Gwyneth Paltrow: Paying £1,300 to meet star will only end in tears They were chatting one evening and she quite vehemently disagreed with a particular view he was expressing - as far as she was concerned they were two equals having a heated discussion. His retort was, "you should be listening to ME - people PAY to hear me speak, you know, and YOU'RE getting it for FREE." The relationship barely lasted another 24 hours. And he wasn't even famous. Disappointing The other difficulty with these meet and greet encounters is that they are almost always disappointing. Unless you are actually going to learn something from an expert (again, I am not counting Gwyneth's cookery lesson in this, because her "cookery" is mostly about grating kale), where the nature of the transaction is clearly defined, what exactly is the excited fan hoping to get out of it? A touch of the hand? A bead of sweat? A promise of eternal friendship? However long it lasts, it won't be enough - there will be just enough time to make one feel agitated, excitable, slightly sick and then confused, used and slightly inadequate, and then the celebrity will wave good-bye and disappear behind the velvet curtain again to squirt a little hand sanitiser onto their palms and breathe a sigh of relief as they are whisked away in a Escalade with tinted windows. The only consolation is that everyone ends up feeling a bit cheap, even the celebrity, so at least there is some sense of shared experience. Perhaps that's the problem with it, the discomfort, in what should be an uncomplicated encounter between fan and idol - there is no work involved. The fan just has to find the money, the idol only has to find the venue. They stand in a room together for a little while and then go their separate ways. When you remove the financial element, fan/idol encounters have some charm - the fan has made a great deal of effort to find out where their favourite celebrity is, and has waited outside and perhaps just managed to catch a glimpse. Or a chance meeting, as you pass a much loved star in the street or sit near them in a restaurant and you have to screw up your courage to go over and say a quick hello, heart in mouth and a little dizzy. When access is guaranteed, and paid for, then the atmosphere is different - something is expected, demanded even, and so how can anything real or natural or even human occur? This Groupon deal maybe expensive, but in fact, it feels a little cheap.