The first thing, and undoubtedly the most annoying, is the whore phenomenon. If you are dating someone famous, you will automatically get classified a whore, no matter how virtuous you may be. Why? Because you’re dating the person the fans want to be with. No, it’s not fair. Consider this for a second.. a whore is someone who gets paid for sex…since the actual exchange of money for sex is generally frowned on, we’ll just say, someone who trades sex for favors. Okay, so he gets sex out of the deal, what do I get? That’s what I’m going to tell you about…
You know how hard it is trying to get a relationship to work, just with the normal stress of life, not having enough time for each other and still being able to have your own life to do what you want. Now toss in the fact that your boyfriend spends nine months out of the year away from home- either on the road or in a studio- which means if you want to see him, you have to drop whatever you're doing and go wherever he is.. because right now, his job is everything, and you are secondary, at best… but you can’t forget family and the dogs, of course…
Any celebrity - singer or actor- will tell you that their field isn't nearly as glamorous as it looks... there's alot of hard work involved- but there are definitely perks, too... people waiting on you, special treatment, the best of everything- hotels, clothes, etc. Sounds great, right? All that work and all those people also mean two other things... he has no time, and you have no privacy. There are no stolen kisses or sex backstage right before the show- there's no time, and there's always an audience.
And it’s definitely not an audience of one when he’s singing. You’ll learn quickly that he’s not thinking of you when he’s singing those love songs, no matter how much you want him to be. Instead, he’ll be worrying if his fly is up, not falling off the stage, remembering the moves to the next dance number and if he just sang the last line right.
On any given night, 50,000 other girls are screaming your boyfriend's name- and you have to pretend it doesn't bother you. You sit there and watch the show night after night, assuming you actually put a stop to your own life to be with him, and listen to all those girls yelling for your boyfriend and knowing full well what they'd do to him if they ever had a chance to be alone with him. And there will be times he'll be able to have access to someone that isn't you, so you have to trust him. Trust him that he cares enough about you to not take the opportunities that are thrown at him every day- you know he'd never have to be lonely... there will always be someone more than willing to keep him company.
No matter how hard you try to not be jealous- it will happen. You’ll see some random girl snuggling up to him while her best friend takes a picture of them, and you’ll automatically think- don’t touch him! He’s mine! But you can’t say anything.. that’s his job, and you just have to stay quiet. You’ll get jealous of his job- how it takes up all of his time and energy, and the way you have to rearrange your life to be with him.
Not only will be you jealous of his job, sometimes you’ll hate it. You’ll wish he was just a random guy you met working at the sports store in the mall, so you wouldn’t have to deal with all the extra complications that dating a public figure brings. His management will probably feel the same way about you. They may say it’s alright for you to come along on tour, but they don’t really want you there. You’re a distraction, something else to take up his time and concentration.
But if you don’t go on the road with him, you’ll never see him. You may try to talk on the phone- but he gets tired of feeling like he always has to check in with you… don’t you trust him? You may stay at home to take care of the house because you live together, or more accurately- share the same address, but you’ll rarely, if ever, actually be at home together. And if you are, he’s going to want to either sleep and relax, or see his friends because it’s the only chance they have to hang out. Two activities that do not include you. He’ll make plans with you though, so you can spend some time together. He’ll cancel. He needs a little more time with his friends, or someone from the band called and they need to work something out during their downtime. He’ll apologize, probably in the form of some gift. It’ll get old fast, because money doesn’t fix everything. He can only buy so many things to say he’s sorry before he’s tired of shopping, and you don’t want to unwrap anything from him ever again.
So because you want to see him, be with him, spend time with him, you go on the road. You may have to quit a job that you enjoyed working at, or take time off from school- so you can sleep in a tiny lumpy bunk that feels a lot like a coffin- and have to sleep there alone, just so you can be with him- or at least see him every now and then when he’s not busy singing, giving an interview or doing some other kind of work. Occasionally, you’ll actually get to share a hotel room and even sleep in the same bed- but after a show, he’ll be either too preoccupied or too tired to pay any real attention to you.
There’s not a lot for you to do on the road, besides rearranging the suitcase that you now live out of, watch the world pass by through a window and try to stay out of everyone’s way, because they’re always working. Even if they are sprawled out on the couch watching a movie or playing a video game- some sort of work is going on somewhere.. either at the table beside you and numbers are being yelled over the noise from the television, or something about the chorus of some song is rattling around in his head. You’ll spend a lot of time on the phone with your friends, who are expecting great stories of life on the road.. and you try to tell them about the few isolated times that you got to go to some party or something outrageous happened. You’ll have to try to make the parties sound more exciting than they really are, because that’s what your friends want to hear about, but you really won’t find anything fun to say about being forced to try to have a good time with a bunch of people who think they are gods, and deserve to be treated as such. You may have to remind your friends not to talk to anyone about you and your guy, because your boyfriend hasn’t even publicly acknowledged your relationship. Maybe he wants to keep things on the down low for now, so essentially you don’t exist. If people see you, and ask about you, you’ll become his cousin, or someone else non-threatening. And because of that- you being his cousin and all- there is definitely no PDA.
People will be waiting for the bus or airplane when it arrives, no matter where it is, how cold it is, or how secret the location was supposed to be, they will always be waiting. You have to walk out to meet the curious gazes and the glares. All those pairs of eyeballs sizing you up, comparing you to themselves. There is no way to look good when you’re traveling like that, and everyone will notice. You’ll hear them whispering that you’re not pretty, or that you look like a scrub. They’ll be right- you do look like a scrub, but it will still bother you.
Even when you get a chance to get cleaned up, make yourself look good- it will never be good enough. Your hair, make-up, and clothes will all be criticized and people will use them to make judgments about you.. 99% of them untrue and all unfair. Pictures will be taken of you, and in no time, not only will the 50 people who met you know what you looked like and what you said, so will people in every city, county, borough, state, province, country and continent of the world. Your picture will be all over the internet, as well as everyone’s comments about you. If you didn’t smile and act like the people who you met were the EXACT people you wanted to be talking to right then, and had potential to be your new best friend, not only are you a whore, you are also now a bitch. You are mean and evil, and so totally not deserving of your boyfriend, because he can do so much better.
Meeting people is always a hazard to your self-esteem, unless you happen to be the most self-confident and conceited person in the world. You would have to have nothing but feelings of the utmost superiority to everyone to be able to brush off all the things you will hear. No one will ever think you are worthy of dating him, especially if you don’t appear to meet every quality on his “ideal girl list” that was published in all the teenybopper magazines and everyone has memorized… and think they fit the description better than you ever could. They also remember everything he’s ever said about what he looks for in a girl and what his dream girl should look like, act like, etc- and you will never measure up.
You’ll also know that they’re all wondering why you’re together- what’s in it for me? What do I want to use him for? A recording contract or something? Did you ever stop to think that maybe I just fell in love with him? I could be a college student, already have a job- and no interest in any of the connections that I could have through him- but everyone will still be suspicious.
All the fans will wonder about you- and so will he. You’ll hear him say he has to be careful about his friends- that goes double for his girlfriend. He wants to trust you- but it will take him a while to let his guard down. You just have to be patient and continually keep proving yourself and the purity of your love and motives.
And if you fight- which you will- over the tiniest and most insignificant things, because he’s stressed and you feel ignored- somehow the world will find out about it. The little tiff you had over where to have dinner suddenly means your “volatile” relationship is over. Things that never happened will be speculated on- was it an abusive relationship? Was someone cheating? It doesn’t matter if it never happened- people will read the story and because they don’t want to like you anyway- will decide this just reinforces the fact that you are indeed a bitch and the story therefore must be true.
Sounds great, right? Don’t get me wrong- there are good things and it can be a lot of fun.. if you can deal with it, handle it.
The times on stage when his mind isn’t preoccupied and he catches your eye and you know he is singing to you, the pride you’ll take in his accomplishments because you know how much they mean to him, seeing your name in his thank you’s- make all the problems seem more tolerable. You’ll feel special when he talks about you in interviews- tells the world he’s in love with you, and giggle at seeing pictures of you and him in magazines. It can be beautiful- you just have to believe he’s worth all of it.
So that’s what’s in it for me… does that make me a whore? Not in the least. A bitch? Maybe- but only if it means a strong woman who stands by her man.
