to a five-star event—say, Graydon Carter’s Oscar party—pull your Unicorn aside just before you get out of the limo and surprise them by suggesting that you both do something more meaningful than hitting yet another red carpet and invite them to do something really special: bowling. Unicorns trust bowlers; nothing is more normal than bowling. Being a Unicorn, they won’t ditch the party, but because it has been so long since they have been bowling and because no one but you would exchange an opportunity to be seen at the Oscar party to bowl, you will have set yourself apart as the kind of normal person the Unicorn’s shrink has urged them to establish friendships with and you still get to go to the party.
Like Unicorns, certain types of Whales can change your life overnight. By our definition, a Whale is a Big Fish with over $100 million. Note: Whales in this category like to be referred to as centimillionaires rather than simply multimillionaires. However, billionaires, even if they have multiple billions, are confident enough to be comfortable with simply being referred to as billionaires. Some Unicorns—Paul McCartney, Oprah, Ivanka Trump, et al.—are also Whales, but not all Whales are Unicorns, i.e., a Unicorn cannot walk down the street without being recognized, while many Whales can, unless they have hired a good publicist. On the other hand, there are Whales, such as Shorty Guzmán (according to Forbes, the forty-first most-powerful person in the world and the reputed head of the Sinaloa drug cartel), who pay people to keep them from being recognized on the street. (Mr. Guzmán’s recent arrest only proves that if a Whale has accumulated enough money to become a Unicorn, he will be recognized whether he likes it or not.) Such is the voodoo of money.
For the truly ambitious Mountaineer, the magical power of a Unicorn to transport the climber to the top of the mountain is exceeded only by that of the most endangered species of game changer, the Whale family.
Whale families are pods of multigenerational wealth, by-products of a family fortune usually founded by a Whale more than a hundred years ago, whose descendants, due to luck, temperance, strategic marriages, shrewd investments, Prohibition, manipulation of tax loopholes, and an uncanny ability to make money off both sides in any and every war, have grown richer with each subsequent generation. Often, but not always, Whale families have a last name that appears on a product used by millions of people every day.
In general, wealth counselors agree that the financial rule of thumb as regards most American family fortunes is bootstraps to bootstraps in three generations. But Whale families are the exception. Individually, the members of the pod may only be worth $100 million each, but families in which there are thirty-five centimillionaire cousins, two billionaire parents, and four multibillionaire grandparents are a force to be reckoned with. It isn’t simply the collective net worth in dollars that makes Whale families so popular with social climbers. It is the collective clout of the social and political power, connections, influence, etc., they have accumulated over the last hundred years, coupled with their billions, that makes them irresistible to the ambitious Mountaineer.
In our opinion, anyone who has had a billion-plus for more than six months qualifies as old money.
The flash appeal of such fortunes will be covered in our Advanced Mountaineering chapter. However, in terms of game changers, it is worth noting at this point that hanging out with a single Russian billionaire, such as Roman Abramovich, or Señor Guzmán, or hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen might have its charms, but it does not have the same panache as hobnobbing with the Rockefellers, the Kennedys, the Rothschilds, the DuPonts, or the Fords who make the car.
These pods of family wealth and social cachet have always had a special allure to Mountaineers. But before attempting to ascend the cliff face of such a clan, you should know that they are as difficult and frosty a climb as Everest. Why? Because they’ve had more than a hundred years’ experience dealing with social climbers, and they are families, and all families are complicated.
The perks that make friendship with a Whale family so enticing are obvious—the family compounds, vast estates, private beaches, guesthouses that go empty for months at a time, private planes, yachts, personal chefs waiting to make you a tuna melt in the middle of the night. The Whale family’s appeal isn’t simply that they belong to the best clubs or throw the most lavish parties, it’s that they have spent the last century accumulating juice in every walk of life. They haven’t just elected presidents and built gymnasiums, hospitals, and libraries at all the right schools, they have made all the right friends and have banked a century’s worth of favors.
A phone call from the elder of a Whale family can take you anywhere you want to go, but unfortunately, few climbers ever make it past the front gate of the family compound.
To begin with, most Mountaineers make the mistake of being overconfident. Why? Because the chances are that the Whale in the pod that you’ve met, believe to be your NBF, and think you can use to advance yourself is invariably the prodigal, the black sheep, the runt, the heir or heiress going through their Big City party girl/boy phase or their do-gooder phase and/or are more likely than not, three weeks away from entering rehab. The fact that you have become friends with the most embarrassing member of the pod will make the family suspicious of you before they’ve even met you. They may smile and say, “Pleased to meet you,” but what they’re thinking is, “Ye gads, what has the cat dragged in this time?”
Regardless of whether the Whale family member you’ve had the good fortune to meet is the pod’s wastrel or the golden boy/girl of the clan, it is important for you to realize that you are playing the long game. The smart social climber recognizes from day one that the long-term value of this connection will not come if you simply charm and ingratiate yourself with a single member of an old-money family. That works with Unicorns, but not Whales with bloodlines. The real benefits in terms of accessing the entrée and networking connections the pod has built up over generations will come only if you charm and ingratiate yourself with the whole pod.
Though the members of an immensely rich multigenerational- wealth family, aka a Whale family, may say scathing things about their own family’s indolence, untrustworthiness, cruelty, wastefulness, or lack of social conscience when talking to you (someone who isn’t a member of the one percent), what they aren’t saying is that though they don’t trust their family, they trust you and the rest of the 99 percent even less.
Given that every Whale family has had unfortunate experiences with blackmail, kidnapping, lawsuits from injured houseguests, and countless messy and expensive divorces, not to mention exploitation by short-sighted social climbers, this mistrust is not entirely unjustified.
Families who have inherited vast amounts of money are often genuinely curious about people like yourself. They want to know what it’s like to actually have to go to an office because you will be fired if you don’t, as opposed to having an office to go to so you don’t have to spend all day shopping, playing golf, and doing Pilates and yoga.
Because these families have been around for so long, they know who is who and who was who, i.e., if you have invented an imaginary great-aunt with a villa in Cap d’Antibes to impress the chain of Big Fish that led you to meet a member of a Whale family, do not mention her in front of the rest of the clan.
Because you are a novelty, and members of Whale families are inherently and innately mistrustful of those who do not come from Whale families, the member of the Whale family you’ve befriended will be curious to see what the rest of his/her pod thinks of you. Politely but firmly refuse any and all invitations to meet other members of the pod one or two at a time. No matter how good an impression you make, they will go back to the family compound and say bad things about you to the rest of the pod. Whale families keep their teeth sharp by undercutting family members who aren’t present to defend themselves or their social climbing new best friends, i.e., you.
With a Whale family, it is an all-or-nothing proposition. You need the whole family to love you, not just one or two. Note: If you are one of our readers who is considering sleeping your way to the top, do not have sex with the first member of the multigenerational member of the family you meet. Why? Because if you follow our advice, you will have the pick of the pod. Remember, in Whale families, not all trust funds are created equal.
Equally important, when getting to know the Whale family member you hope will introduce you to his/her pod, it is best to show no interest in discussing or meeting his/her esteemed family. The more unimpressed you seem, the more the solitary Whale who is adrift in the real world will reveal about the other members of his/her pod. Because your ultimate goal is to seduce the entire pod, this information will be of vital importance.
What you read on the Internet or glean from the research sources that have been so invaluable in getting the lowdown on Big Fish will already have been heavily edited by the pod’s lawyers and PR firms and be of little or no value. A drug bust and time spent in a Turkish jail will appear in Wikipedia as a cross-cultural philanthropic field trip. The good news for the climber is that Whale family members who have been temporarily banished from the pod for bad behavior or are on sabbatical in a funky part of the Big City to gain “life experience” will be homesick and therefore indiscreet. If you pretend not to be interested in talking about the pod, they will tell you all of their Whale family secrets.
Why are lonely Whales so indiscreet?
a) They know everybody likes to hear sordid details about Whale family life.
b) Trashing their relatives for being greedy, decadent, and abusive of power is a polite way of bragging.
c) They want to be the center of attention and do all of the talking.
d) They will want to make sure you won’t believe all the bad/embarrassing things the other pod members will tell you about them.
Given that they were born Whales and have more disposable income than they can spend and more entrée than they can use, what do born Whales have to complain about? Basically, in Whale families the angst boils down to: Who was Grandpa or Grandma’s favorite, i.e., who got the most money or voting shares of stock or the all-important seat on the family’s foundation? Whereas a normal family would argue about who took recently deceased Uncle Billy’s Jumbotron TV while the rest of the clan was at the funeral home, Whales have art collections, heirloom jewelry, attics full of priceless antique furniture, yachts, private jets, etc., to borrow but not return. Infighting and backbiting among the pod is exacerbated by staggeringly high stakes and the complexity of tax laws governing the distribution of multigenerational wealth.
No member of an über-rich Whale family is ever certain about his or her position in the pod due to the fact that, in spite of the number of toys and assets the family may have, not everyone can play with all the toys at once. Lawyers are ever ready to alter and update wills. Love cannot be parceled out as equitably as money, but the going exchange rate is understood by all, and more important, should be understood by you, the social climber, before taking on the whole pod.
Because you don’t know any of the other pod members yet, the Whale family scion you have befriended will be more forthcoming about his/her relatives than he/she would be if he were speaking to a fellow Whale. As with the Unicorn, you will suffer through long and boring monologues about the hardships and heartaches that go hand in hand with having been born with having so much. Take notes: This is recon time. When you finally do wangle an invitation to spend the night with the extended Whale family at their compound, it will be important for you to know whether it was their cousin Bobo or Coco whose aversion to the color purple caused her to set fire to the guest room containing an unlucky Mountaineer who made the mistake of wearing a lavender dress.
Once you have acquired a clear understanding of the family dynamics at work, grudges, pet hates, prejudices, intergenerational feuds, and rarefied interests of the whole clan, you will have a tactical edge. But to make the most of that advantage, it is essential that you do not accept an invitation to accompany the Whale back to his/her family’s watering hole unless you are absolutely sure the whole pod will be present.
Members of a Whale family, like all humans, are innately aggressive and competitive. However, due to their obvious advantages—money, connections, and power that come with their last name—and disadvantages, such as emotional damage done by governesses with harsh toilet-training techniques, lack of love, and learning disabilities due to inbreeding, playing games with outsiders is not fun for Whales. They prefer to release their aggression by being viciously competitive with the other members of the pod, all of whom they have good reasons not to trust, due to the simple fact that wills can always be changed. In other words, the Whale family will compete for what you can offer, and they are clearly in short supply of—human warmth.
If the Whale family contains, say, twenty-five members, it will be obviously impossible for you to charm and ingratiate yourself with every member of the pod simultaneously. However, if you get your Whale to invite you for a “family weekend,” the clever and disciplined climber can give every single member of the pod the illusion that you like him or her best.
Even if you’re just a mediocre guest, an average dispenser of compliments and maker of polite conversation, Whale families see so few non-Whale outsiders they will still compete for your friendship. Be careful. They will be attracted to you because of your novelty, but you do not want to become a novelty food.
Also know that even in the most benign Whale family, the visiting Mountaineer should be friendly but never too friendly. Ms. Johnson remembers being a guest at a Whale compound when a daughter who had spent the year studying art in Florence returned home with an Italian boyfriend. He was charming, witty, and knew just enough English to sound sincere. When the daughter mentioned the fact that he was an idràulico, the Whale family immediately assumed he was a hydraulic engineer. It was only when a toilet became clogged that the Whales realized that idràulico is an Italian plumber.
Curiously enough, the Whales weren’t put off by the fact that this Italian Mountaineer was a plumber; what they took offense at was that fact that he fixed their clogged toilet not with a plunger but by creating a vacuum with a hand-embroidered face towel.
WARNING
Whales have teeth, even if they are vegetarians, and chowing down on the visiting climber is blood sport for the pod. You are important to them because you are a new toy to fight over. The favors and privileges the Whale family offers will only keep coming if you convince each individual family member that he or she has a chance of stealing you away from the pod member who escorted you in.
Not all the advice we gave you in the Secrets of Being a Great Guest chapter applies to sleepovers with the Whale pod. Whereas Big Fish invite a small fish to their second home and fill your days with activities to make you envy them and their lifestyle, Whale families have so much more of everything, they don’t need to be reassured. They already know you envy them, and they assume you, like everyone else, wish you were part of their family. They will feel no obligation and make no special effort to entertain you—they know you are lucky to be in their midst. There will be no need for you to feign being religious or pretend to have to attend your house of worship, head off to cemeteries in search of nonexistent relatives, or retreat to your room to pray to Mecca to gain time for yourself. You can count on the fact that you will be ignored for long stretches of the day.
The trick for you, the climber/houseguest, is to engage the family in a way that does not make it seem as if you are pursuing them. Whales do not feel obliged to entertain their guests. Do not be surprised if the pod member who brought you home immediately deserts you and retreats to their childhood bedroom to see if anyone has taken any of their old toys. To avoid being mistaken for a prowler we recommend that immediately upon arrival you announce that you are tired and ask to be shown to your room so you can take a nap. Whales don’t feel guilty about sleeping during the day.
When all the family members are present downstairs, join them . . . carefully. Do not make a grand entrance. Slip into the room as though you had come to steal the silver and look for an imperious woman over the age of seventy whose coiffure indicates someone has been paid to wash her hair every day for over a half century. Why? Because nearly all Whale pods are ruled by a matriarch. If the Whale who has invited you has not identified her by name and/or physical characteristics, she will invariably be the one who has the most dogs around her.
Before introducing yourself to the Whale matriarch, or any other members of the family, make a point of introducing yourself to their dogs. Their pets’ opinion of houseguests carries great weight in Whale families.
If you don’t like dogs, get over it. How do you introduce yourself to a dog? Just the way you would to anyone else you wanted to like you. Say, “Hello, good boy!” . . . “Aren’t you the smartest dog in the world?!” Rub their stomach and don’t wipe your fingers if they slobber on your hand.
EMPOWERING THOUGHT #42
The matriarch of a Whale Family is more likely to judge you by her dogs’ reaction to you than by her children’s or any other relative’s opinion of you, for the simple reason that Whale matriarchs are far fonder of their pets than they are of their own blood relations.
If the matriarch has, for example, corgis, when she introduces herself the first words out of your mouth should not be, “Hello,” or “Pleased to meet you,” but “I grew up with corgis.” Bond over corgi love. Tell the boss lady Whale the names of each of the corgis you never had, and make up a sad story about how heartbroken you were when one of them died. Be careful not to say your imaginary dog died of distemper or was run over by a car. Dog-loving Whales will blame you for letting them run off the leash, or for not taking them to the vet when they were sick. Instead, tell the matriarch your Corgi died happily chasing rabbits in its sleep at the age of eighteen—126 in dog years, which is almost as long as the matriarch expects to live.
Now if the member of the pod who brought you for the weekend knows that you are not a dog lover and interjects, “You told me you’re a cat person,” smile and say, “You’re just saying that so your mother/grandmother/great-aunt won’t like me.” Though this might sound childish, old-money Whales are childish, and most important, you have now set the stage for the competition for your friendship.
After winning over the matriarch by allowing her dogs to hump your leg, the order in which you befriend the other members of the pod does not particularly matter. Because you have a great many Whales to charm and a limited amount of time to do it in, do not waste time ingratiating yourself with members of the family whose opinion does not matter to the rest of the pod, i.e., don’t waste words with those who have married into the pod, unless of course they are the family’s financial advisor, attorney, psychic advisor, or they themselves are members of a separate Whale family. This is where your recon research will come in handy.
In each of your subsequent conversations, with the right siblings, cousins, and extended family members, they will inevitably try to trick you into saying something negative about the member of the pod who has brought you. If the family member who brought you has a stutter, an obvious weakness—say, a history of drug abuse—or is out on bail for a felony, do not get duped into giving your opinion of his or her past misbehavior, culpability, or weaknesses. Simply say the truth: “It must be hard, being a Rockefeller/Kennedy/Rothschild”; if pushed to explain what you mean, know they will find you irresistible if you say, “The world holds you to a higher standard than it does the rest of us.” Also know that if you say this they will take advantage of this opportunity to tell you why being a member of their Whale family was harder for them than it was for any of the other members of the pod.
Give each member of the pod thirty minutes of one-on-one in the pity pot, and don’t forget to include the corgis in all conversations. If the Whale who brought you complains that you are not spending enough time with him or her, explain that you are just being polite. Do not under any circumstances say anything favorable about your Whale’s brothers/cousins/sisters/parents. If pushed to give an opinion on any of the above, simply repeat the phrase you’ve been uttering all day, “It must be hard being a Rockefeller/Kennedy/Rothschild.”
Obviously, when swimming with a Whale family, there are certain subjects to avoid. Any social climber with a lick of common sense knows that when Mountaineering among the Kennedy family, one should not mention the word “Chappaquiddick.” Some verboten subjects are more obscure. The Rockefeller pod, for instance, will not be amused by cannibal jokes, due to the fact that Michael Rockefeller was said to have been eaten by headhunters in New Guinea in 1961.
Remember, Whale families have feelings. And though they will be insensitive to your feelings, you must never be insensitive to theirs. Immense privileges come to those who succeed in seducing the pod. But there are responsibilities. When you travel abroad with the family in their jet to enjoy a private tour of the Louvre, know that when a member of the pod refuses to take your advice to throw away the drugs you told them not to bring in the first place and gets busted in French Customs, you, not the corgi, will be asked to take the blame.
WARNING
If you happen to find yourself a passenger when a Whale family member is in the driver’s seat of a speedboat, car, or plane, and they run over an innocent bystander, you will be asked to tell the police you were driving. Do not believe the Whale family or their attorney when they tell you that if you do take the blame for the delinquent pod member, they will use their collective Whalepower to make sure you get off with probation.
Do not listen to them or their lawyers’ promises of eternal gratitude or lifetime employment. Know that once you’re in the slammer, the Whale matriarch will tell her dogs, “We never liked that one, did we, poochies?” Worse, years later, when the family member you took the fall for runs for Senate, he or she will reference the incident as a character-defining moment in their lives and say something such as, “It wasn’t easy turning my friend in to the police for what they did. But the one thing my family’s taught me is that hard decisions are the ones that make us who we are.”
If you find yourself a passenger/bystander/witness in such a misadventure, our advice is to make a quick, confidential agreement with the pod’s matriarch in which you agree not to talk to the authorities in exchange for a six-figure gift. However, if you are asked by the pod to provide an airtight alibi that can save the heartache and embarrassment that will come to a pod member who is convicted of manslaughter, you should always get a lawyer to help you appraise what your integrity is worth.