Can meeting a celebrity lead to subtle obsession?

[WhyReindeer]

have you ever become really into or obsessed with a celebrity after meeting them? Do you know anyone who has experienced it from the other side? I don't mean crazy stalking harassment but something more normal life subtle.

My friend met a celebrity (call him Luke not his name) recently that she has had always admired because she thought he was a good performer but was not a die hard fan. It was not in a fan meet and greet sort of context where she'd be marked as a keep at arms length weirdo. She was introduced to him more as an equal if that makes sense. We were at a private event. There was a friend of a friend there who we knew and got talking to. Turns out that this person knew Luke who came over came to talk to him so we all got chatting. I was with her and he was absolutely charming and really good looking. He invited us all to go to watch something else he was doing the following week. She went and saw him again then. I didn't go to that but she said he was just as lovely and charming.

Afterwards she was going on and on about him and said that if she wasn't a normal person she could easily turn into his stalker. We were joking about it but she was saying well I could do this and this. It was sort of stuff that she could easily do because of people she knew. Wangling invites to things where he would be or booking a couple of tickets to one of his performances and inviting the friend of a friend who knew him (inevitably leading to saying hi afterwards). She wasn't actually going to do it it was more of us joking about but if she was more obsessive she could have done it easily and it wouldn't have been very obvious because of the contexts.

I was wondering how often it happens. Most people at one point or another especially when students have gone somewhere to "accidentally on purpose" bump into their crush. This must be a much bigger problem for celebrities who might become the object of affection of a 'normal' person they meet in the course of life and become a (What would you call it) low grade stalker? not even that - not so intrusive or repeated to be noticed as illegal harassment but a bit more subtle manipulation 'bump into them'.

It must happen all the time to celebs I would think?

Yes. I'm quite a sensible person, but had a 10 minute encounter with a celebrity and was blown away! Got so excited when I saw him on telly afterwards, had dreams where he would pop up doing random, dream things - cleaning out my kitchen cupboards was one random one!
. .

I wouldn't have ever stalked him. In fact didn't say a lot - I am very aware that it must be very tiring having people talk at you inanely, just because you are on telly - though I may have accidentally walked past him several times during the event, smiling a bit too much!

Doesn’t it depend on the ‘grade’ of celebrity? Big stars are often surrounded by layers of security, and unlikely to be interacting freely with fans or mingling with the general public

Yes I once came face to face and touched the outreaching hand of Rod Stewart and the charisma and energy that he exuded was like nothing I have ever felt before.

Now a lifelong fan, my DH has a vinyl collection with many of his albums. He can’t understand the attraction.

@Justmadesourkraut interesting you being ' a sensible person', so is my friend a sensible person. celebrities must have to put up with so much from members of the public who are not sensible if even sensible people can be 😍

@LinnetsWing I don't think so because I'm talking about where you meet someone in a context outside of the fan mingling. This guy is really well known not Tom Cruise level admittedly more Stanley Tucci level. People like that will from time to time be at parties of friends or fundraisers or public events where they will meet people in a more equal context. It was that really I was thinking about not fan meet and greets or book signings or stage door stop.

But that is what I mean — not enormous stars, hence not surrounded by bodyguards etc.

I used to have a job where I met a lot of celebrities (not anyone I’d say was Stanley Tucci level - I’m talking more in the realms of British TV presenters and actors, but certainly a good few were UK household names).

I think people who meet celebrities can have very intense feelings about them because when they meet a celebrity, they feel like they already know them. They look and sound familiar even though you’ve never met them, and some people definitely mistake that for a connection or spark.

Unless you know someone’s schedule and/or exactly where they live, it’s not hugely easy to ‘just keep bumping into them’ though.

One thing that did terrify me was the huge number of people who don’t seem able to understand that the actor they see every night / week on their favourite soap or drama series is not actually their character. I once accompanied an actor to a Starbucks when she wanted a break during a photo shoot. She had previously played a villain in a soap opera and when we were queuing for drinks, a woman came up to her, clouted her with her newspaper and started berating her for how badly her character had treated her screen husband. That was about two years after she’d left the soap, too!

Mine did have bodyguards - in fact they were rather irritated by me trying to take a good photo as he left and told me off for 'Behaving like a teenager!' Id been so calm and low key about it all, then decided at the last minute that I really needed to stop being cool and get a photo or two!

I think I'd read so much about superstars being pretentious/different to how they project themselves on screen - and I was just bowled over by bumping into this person/having a good chat and feeling they weren't trying too hard at all, but were very present/interested/chatty . . .

Still makes me smile.