“People Say It's Best ‘If You Never Meet Your Idol’: Share Your Experiences” (43 Stories)

We, as humans, have a tendency to idolize those who impress us. People we think are the epitome of perfection, possessing qualities we dream of and work towards. Whether it's an actor, musician, any other entertainer, social activist, political leader, or simply someone from your life, like a teacher or a friend – anyone can be someone’s idol. 

Yet, what should be kept in mind is that most of the time when we idealize someone like that, we admire a perfect image of them that we came up with in our minds. Most often, we select the part of said person that we admire and tend to eliminate all the others we don’t really like. 

A part of it comes down to something called “positive psychological projections” – a phenomenon where we project positive traits we want to have on that person we admire. Thus, we make them some kind of “ideal” being, which isn’t the most realistic thing. But it helps us psychologically. 

You see, by admiring someone with certain qualities and values, we want to reflect them on ourselves, which can bring us happiness and energy for positive transformations. 

At the same time, we shouldn't build our whole identity on idolizing others, especially to an excessive level. There’s a difference between appreciation and pedestalization, and the latter should be avoided at all costs. 

First of all, because it kind of dehumanizes them – by projecting total perfection on anyone, we put unrealistic expectations onto them, which not only forces them to act to certain standards, preventing them from just being human (which is the most common among celebrity idols), but can quickly lead us to misery. 

If they do something that doesn’t fit the image we have of them in our heads, it’s easy to get disappointed. Like the saying goes, “Never meet your idols (or heroes).” Basically, it entails that if you meet someone you highly admire, you’re bound to get upset after you realize that they’re far from the picture-perfect image in your head.  

This can be attested by people who were not so lucky to meet their heroes. Quite a few stories like that are featured in today’s list. Most of them are about people meeting their favorite celebrities who, after certain run-ins, stopped being favored by them, as the meeting didn’t go so well. 

Granted, there are enough cases of celebs proving them to be nice humans; not all of them are vicious animals. But still, the bad stories are still common enough to make a point that sometimes it’s best to leave the idolizing out of real life. 

Have you ever met a person you admired? How did it go?