I Finally Befriended My Idol Tavi Gevinson. Would It Fall Apart Over Taylor Swift?

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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.”

Nobody liked that.

Without missing a beat, Tavi turned to the sweet-looking man next to me—who was now ghostly white—and said, “Tony, congratulations—it’s amazing it took The Cut this long to promote you as editor.”

I had just insulted a major publication in front of one of the major publication’s editors. I wanted to rip out my fingernails.

Things got worse from there. That’s when I started contributing sex stories. I had nothing else. Tavi patiently sat through my rambling, with nothing to prove. She had a serious boyfriend with her. They seemed like such a sexy, solid unit.

I woke up the next morning and decided that Tavi was Enemy No. 1. What. A. Bitch.

Years went by and I got my act together a little more. I moved back to New York. I figured out how to hold my tongue at dinner parties.

One evening two years ago, Tavi and I reunited at the scene of the crime: our friend Naomi’s apartment, where Tavi had “thrown me under the bus” years before. I was ready.

We became friends. Not quickly, but honestly. With the normal amount of intensity—but I longed for intimacy with Tavi. I wasn’t sure how to get there. She still scared the shit out of me; it was as if she could see RIGHT THROUGH ME. Like she’s a lie detector or something. Plus, I had entered a rocky new stage of my life—filled with anxiety and mania—and I was doubling down on performing “happy” behavior so that she wouldn’t be able to see what was really going on.

But I had an idea. What if I asked Tavi to write something with me? Writing might be the perfect way for us to understand each other better; and frankly, I thought it might make her like me more. So I suggested we write an article together. She suggested that I review her new zine, Fan Fiction, that would be published online soon. It was an imagined friendship with Taylor Swift that would be loosely—very loosely—based on her own brief interactions with the pop star. I agreed—and immediately wished I hadn’t. There are five Taylor Swift songs that are EXTREMELY meaningful to me, but for some reason I’m not that interested in all of the cultural critiques of her. Sometimes, I like seeing what she’s up to in paparazzi photos, but mostly, I just like listening to those five songs.

Weeks went by. I had a terrible manic episode. I was the only one who wasn’t aware that I was having a terrible manic episode. I didn’t read the zine. I couldn’t bring myself to.

I don’t just like listening to Taylor’s music. I’ll say it: I am interested in “Taylor Swift.” There was a period last summer in which she would come up in every SINGLE conversation I had on a given day. I’d only ever experienced this with politics, with people like Donald Trump. It fascinated me that Taylor’s name was quite literally on everybody’s lips. And that most of what was said was extremely complimentary. I guess I was jealous.

I didn’t read the zine. Tavi called me. She wondered where the article was. I mumbled some gibberish about how maybe we should do something else. Could we write an article in which Tavi teaches me how to be a good friend? Tavi seemed disappointed, but she agreed to it. She said she thought it sounded funny. I felt like a piece of shit.

Why wouldn’t I read Tavi’s zine? I do read. I actually read! I KNOW HOW TO DO IT! It wasn’t the 70 pages that bothered me and I love Tavi’s writing. I look up to her as a writer! Why was I stringing her along like this? WHY COULDN’T I READ THE GODDAMNED ZINE.

Another week went by and Tavi—surprise, surprise—initiated the kind of intimacy I had always dreamed of us having. It started with a voice note. Not that I was able to listen to it. I couldn’t bear to. Instead, I just assumed that it was probably Tavi telling me that she was annoyed that I agreed to write an article about Fan Fiction and then decided to write something else instead. I called her up. Tavi confirmed that she’d like me to review the zine and that she wasn’t interested in working on anything else together for the time being. She expressed, vulnerably, that she wanted the zine to get more readers. If I wrote an article about it, it might help to get it out there. Here Tavi was, respecting me by telling me exactly what she needed. My heart sunk: Tavi and I were getting to know each other better through writing, but only because I was acting like a disrespectful piece of shit.

I’m not actually jealous of Taylor Swift. Her life seems like something I wouldn’t know how to handle. I’m going to say something that’ll at first sound like a BOLD delusion of grandeur, but: I don’t think Taylor Swift would like me. And I wouldn’t blame Taylor for hating me. We sort of, kind of have a mutual friend, and I treated this friend badly. The kind of bad that changed the way I even thought about myself.

I didn’t want to read or hear or watch anything about Taylor because I didn’t want to be reminded of all of my own shortcomings.

I agreed to read Tavi’s zine. I wanted to be a good friend to Tavi.

I read Fan Fiction at a small table in the back of Walker’s in Tribeca in just under an hour. I flew through the thing. It’s painful and awkward and hilarious and expertly written. It’s insightful. It turns out Tavi had already written an article about how to be a good friend, and it’s Fan Fiction. In it, Tavi tells the love story that unfolds when one falls for a new best friend. It is a warning about how not to go about friendship, and how to remain true to yourself in relation to another person. Fan Fiction defines the difference between intensity and intimacy. Tavi grapples with the mistakes she made in trying to become REAL and TRUE friends with Taylor, and through that she tries to make peace with the different, inauthentic versions of herself which emerged. I know the thing’s a fantasy piece, but the truth that Tavi inserted into the idolization of a contemporary woman…well, it was hard to ignore how Tavi was my Taylor Swift.

Towards the end of the second act, Tavi writes: “I could not love Taylor. I was too much of a fan.”

I could not—maybe can not—love Tavi, because I am too much of a fan!

After years of trying to scheme my way into Tavi’s heart, I finally realized: I’d have to get to know her first.

Just as Tavi wasn’t able to see Taylor, or let Taylor SEE HER, I couldn’t properly listen to Tavi because I had already decided who she was, what she liked, and what was most important to know about her. I couldn’t hear Tavi because my prime focus in talking to Tavi has always been to impress.

We went to dinner a couple of nights later. It was the closest I’d ever felt to Tavi, and I think it was because it was the first time that I might have actually listened to her. I already had listened to her. I had read her writing. I knew more about her imagination.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the last act of Fan Fiction, in which Tavi imagines a correspondence with Taylor in which Taylor and Tavi battle for control over their own narratives. (Tavi writing as Taylor made me laugh out loud. A REAL cackle.) Not only do Taylor and Tavi disagree on what happened between them, on specific memories, but they also fight to be individuals. They wrestle with how to both admire and disagree with each other. It is my favorite part of the zine because it is a fascinating account of Tavi and Taylor’s fictional battle for narrative control.

I began to get self-conscious about this idea. Was I writing this piece just to please Tavi? Was it stupid of me to promote her zine by emulating its style? Would my mimicry actually disappoint her? Would she feel sucked up to, or worse, swindled somehow? I decided to send her my draft. She responded right away.

My email to Tavi:

Tavi’s email to me:

In Fan Fiction, Tavi and Taylor fight to get the last word. But I can’t imagine Tavi ever not securing the final word in any kind of argument. Tavi is good with words and even better at putting her imagination onto the page. I urge you to read Fan Fiction, okay?! I IMPLORE you to.

If this experience with Tavi inadvertently taught me how to be a good friend, Fan Fiction granted me the permission to be the fan again. Her fan again. A fan of anyone, actually.

In my most meaningful relationships, I will always be just that…a fan.

Read Tavi Gevinson’s zine, Fan Fiction, here.

Originally Appeared on GQ

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