The Social Climber's Bible: A Book of Manners, Practical Tips, and Spiritual Advice forthe Upwardly Mobile (4 page)

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.

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.

If you interject yourself into this conversation with the truth and say, “Gee, I always wanted to go to Africa, but I can’t afford it,” you will not only succeed in making the group feel guilty for being richer and more worldly than you, you will also make yourself feel like even more of an outsider. However, if you volunteer a vague “Africa has always been a magical place for me,” the group will assume not only that you have been to Africa, but that you might have had a more spiritual experience there
than they were able to purchase. Suddenly, you will belong. It will be a wonderful feeling, like Christmas and Chanukah combined but better.

If someone asks for the details of this trip you never made, what safari company you booked or which hotel you stayed in, answer honestly, “I don’t remember.” Then quickly and convincingly add, “I was only seven when my grandmother took me on safari.” Having a grandmother who takes you on safari as a child will not only give your act provenance, it will also give you the kind of exotic patina of a privileged past that’s invaluable to the climber. Plus, if people can’t place you, they can’t put you down.

If people in the group have known you for several months, do not worry about their wondering why you never mentioned this nonexistent globe-trotting granny before. They will simply assume that you remained silent on the subject of Africa and your granny for so long because you, unlike them, are not a show-off.

Whether you want to merely stretch the truth when you begin your adventures in Mountaineering or confabulate a whole new you is something every social climber has to decide for themselves. But if you are going to invent more than one or two fictional relatives to make yourself more interesting to strangers, it’s best to write down their names and keep a record of what you claim to have done with them over the years.

A word of caution regarding reinvention. Claiming to have gone to Harvard when you in fact flunked out of community college is asking for trouble in the age of the Internet. Likewise, claiming to be a Rockefeller is risky. Besides the fact that the last
two people who tried it are currently serving time, even if you legally change your name, avoid running into a real Rockefeller, and stay on the right side of the law, you will be expected to pick up the tab and be inundated with business proposals and requests for loans that you will be unable to refuse without seeming cheap.

How to Name-Drop the Dead

One of the safest ways to make it seem that you’ve lived a far more exciting life than you have is to casually claim friendship with a genuinely famous, rich, and or/powerful person who is no longer alive.

Offhandedly mention any of the following and people will treat you differently:

Acquire an eight-by-ten glossy of the dead somebody you’re claiming to have been close personal friends with, write a touching personal inscription to yourself, sign the person’s name, and
hang it on a discreet wall of your home, a place where your guests will be sure to see it but not so prominently placed so it will seem like you’re trying to impress.

For any readers who are still worried that there’s something “phony” about social climbing, or are having a last-minute attack of conscience in regard to taking liberties with the truth—that is, misrepresenting themselves to a Big Fish—ask yourself: If we are all equal, how is it some people actually do get to play “Chopsticks” with Leonard Bernstein, or go on safari with their grandmother, or meet Heath Ledger before he got famous and died?

Is it right or fair that the man or woman who’s CEO of the company you work for and can change your life makes a thousand times more per hour than you do? Are Big Fish really that much smarter and more talented than the rest of us, or are they just lucky? Or simply more ruthless?

Know that if you follow the tenets laid out in
The Social Climber’s Bible
, when you get to the top, you, unlike those whose friendship you’ll need to complete your quest, will deserve to be there.

O
ur research has shown that from a psychological standpoint, social climbers fall into six basic personality types. Knowing from the start what kind of climber you inherently are will make a huge difference when it comes to how far, fast, and high you climb. When taking the following psychological test, we urge you to be honest. Know that we are not judging you or trying to pigeonhole you. Rather, our hope is to maximize your human potential by helping you identify attributes in yourself that smaller minds might call flaws.

1. You are swimming in a fabulous swimming pool that belongs to someone else. You suddenly feel the urge to urinate. Do you:

a. Get out of the pool and find a bathroom.

b. Pee in the pool and hope there are no chemicals in the water that will reveal your offense.

c. Deliberately pee in the pool because those in the pool with you have not invited you to their parties.

d. Pee in the pool because you think others should consider themselves lucky to be in the same pool with you and your pee.

e. Pee in the pool because you are so drunk and/or old you do not know you are peeing.

f.
Pee in the pool and blame it on someone else.

2. The last time you slept with your best friend’s boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife, you did so because:

a. You have already slept with their parents and figure why not make it a family affair.

b. You suffer from low self-esteem, and you are running out of exciting things to discuss with your therapist.

c. You are jealous that your best friend is more successful and attractive than you are.

d. Your best friend boasted that their boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife was better in bed than you.

e. You had dosed them with Ecstasy.

f. Your best friend’s boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife was so cool, you hoped having sex with them would make you cool.

3. When you took your SATs in high school, you cheated because:

a. You recognize cheating and getting away with it is a valuable life skill.

b. You honestly believe that you deserve an unfair advantage.

c.
You knew you needed to get into a good college if you wanted to get a job in the financial services industry that would allow you to cheat people out of large sums of money.

d. SAT tests don’t reflect what truly distinguishes one human being from another . . .  like, duh, being popular.

e. You come from a country where cheating has a long and honorable place in the culture.

f. You know you’re not as smart as you bullied people into believing you are.

4. When a young, handsome/beautiful, talented celebrity dies from a drug overdose you feel:

a. Sad because you will never get a chance to meet them and become friends with them.

b. Sad because you are sad when anyone dies.

c. Jealous because the celebrity is still getting more attention than you are even though they are dead.

d. Compelled to point out that the dead celebrity was not as handsome/beautiful/talented as everybody said.

e.
Relieved because no one will be able to prove you have been lying about having an affair with the celebrity when you were in rehab.

f. Happy because there is one less person in the universe for you to envy.

5. Imagine you are stranded on a desert island with your boss, boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse, Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, and the admissions director at Princeton. Who would you eat first?

a. Your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse, because with them gone you might get the chance to have a
Blue Lagoon
moment with Scarlett and/or Channing.

b. Scarlett or Channing, because if you don’t your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse will definitely have a
Blue Lagoon
moment with one or both of them.

b. Your boss, because if you survive and he gets eaten, you’ll have a shot at his job.

c. Scarlett Johansson, because she looks tasty, and you can be relatively confident she is gluten-free.

d. Scarlett and/or Tatum, because you are tired of hearing them talk about how hard it is to be famous.

e.
The Princeton admissions director, because you didn’t get into Princeton.

6. You don’t feel guilty reading your best friend’s secret diary without permission because:

a. You know that knowledge is power.