Never Meet Your Heroes (aka The Pedestal Effect)

When you put someone on a pedestal, you stop being their equal; you become their audience. And fans don't set limits. They don't take up equal space. They make red flags negotiable and uncertainty feel like something worth staying for.

Pedestaling isn't admiration. Admiration and respect leave room for equality. Pedestaling creates hierarchy — you go up, you go down. And the person on the pedestal? They're set up to fail from the start. You've assigned them a role no human can sustain.

In 2017, I met someone I was completely convinced was “my person”. Because I had decided on the outcome, everything else became negotiable. Three years of inconsistency, uncertainty, and major red flags — all rationalized and explained away. When it finally collapsed, I realized: this person didn't even know the real me. I had shown up as the version of myself that wanted to be chosen.

Pedestal dynamics aren't about how amazing someone else is. They're about how small or unworthy you feel standing next to them. That's the cue — not to judge yourself, but to notice where you might need to get more solid in yourself. You can deeply admire someone and still show up as their equal. That's where real connection becomes possible.