Who are those boldfaced names chiseled on the walls of art museums, opera houses, hospitals, and Ivy League universities? They’re social climbers. If you pay for the new wing to a cultural institution, you are no longer a crass, pushy vampire squid who beat the rap on insider trading, you are the new best friend to the cultural elite of the world. Though Roget’s Thesaurus would disagree, philanthropy is now and has always been a synonym for social climbing.
The rich don’t make six-figure donations to get their children into the right nursery school because they like the teachers. They want to make sure their children start learning the secrets of social climbing by the time they’re toilet-trained—secrets they don’t want you to know, secrets that give them an unfair advantage, but secrets The Social Climber’s Bible believes you have a right to know.
EMPOWERING THOUGHT #3
You are a special person who could be more special if you had more special friends.
Whether you dream of partying with billionaires or running for political office, or long for a job that won’t require you to ever have to ask anyone again, “Do you want fries with that order?” or simply want to know what it’s like to knock back a six-pack with the reality stars of Duck Dynasty, we can show you a shortcut to the top. However, before we start, a few words of caution:
WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS BOOK IN PUBLIC
Though social climbing has a long and admirable tradition, and has played as significant a role in our human evolution as our opposable thumbs, it is best not to advertise your decision to master the art of social climbing. Put your copy of The Social Climber’s Bible in the same drawer where you hide your porno and sex aids. If it is discovered by a snoopy friend or family member, swear on the life of a loved one it belongs to someone else.
WHY YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES, EVEN IF YOU DON’T
Life teaches us that the less you have to bring to the party in terms of looks, charm, education, professional achievement, intelligence, worldly experience, famous relatives, and yes, of course, that ultimate game changer, money—the harder it will be for you to get to the top. That is, unless you’re a Mountaineer.
Though the world is neither fair nor democratic, those lacking any or all of the above assets will be happy to know that if you are mediocre-looking and lacking in special skills, you have an advantage when it comes to a career in climbing. Why? Because the more accomplished and attractive you are, the more likely it is you will be pegged as a social climber.
What separates the good social climber (that is, the invisible one) from the bad (i.e., the obvious) has nothing to do with how pushy, self-serving, or ruthless you are. It’s all about manners. And we will teach you tricks of etiquette that will make your climb seem as innocent and uncalculated as a child’s smile.
Proper etiquette for the social climber involves far more than just remembering to say please and thank you. Social climbing is a strategy for getting more out of life. As such, bluffs, feints, tactical retreats, flanking maneuvers, ambushes, forced marches, and yes, unfortunately, collateral damage to innocents are involved in victory.
If done correctly, it is not unlike cyber warfare. You are the virus, and the enemy—all those who have access to things you want who are not yet your new best friends—will have no idea they’re under attack until you have gained entrée and moved on to the next party.
But before we decide which stratagems will work best for you, let’s begin by asking ourselves a few personal questions:
What Are My Assets?
Not sure? Why don’t we start by removing our clothes (that includes underwear) and taking a good hard look at ourselves in the mirror.
If you don’t like what you see, remember: Penicillin started out as mold.
Would you describe yourself as less than gorgeous? Subhandsome? Are you overweight? Out of shape? Plagued by the heartbreak of psoriasis? Would you refuse to have sex with someone who resembled yourself?
EMPOWERING THOUGHT #4
We are not like all the other self-help books that tell you to love yourself just as you are, not as the world tells you you should be and then proceed to make you feel bad for not going to the gym, and/or for drinking alone, and/or for self-medicating with prescription drugs. We want you to appreciate your shortcomings as much as we do.
So now that you’re naked, we want you to repeat our Mantra for Upward Mobility. I CARE ENOUGH ABOUT ME NOT TO BELIEVE ANYTHING THEY SAY ABOUT ME IS TRUE IF I DON’T WANT IT TO BE. I WILL NOT BE JUDGED.
As you’re repeating your new mantra, here’s another thought that will cheer you up: One of the great things about social climbing is that being a beautiful person, either physically or spiritually, is not always an asset.
Particularly as you climb to the higher rungs of the ladder, you will discover that those worth getting to know—the megarich, the hugely powerful, what we like to call Whales—are extraordinary people but rarely extraordinarily physically attractive people.
If we were being mean we might say Microsoft’s Paul Allen has the look of a mortician and Bill Gates resembles a snail out of his shell; or suggest corporate raider Ron Perelman was the inspiration for SpongeBob’s snobby neighbor, Squidward. Our point is, if you check the Forbes 400, the top of the food chain isn’t pretty. Movie stars, supermodels, and rock stars may be better-looking, but they’re ugly in their own way. Human nature being what it is, people who are filthy rich and powerful and famous and less than beautiful want to surround themselves with people who will make them feel more attractive by comparison, i.e., you.
The privileged elite, the Mountaineers’ portals to a brighter future, are what we call Big Fish. Though we can be accused of mixing metaphors, you will soon discover that one can’t get close to the top of the mountain without learning how to recognize, hook, and filet Big Fish. Having spent their lives working and climbing to get where they are, Big Fish want friends they can count on to envy them, friends who will make them feel superior: friends like you.
Those readers whose assets do not include physical beauty should also know they have one huge advantage when it comes to social climbing. If you are clearly more attractive than the Big Fish, i.e., gorgeous/handsome, they will want to have sex with you. If you have sex with them, they will either be disappointed or, worse, fall for you and want to have sex with you again and again and again, thereby becoming possessive and limiting your ability to move on and seduce one of their richer and more powerful friends.
Now, stop chanting. Put your clothes back on, and let’s take a look in your closet.
As Coco Chanel said, dress as you wish to be perceived. First and foremost, social climbers should look like they belong . . . anywhere. Unless, of course, it’s in your interest to look like you don’t belong, which is a more complex strategy that will be covered later. You want to fit in and at the same time set yourself apart just enough so that you’ll be remembered. Your outfit should tell a story—invite conversation, curiosity, and just enough envy to make people think you’re worthy of their friendship.
A large hat with a veil for women, or a fedora for men, pulled rakishly low over one eye, can make the difference between being remembered as the guest with the unfortunate nose and being recalled as the fun person in the chapeau.
As a rule of thumb, never be overdressed, for the simple reason that it will make it clear how hard you’re trying to be something you’re not. Those who actually belong to whatever social strata you’re trying to move up into won’t be trying hard. Which means no matter how hard you’re working at pretending to be someone other than yourself, it should appear at all times that you are just being yourself.
Of course, occasionally arriving in a ball gown or a tuxedo to a casual event can work wonders for you if you wear it in a way that implies you’re on your way to somewhere fancier, better, and more socially promising, which in turn will give your hosts, who more often than not are as socially ambitious as yourself, the false impression that you might have connections they can exploit
to their advantage.
Here are some suggested fun looks for the social climber—looks that will make you seem worth getting to know at a glance but not strange. A word to the wise: You want your outfit to be a conversation starter, not a joke.
If you’re a Sikh, go with the turban and uncut hair, aka the kes, along with the other four Ks, the kanga (wooden comb), kara (steel or iron bracelet), kirpan (dagger), and the special sexy kachhera (underwear). Look what the Mormon Church’s magical briefs did for Mitt Romney. If you have a drop of Scottish blood in you, wear your kilt and sporran when flambéing the boulevard. Indonesian (or just look it), a blue blazer and a sarong is a worldly ice breaker. For those who are from the Arabian Gulf states, a word to the wise: Though a head scarf is dashing, a burka and full robes might get in the way of your dance floor fun, unless of course you’re the daughter of an Emirate emir and have a disco in your 747.
Whatever look you go for, stick with it—not having to waste time shopping or deciding what to wear will give you more time to work on your social life.
How to Sound Like a Somebody
The rules have changed since My Fair Lady’s Eliza Doolittle had to learn how to talk fancy. The era when an accent could hinder your climb is fortunately behind us. Sounding as if you come from somewhere when you come from nowhere can be a plus. Texas twang, southern drawl, English, Australian, Pakistani, whatever, don’t lose it, go with it. It will make you seem more authentic. The one caveat to this rule, of course, is if your accent is “Jersey Shore”—in this case, if elocution lessons are not an option, the quickest way for you to get respect is to let your host or hostess know that your family is in organized crime.
In terms of presentation, one last piece of advice: A good social climber doesn’t look or smell nervous. If you belong, you don’t sweat. Now because you’re soon going to be stepping into situations where you don’t belong, carry a clean handkerchief and a good deodorant on your person at all times. Never forget: When a social climber steps into a room, he or she should smell like a breath of fresh air.
DOES BEING A SOCIAL CLIMBER MEAN I HAVE TO BECOME A PHONY?
Telling people they look gorgeous when in fact they’re an eyesore or praising them for being wise when they have the intelligence of a cocker spaniel doesn’t make you a phony, it makes you a kind person.
The good social climber knows that the truth is often hurtful, cruel, and, most important, does not make you popular.
If you have qualms about telling the white lies, whoppers, exaggerations, and confabulations of fact and fiction that will not only make your climb go easier and faster but also make people like you more, consider this:
Both scientists and philosophers agree that no truth is absolute, all truths are subjective, and reality is a matter of perception. That is, what small minds might call a lie is not. Social climbers should think like legendary quantum physicist Hugh Everett, who said, among other things, that anything that can happen, does happen in some universe somewhere.
For example, say you’re a man who has been invited to a social function where you’re expected to wear a suit and tie and you have nothing in your closet except track suits, hoodies, and sweats. If you show up and admit to your host or hostess that you are dressed for a game of b-ball because you don’t own a suit, your chances of making a successful impression are far slimmer than if you arrive in your athletic gear and apologize for the way you are underdressed by explaining that you were just shooting hoops over at the Nets new arena in Brooklyn with Jay Z.
Could it be true? In a physicist’s theoretical parallel universe it could!
Does the white lie make you seem like the kind of person your host will want to show off to his even better-connected friends—most definitely!
The only question the social climber should ask when employing the physicists’ and philosophers’ creative approach to reality is simply—WILL I GET CAUGHT?
In this case, if your host is white and has a net worth under a hundred million dollars, the odds of his bumping into Jay Z and finding out you’re lying are longer than the odds of your being struck by a meteor while sitting on the couch watching the Nets play on television.
EMPOWERING THOUGHT #5
For the social climber, honesty is rarely the best policy.
You must always remember that those who have far more money, power, and access than you do will undoubtedly have been climbing for years and are far more experienced Mountaineers than you are. As such, they will have a built-in bullshit detector.
Simply saying everything and everybody is fabulous won’t make the Big Fish think you’re especially remarkable, especially if they’re French. The key to keeping your betters’ bullshit detector from going off and avoiding being written off as an obvious suck-up or straightforward sycophant requires three things: 1) patience, 2) planning, and 3) polishing reality, that is, a willingness to confabulate one or more small white lies that will make someone other than yourself look and feel good.
Here’s how it works: First demonstrate yourself to be a critical-thinking person of discerning taste by subtly putting down those you are sure the Big Fish thinks are either above or beneath him (this should be done in private to make sure that a third party doesn’t quote you and thus prevent you from becoming friends at a later date with those you have dissed to ingratiate yourself).
Having established a bond of shared disdain, retreat.
Whether you wait a week or an hour to sink your hook depends on your circumstances and the amount of alcohol and/or drugs the Big Fish has consumed. The important thing to remember is you should wait until the Big Fish is feeling good, happy, and relaxed, surrounded by friends. Then, at a suitable lull in the conversation, interject, “You know, Barbara (or whatever name your Big Fish goes by), the last time we talked you said the most brilliant thing about [art, the junk bond market, romance, parenting, whatever].”
Now even though the brilliant statement you just referred to was never made by Barbara, and even if she has in fact never made a brilliant statement in her life, when you proceed to attribute a brilliant statement to her that she never made, she, and everybody else, is going to be impressed.
Offer up a reworked truism of Oscar Wilde’s, plagiarize Fran Lebowitz, or paraphrase Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. For instance, if you were talking about art, you might want to endow the Big Fish with these words of wisdom. “Great art doesn’t idealize the real, it realizes the ideal.”
The Big Fish isn’t going to say, “I never said such a clever thing in my life.” He is going to smile, swallow it hook, line, and sinker, and take credit for the words of wisdom you invented for him.
More important for you, that Big Fish is immediately going to think two things: a) Sometimes I forget how smart I am, and b) you are an intelligent and discerning judge of character and must be invited back to remind him of other clever things he’s forgotten he said.
EMPOWERING THOUGHT #6
It is rare to encounter an individual who will think you are stupid for saying that he or she is the most intelligent person in the room, but such individuals do exist, particularly in the financial world; think of Bernie Madoff.
Social climbers do not improvise on reality—telling white lies that make other people feel good about themselves—because they don’t know the difference between fact and fiction. Social climbers are simply realists; they take the world as it is and try to change it by improving their own position in it. Take comfort in the fact that the twenty-first century is the golden age of misinformation. One only has to listen to Fox News to know there is no such thing as hard fact. Besides, you are lying for a good cause—you.
Men and women we admire, candidates for the highest office in the land, take liberties with reality every day. If former president George W. Bush can make up words like “misunderestimate,” if former secretary of state Hillary Clinton can tell a whopper about running from enemy gunfire at an airbase in Bosnia when she in fact was caught on video with a bunch of
schoolgirls presenting her with bouquets, if Mitt Romney can quote imaginary statistics to support an economic plan designed to make him and his Big Fish friends richer and you poorer, why shouldn’t hardworking social climbers be allowed to take a few liberties in advancing themselves?
Not just to pick on politicians, what about all the actors and actresses who swear they never had a face-lift but have fewer wrinkles at fifty than they did at twenty-five? Like margarines that insist they taste just like butter, people, especially professional personalities who market themselves as a brand, are rarely all they claim to be. And why should they be? False advertising is a great American tradition.
Though you are still several steps away from beginning your ascent in public, it’s important for you to have a practical understanding of how your ability to improvise and improve your backstory can be helpful.
Imagine you’re at a party. It’s in a mansion in Beverly Hills and Adam Levine and David Bowie have just sung an impromptu duet. Uniformed waiters pass hors d’oeuvres, silver trays laden with bite-size delectables—truffled quail eggs, crab tostadas, baby potatoes overflowing with Beluga caviar; this is the kind of party you’ll be going to three or four evenings a week if you master the lessons of this book.
Now imagine you find yourself on the edge of a group of people whom you don’t know but recognize as being more prosperous, connected, and attractive than yourself. What’s more, they are enjoying drawing attention to the social gulf between your life and theirs by nattering on about, say, what a fantastic time they all had on their various safaris in Africa. As they compare the amenities offered by Abercrombie & Kent versus those provided by Eco Tours Unlimited, you, having never set foot in Africa, feel understandably left out. If you have always wanted to go on safari but can’t afford a ticket to Buffalo, much less Nairobi, you’re going to feel doubly left out.
The Social Climber's Bible: A Book of Manners, Practical Tips, and Spiritual Advice forthe Upwardly Mobile Page 2
