My Failed Attempt to Befriend Nick Viall

I considered once again writing Nick a letter and getting it to him through nefarious channels but now I actually was active on Twitter because of my blog and I saw that he was fine. He thanked everyone for their support but let us know he was moving on with his life.

I should have felt better about seeing that but strangely, I felt stunted. There was no longer a reason to write Nick a letter because he was okay. He had his family and his friends backing him up, why did he need a letter from a stranger who only knew him from afar? The reality was he didn’t. Nick Viall didn’t (doesn’t) need me. So I shrugged my shoulders and figuratively walked away.

But because of my blog, I WAS on Twitter and I started seeing his posts pop up in my feed every day or so. If it hadn’t been for that fact, that would have probably been the end of this story. But Nick constantly coming to the forefront of my mind made me realize something in me was not letting go of the feeling that he was a kindred spirit. I really hadn’t let go completely after Andi’s season ended but life distracted me. I started to think maybe I should listen to that voice inside me that was telling me not to let go even though logic was screaming at me, “LET GO! YOU’RE BEING A FOOL!”

So two weeks ago, I tweeted to Nick randomly (he never responded to any of my tweets or mentions previously so I didn’t think this time would be any different) early in the morning after his appearance on After Paradise to psych out the nation into thinking that he was going to be the next Bachelor. It was a nothing tweet but 5 seconds after I posted it, I got a notice that Nick had favorited it. I was thrown by this totally unexpected first contact. I was like, “He can hear me after all!”

My mind reeled with possibilities. Okay, maybe he didn’t need me as a friend but maybe I needed him as a friend… or at least I wanted the chance to see if we COULD be friends. You can appreciate someone and the way they think from afar and then you get in a room with them and realize you have nothing to say to each other. Not that I had any intention of being in the same room with Nick Viall. I am basically housebound after all and my discomfort makes it difficult for me to physically be around other people. So tea and crumpets with Nick was the furthest thing from my mind. (Tea and crumpets is still a popular pastime among the young people, right?)

But I made the mistake of thinking because I’d only ever seen Nick active on Twitter that he was active ALL the time and that if I wanted to be friends with him, I needed to try to get to know him on Twitter which meant he’d need to follow ME on Twitter too so we could do that direct messaging thing (still not quite sure how that is done). He’s actually almost never on Twitter which I found out later.

I knew I needed to get Nick’s attention in a big way and if I was going to go to such lengths, I needed to know a little bit more about him before doing it. So I did some detective work. I wanted to be as sure as I possibly could that he was worth doing something extraordinary for before I did it.

He’d said clever things on his Twitter page but there were also some ab pics which gave me pause. I mean he has nice abs but it did strike me as a little bit vain that he would post pics of them. Why was he doing it? I tried to put myself in his shoes and I knew he wasn’t a total douche so there must have been some reason he thought that was a good idea. Keep his fan girls coming back for more? I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt because I really don’t know what his life is like in the public eye and what people are advising him to do and what he’s choosing to do.

But then there was this interview with him on Bustle that he posted on his blog (Yes, Nick is blogging now): Bustle Interview

He seemed kind of reserved for most of the interview but that’s probably ’cause the girls in the room seemed like they were a little in awe of him. The last 5 minutes of the interview really cinched it for me. Apparently, there’s this thing called “ghosting” that the young people do now when they’re done dating someone which consists of not responding to texts or phone calls from that person to give them the hint they are no longer wanted (SO f*cked up!) One of the girls said she preferred to be ghosted than have a confrontation and rather than just accept that as an answer, Nick got up in her grill and asked her why and whether she was in touch with her emotions.

She was left speechless. Why did that impress me so much? Several reasons. 1) It implies Nick is in touch with HIS emotions. 2) THAT implies he’s self-aware (although there wasn’t much doubt of that in my mind). 3) He’s not afraid to call people out even if it’s not polite. 4) He cared about a stranger enough to defy convention and ask her tough questions that might make her life better if she could answer them for herself.

So deal sealed, I was going to try to make friends with Nick Viall because it seemed like he might be one of the rare people I could actually be friends with. Real, actual friends, not some silly fan/celebrity pity relationship and that meant I needed to go big or go home. But what could I do? How could I once again get his attention the way I had completely unexpectedly done so just a few days earlier? I don’t know why a poem popped into my head but it did.

It took me a couple of hours to write and then I did some rewrites the next day. By Friday 8/31, I was ready. But I wanted to know who exactly was going to see the poem if I sent it directly to him so I did an internet search (because I’m a total geek) to figure out who could view Twitter messages. The Internets told me that if I started the tweet with @viallnicholas28 (Nick’s username on Twitter), the only people who could see it would be people who followed both of us. That was no one so… perfect!!! I really only wanted Nick to read it.

I posted the poem in the early afternoon. When we made first contact, his response was immediate so I waited for a couple of minutes. Nothing. I figured he was probably busy. Plus, it was Friday. I’m sure he had better things to do on a Friday than check his Twitter feed.

Here’s the poem I wrote:

I thought surely it was worth at least a favorite. I mean I am a dreamer and I am a bit crazy from being shut up in my room most of the time but I not so unrealistic as to think Nick would definitely be like, “Yes! You’re poem is amazing. I would like to be your friend very much too!” Yeah, no. I had no such expectation.

Imagine my surprise a couple hours later when I looked at the analytics for the Tweet and saw that 91(!) people had seen the poem, 10 had actually expanded the image to read the poem, and four people favorited it! I got three followers because of it and someone even replied to it to tell Nick the poem warranted a follow. Turns out, people CAN see the things you post though I’m not entirely sure how. One person told me they were able to see it through the Twitter widget on my blog which has now been REMOVED.

You’d think it would be a good thing that my poem was getting positive attention but not for me. I wigged out. I went into full-blown panic mode.

But my freak-out was for naught. Nick didn’t follow me. He didn’t even favorite the poem. He probably never even saw it or the unexpected attention it got.

I went online to see if there was a right way and a wrong way to get a celebrity’s attention and sure enough, I had failed to note the key component that enabled my first contact with Nick: He was ON Twitter when I Tweeted him. He was not on Twitter when I posted the poem and wasn’t on for more than a minute Friday or Saturday that I could tell.

I wondered if I should try again when he was on. I thought it was very likely he didn’t see the poem because he wasn’t active when I posted it and maybe it deserved a second chance. Although, I also realized he very well might have seen the poem and been like, “Wow. Psycho.” and just never responded. I figured if he didn’t notice it the second time, I’d throw in the towel.

I checked his Twitter profile a couple times that weekend and on Monday and Tuesday when I was on to see if he was on but we were never on at the same time. I missed him by half an hour a couple of times but he was probably long gone by then.

So then I looked up if there was a way I could be alerted when he was on. Apparently, I could write a computer program to check when he was active if I delved into the API documents of Twitter. I won’t lie. I have a programming background and the thought crossed my mind. If the program had been easy to write and I was certain it would work, I might have written it. I mean why let those 5 years of studying computer science go to waste? Why not use it to stalk a reality TV star on Twitter? And then I remembered I wasn’t a TOTAL desperate loser.

So I let it go. I just don’t have the patience or the time to check my Twitter feed every 5 minutes to see if Nick’s on and try again. But I thought it made for a good story so I decided to share it with you. Now you know a little more about me. I’m not just a snarky Bachelor blogger and I’m also slightly insane and definitely neurotic.

I hope you’ll take away from this that even though putting yourself out there in a big way can be really scary, if you don’t risk being vulnerable, you’ll never know what could have been if you didn’t. It’s better to know than to not try and always wonder, “What if?” I’ve always thought that way but having done something similar to what Nick did on BOTH seasons of The Bachelorette that he appeared on (only on a MUCH smaller scale and for different reasons), I have much greater respect for what it must have been like for him to expose himself to national ridicule and defeat twice.

It didn’t work out for either of us but at least we tried and that’s all anyone can really do in this life.

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