I first heard Tavi Gevinson’s name at a breakfast I attended on the Upper West Side in 2010. A group of mothers were talking about her, seemingly with some envy. I was confused; UWS moms aren’t supposed to be jealous of 14-year-old girls. From what I could gather, Tavi—who had launched her fashion blog, Style Rookie, a couple years before from her bedroom in Oak Park, Illinois, and had since attended Paris Fashion Week and been interviewed in The New York Times—wasn’t the usual kind of kid-famous: She was a fascinating person. Like other fascinating people, there wasn’t gonna be an easy way to classify her. My cheeks started going hot now, too. I was jealous of that idea—that Tavi couldn’t be easily understood.
I wanted to know Tavi. Or, I wanted Tavi to know me. I didn’t think I should be the one to initiate. She probably wouldn’t like that. She was getting enough attention already. To stand out, I should probably run into her the old-fashioned way. No, I should probably become successful myself. I should probably only run into Tavi once I became a success.
Years went by, and I kept tabs on Tavi. She became an actress.That hurt, but I wasn’t gonna let it crush my admiration completely. Tavi became friends with a good friend of mine. I became friends with a good friend of hers. The eventuality of becoming friends with Tavi became more and more of a possibility. But I never ran into her.
It was 12 years before I was finally invited to a dinner party that Tavi was also attending. It was an intimate dinner party in New York and I wasn’t successful. I wished I had more assets to bring to the party. I will say: I was lookin’ good. Or, I was thinking I was looking good. I was in my mid 20s, in a new “I’m hot” stage of my life. I felt insecure about everything else, but the hotness feeling went a long way.
There’s no way beautiful Tavi ever cared or thought about “looking hot.”
We were allowed to smoke inside, and the wine was better than what I was used to, and I got very drunk. All of the guests were talking about politics. Actually, I’m not sure what they were talking about—all six of them seemed like geniuses, and I was out of my element. I was living in Los Angeles then, and only visiting New York for a couple of nights. All I knew to contribute at a dinner party were stories from my childhood, recaps of nights out, tales of who I’d had sex with. Like I said, I was out of my element, and the wine wasn’t solving anything.
I remembered I had read an article from The Cut the week before—the only topic I could think of that wasn’t about myself. I brought the article up. I looked around. Three of the other guests worked for places like The New Yorker. I was probably a dumbass for bringing up a publication like The Cut, so I attempted to cover my ass. “I’m a dumbass, so I read The Cut.”
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