The Social Climber's Bible: A Book of Manners, Practical Tips, and Spiritual Advice forthe Upwardly Mobile (13 page)

While everybody knows what Lloyd Blankfein is, even when he is in costume, you are still a mysterious and unknown quantity.

The real advantage you get from wearing a mask and fancy dress to a costume party is that it allows you to find out just where you stand on the ladder. Say your name is Sally Powers. If you are costumed and masked at a party and happen upon a group of guests who have not met you but know people who you met through social climbing, join the conversation and casually volunteer, “I hear Sally Powers is an incredibly smart gal.”

If they nod in agreement and say, “That’s what all my friends say about Sally,” you’ll know you’re on the road to success. If they snicker or worse, laugh, or even worse, tell you, “My buddy says Sally Powers is the worst social climber he’s ever met,” you will know you still have work to do and should immediately go home and reread the preceding chapters.

Now, if you dressed that way and went to a normal party and danced provocatively around a Big Fish or Whale, the assumption would be that you are a slutty hooker intent on exchanging sex for money and/or services provided by the Big Fish. But on Halloween, social climbers who want to see what it’s like to sleep their way to success can try trick-or-treating with a Big Fish or better yet, a Whale, without fear of waking up in the morning feeling guilty that they have in fact just become a slutty prostitute.

Charity Balls and Benefits

Charity galas are basically dinner dances put on to raise money for a good cause. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some benefit endangered species, others help starving children. But even if they are raising money to provide sex toys to the homeless, your job is to make sure the charity gala you’re attending benefits you as much as whatever good cause it’s being thrown for.

But if you are young or a financially challenged social climber, and a Big Fish invites you to a benefit, be careful. Before saying yes to attending any charity function, it is important for
you to ascertain whether the Big Fish is inviting you to be a guest for the evening or inviting you to have the privilege of purchasing a thousand-dollar ticket. Do-gooder Big Fish are often cunning, if not downright dishonest, in how they offer invitations to charity events. They will make it seem as if they want you for your youth, beauty, vitality, fresh ideas, and witty repartee and then send you two tickets to something you don’t really want to go to and, after the party’s over, hit you up with a bill you can’t afford to pay.

To avoid any embarrassing misunderstanding or trap laid by the unscrupulous Big Fish fund-raiser, always say, “I’d love to be your guest, but there’s a good chance I will have to fly to Burma that night.” When the formal invitation arrives with a bill, you will have a ready-made excuse.

Since rock stars and Academy Award–winning actors who attend charity events don’t have to pay for their tickets, why should you? If after you have emailed the Big Fish that you unfortunately cannot attend due to your imaginary business trip to Burma, they persist in trying to get you to make a donation, give them a demotion . . .  in your contacts. A Big Fish who asks a social climber for money is not only a bad judge of character, they are a non-Keeper and, most important, not a true Big Fish.

Those Mountaineers with the financial wherewithal to pay for a charitable climb, who can afford to cough up the hundred thousand dollars it takes to buy a table at the Metropolitan Museum’s annual gala or the Save Venice ball or Elton John’s amfAR benefit, should consult Advanced Social Climbing for a detailed analysis of what kind of entrée they’re really getting for their money.

If your Big Fish has to resort to you to fill the seats they can’t sell, it is more than likely that you are going to be in
the company of the newly minted Big Fish’s employees, lame relatives, or social climbers even lower on the ladder than yourself.

Generally, you will be fairly judged “rude” if you leave the table more than ten minutes before dessert is served. Vary the excuses you use to escape. If you keep saying you have to go to the bathroom, they will suspect you of having a spastic colon or a drug habit. It’s best to space your departures. Five minutes after sitting down and telling one short, hilarious anecdote, announce that you forgot to wash your hands. By the time you return to your table, the first course will be there. After a second brief, funny story, apologize for having to excuse yourself yet again, this time to make a phone call to a sick relative or to check on a business deal. When you return, look exasperated. Why? The line was busy. Remember to always make it seem that there is nothing you would rather do than remain in your seat and enjoy their second-rate hospitality.

What do you do when you are not going to the bathroom and not placing calls to nonexistent sick relatives? Once you are a discreet distance from the table where you’re actually sitting, walk purposefully through the ballroom, as if you’re looking for someone (i.e., employ the convincing cocktail party wave to a somebody across the room whom you’ve never met). It’s important that more substantial Big Fish see you and make the erroneous assumption that you paid thousands for a ticket and have friends there to wave to.

If anyone asks why you’re sitting with Mr. B-level Big Fish, simply say that you bought your ticket at the last minute, and because the charity means so much to you, you told the committee you didn’t care where you sat.

If you feel bold and want to hop to the table of a really Big Fish but do not know anyone at that table and have never met Mr. A-plus Big Fish, do not be shy. Simply approach the Big Fish confidently, shake his or her hand, and introduce yourself by saying, “Your support means so much to us, I want to personally thank you for coming.” The Big Fish will immediately think you’re on the committee that’s throwing the ball. Never miss an opportunity to spark a rumor about yourself that makes you look like a great person.

Funerals and Wakes

Funerals other than your own are a great place to social climb.

Yes, you will be sad when the Big Fish you’ve worked so hard to get to know suddenly dies on you. But don’t let grief
keep you from making the most of their funeral. Besides the fact that “life belongs to the living,” and the thousands of other clichés about the inevitability of death are all true, if your dead Big Fish was really your friend and cared about you, they would want you to get more out of the graveside service than a cold.

If the Big Fish parents or grandparents of a casual acquaintance pass away, don’t just call the semistranger on the phone or email your condolences. Knock on their door, bring them a jar of your famous “homemade” preserves. Even if you don’t know them very well and never met their deceased relative, be there for them, i.e., hug strangers who start to cry, and gracefully make sure you’re invited to all social functions involving the funeral. By respectfully listening as calls go out to Big Fish friends of the deceased, you will be able to ascertain if it’s a funeral worth driving across town for versus one that merits a cross-state drive.

Wakes are basically cocktail parties with tears. Mountaineers of all ages will discover that grief, death, and being reminded of just how little time we have at this earthly party called life has a curious effect on Big Fish and Whales—it makes them wonder who will come to their funeral. Knowing that they’ve had to be a dick to a great many people in the course of becoming a somebody, and that one day soon they will be lying in state at their own bon voyage party, the Big Fish/Whale will begin to worry about the prospect of empty pews at their own funeral. Faced with their own mortality, they will be open to making friends with someone like you.

If you are a young social climber, remember that your youth and vitality will be a comfort to middle-aged Big Fish at a funeral. Why? Because when they look at you, they’ll be able to forget that sad fact that they are already on the back nine of their eighteen.

Pretend to be riveted when an oldie Big Fish bores you with stories about how he and the deceased cheated to win a club championship or made their first million cornering the tapioca market.

Even if they have snubbed you in the past or failed to return your phone calls, or even if they reported you to the police for texting nude photos of yourself to their son or daughter, forgive them, hug them, tell them they remind you of your mother or father. With the Grim Reaper so close at hand, they will be inclined to consider the possibility that they just might get a better
deal on the Other Side if they do something nice to somebody as unimportant as yourself.

The Weekend

Generally speaking, people who can help you have second homes, and people who have third, fourth, and fifth homes can help you even more. Whether their nonprimary weekend residence is a place in the country, a house on the beach, or a ski chalet in the mountains, if you have followed our advice at the social functions we have covered, you will soon be receiving an invitation to spend the weekend with a Big Fish. Though your Big Fish host or hostess will assure you that your thirty-six- to forty-eight-hour stay in their domain will be totally relaxed, it won’t be for you unless you remember the following.

Expect the best, but plan for the worst. Your idea of “casual” might be cutoffs and flip-flops, but your hostess might interpret the word to mean your Bermuda shorts don’t have to have a crease in them. Similarly, you might be surprised to find that a Big Fish who says the weekend will be “do your own thing” actually means he or she is a swinger, and wearing a bathing suit would be considered bad manners. Learn how to read between the lines of the invitation, and know that invariably, if your host or hostess describes the weekend to come as “nothing fancy,” it almost always is, i.e., bring your jacket and tie or a cocktail dress.

To get an idea what you’re in for, what you need to bring besides your charm, and how you can get the most out of your
stay, it’s always best after saying “yes” and “sounds fantastic/beautiful” to add “do you have any pictures of your place?”

If their “camp” is in fact a twenty-eight-room cottage once owned by a meat-packing heir, L.L. Bean won’t cut it. If they don’t have any photos of their weekend retreat on their iPhone, Google Earth it in their presence on your cellphone. As you focus in on the satellite pic of their piece of heaven, linger on the neighboring properties. If they are owned by other Big Fish, your host or hostess won’t hesitate to tell you so. Knowing what other Big Fish are in the neighborhood, and where they reside, is absolutely essential if you want to get the most out of the weekend, given that you have to know where they live if you are going to pop in on them and make their acquaintance. How are you going to do that? Read on.

Nine times out of ten, Big Fish have multiple homes, not just because they love the country air or adore the beach; what they love is showing off the fact that they are Big Fish. The second-third-fourth home validates their status. The bigger the house, the bigger the fish—unless you have been invited to spend the weekend with the old-money New England variety of Big Fish who take perverse pride in the lack of luxury offered by their homes and enjoy making themselves and their guests uncomfortable.

The barb in this method of Big Fish validation is that monster houses have many bedrooms. And if those bedrooms are unoccupied by guests for more than two weekends in a row, the Big Fish will start to wonder,
Is there something wrong with me
? Or worse,
Is there something wrong with my house
?
Or both?
Which of course leads to a troubling, existential question that
is anathema to all Big Fish—
Could it be being a Big Fish isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?
All of which often prompts them to invite someone they know little or nothing about and isn’t even sure they like to be a guest for the weekend, i.e., you.