In high school, I played varsity tennis, which meant that the majority of my friends were from the team.
As a general sports fan, I fall into the category of females who might watch more ESPN than some of her male friends, which my circle knows, loves and understands about me.
However, there is a time when they join me in front of ESPN: tennis grand slams. I’m not sure if the tradition started thanks to the 2009 Australian Open, its Australian accents and gorgeous skyline shots of Melbourne – where we all had just spent our freshman fall semester as part of the NUin program – or out of true bonding and interest.
Since then, our love for the sport, the players, the sights and sounds has only grown. This year’s US Open was no different. As we unpacked, settled in and reacquainted ourselves with homework in our West Village E apartment at the beginning of September, we all knew the play schedule and the TV was usually pre-tuned from not having changed channels between matches.
At points, the camera crew would get bored and go looking for celebrities in attendance, which moved our conversation to another world. Our focus would switch from tennis Hollywood’s latest gossip.
It’s no hidden fact that Roger Federer is besties with Anna Wintor, editor-in-chief of Vogue or that Serena Williams hangs out with Kim Kardashian enough to be invited to her wedding.
Traveling in a pack were comedy actors Peter Sarsgaard, Andy Samberg and Jason Sudeikis at the men’s final.
Michelle Obama was caught hanging out with women’s tennis great Billie Jean King, which the Flushing Meadows, NY tennis plaza is named after.
Justin Timberlake made more than one appearance. Parents-to-be Beyonce and Jay-Z were also spotted among spectators.
But present during the semifinal match between No. 1 ranked Novak Djokovic and No. 3 Roger Federer was Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs. He wasn’t just hanging out and taking in a great tennis, but sitting in Djokovic’s box with Novak’s coaches and girlfriend, Jelena Rustic.
It was then we all agreed that celebrities are only friends with celebrities. The combination of the always-name-changing Mr. Combs and the top ranked tennis player in the world from Serbia was never on my radar. I wouldn’t have ever guessed. Thank you, camera guy.
But it should make perfect sense. That they wouldn’t be friends would be more shocking.
They hang out at the same places. They buy the same things, with their similar, large wallets. They enjoy the spotlight.
I recently spent a large portion of my weekend at the Online News Association’s annual conference, where one of the presenters commented that journalists are only friends with other journalists.
That statement got me to think about my parents and their group of friends. The majority of their friends are from my dad’s office or my mom’s tennis and book groups.
Now it makes sense that celebrities are only friends with celebrities. We build our friendships off interests and celebrities are no different. It is just that their interests have higher price tags and ours are convenience-based.
We aren’t old enough to have friends with broader topics. We haven’t switched jobs three times and picked a whole new industry. We are still college students and want to socialize with those with the same struggles about finding their next co-op and the realization our high school friends are graduating without us.
Celebrities don’t have the same worries. Explaining their latest scandal that Us Weekly leaked last week during lunch at four-star restaurant trumps the latest Northeastern shuffle over Stetson East’s mac and cheese.
But the question remains, who is going to start a “Spotted at Husky Hockey” photo blog for us normal people, complete with names and captions including what we are eating and who we are wearing?

– Sarah Moomaw can be reached at [email protected].