VIP: Very (Easily) Impressed People

SP cannot tolerate a VIP room, the ideal or the reality. What is the point? Whether I am cosseted inside rubbing shoulders with the self-appointed beau monde or huddled outside with the hoi polloi, it makes no matter.  People who want to associate with people they think are as good as they are (unlikely) or associate with those they think better than they are (more likely) should stay at home. VIP rooms are full of types who only want to be seen with the kind of people they imagine are their social betters. Ridiculous.
     SP was recently invited to a swank New Year’s Eve party in a swank resort town. At first all was well as we prepared for a grand evening on the town. The tickets to the party were secured — not inexpensively, mind you — and evening clothes were called for. Immediately upon entering the venue one could detect a velvet rope signaling there would be a party within the party. A segregation of the guests was at hand. Never mind that everyone in the party paid the same price for entry.  Some of the guests were being directed into a private room.  SP and his date were ushered in where we were told by the host the “real” party was. He was wrong.  It was dismal, a room full of people preening and looking to see who was coming through the door next. The real party was in the main room outside where guests were concerned more with creating revelry and merriment than exclusion and snobbery and that is where we hastily retreated.
     SP has hosted many a party and prides himself on the eclectic mix of people he brings together. From Pulitzer Prize winners to busboys, celebrated performers fresh from the stage to the company’s bookkeeper, all are welcome as long as the individual is authentic, well-mannered and fun-loving. During the course of the evening –inevitably — there are those guests who find themselves in a side room, a bedroom usually, somewhere private where they can close a door. SP is always quick on the draw to break up such scenes. And it is always the most “important” people who break off to make these little clubs. There are no VIP rooms in my parties. In fact, I remind these persons that as a so-called VIP their duty is to make the other guests at my party feel joyous to be in their presence. In essence, I demand that they sing for their supper. This is why they were invited in the first place — as are all guests — to entertain and contribute to the general joviality. They are not invited to sit in a private room doing Lord knows what, surreptitiously scurrying in and out of a closed door.
     If guests are demophobic, they should go home for Pete’s sake and have that exclusive club in their own house.  Decline invitations to anywhere that promotes VIP rooms. Remember that good manners are about generosity, not exclusivity.