Over on my Tumblr thingy, someone asked me if I have ever met any of the original Star Trek cast. I said

Not only have I met them, I am privileged to call many of them my friends. George has been a mentor to me since 1987, and he only found out (because I told him) last year that I’ve been modeling my choices and interaction with fans after what I saw him do for so many years.

You probably know that my father is an abusive, bullying, piece of shit who terrorized me my entire childhood before going out of his way to be cruel to me when I was really struggling with all the attention I got as a teenager. So it was in that environment that I first met George and Walter and Nichelle, and they all treated me with love and kindness that I had never gotten from any of the adults in my life (save my Aunt Val). They made sure I knew that I was part of a family, now, if I wanted to be, and that they accepted me just the way I was.

I had never experienced that before. Attention, approval, even basic affection were all conditional and never freely given in my home. I lived in a house with four other people, but I didn’t have a family because my father wouldn’t let me into the family he made with my brother and sister; I was a thing my mom used to chase her dreams of fame, and — worst of all — they are emotionally immature narcissists who hated each other so much, I got put on her “team” without my knowledge or consent, and my dad treated me accordingly.

It was just an awful, painful, lonely existence that was only made better at all by my Star Trek family, who made me feel loved and valued for 10 hours a day. And that didn’t just start and end on my set; it was handed down to us from the original series cast (well, most of them, anyway) and I do my best now, as a 51 year-old Legacy Trek Cast Member, to be for the new cast members who George and Frakes were and are for me.

I’ve always known, but didn’t grok until recently, that when we are part of Star Trek, we are given the tremendous privilege to carry something precious that deeply matters to millions of people across generations. What we do with it, and the privilege of carrying it, is up to us; there is no wrong way to do it (some folks just do the job and move on, that’s fine). The way I choose to carry it and share it with all the people I interview on Ready Room is inspired by George and Frakes: Star Trek is bigger than any single one of us, and it has the power to change the world. That is an awesome responsibility and privilege, for those of us who choose to accept it. I still want to make them proud, I probably will for the rest of my life.

Yesterday, in r/losangeles, someone asked folks to share their weirdest celebrity encounter. This comes up about every three months, and regular posters in that subreddit know that it’s only a matter of time before the entire thread is horrifying, shocking, come-on-that-never-happened tales starring Andy Dick. Like, every single time. And the stories are always different, though basically the same.

So I went into that thread to see how long it took for the Andy Dick stories to get to the top (4 hours) and saw someone relate how they saw Gary Busey at LAX, and he was just sort of badgering everyone who was near him. I commented that I have seen him at LAX two different times, separated by at least a decade, and he was doing exactly that both times. You know that Far Side “How Nature Says Do Not Touch”? This is where I gesture toward Gary Busey and his teeth.

In response to that, someone asked me to flip the thread and share my weirdest fan encounter. I don’t know that I have one that’s weird (the space between weird and terrifying in this instance is measured in microns), but I do have two that are especially memorable, so I shared those.

I’ve had people behave in appalling ways, treating me like a thing, like a Pokemon to be caught and displayed. One guy followed me into a bathroom at an airport, literally trying to shove a pile of 8x10s into my face while I was at the urinal. I’m a generally laid back person, and I lost my shit at that guy. In retrospect, I should have just peed all over him. His version of the story must be … interesting.

But that’s a real outlier. I’m so lucky that I seem to draw the attention of kind and gentle people more than anything else, so those are the people who tend to approach and interact with me.

My favorite (well, most memorable) experience in recent memory was about … maybe six or seven years ago. My wife and I were in San Francisco for work, and we were waiting at a light to cross the street. This guy comes up from our left, jogging, and as he passes us, this sixth sense I have developed to keep me safe tells me that this guy just made me, and I need to be aware of that. Luckily for me, there are endless escape routes in this moment, but something in this guy’s body language tells me I won’t need them. (Hypervigilance, which is part of my body’s response to trauma, takes all of that stuff in, processes it, and blares it all back at like an air raid siren in the span of about a second and a half. WE ARE AT DEFCON 2 PEOPLE.)

He stops jogging and does that jogging backwards thing. He says, “Are you on The Big Bang Theory?”

He’s jogging in place which always looks funny to me, even though I’m a runner and do it myself.

I tell him that I am. His face lights up. “I knew it! Oh man! I love you on that show!”

WE ARE BACK AT DEFCON 5.

“Thank you!”

Then he takes a second while he’s thinking of something and says, “this is embarrassing. I know that your character is Wil Wheaton, but I don’t know what your name is.”

That’s when I got to tell him that I am Wil Wheaton Prime, and that the Wil Wheaton he sees is a character.

“I had no idea you were a real person!” He said. Then, he kind of caught himself, like maybe he’d insulted me or been unkind.

Oh buddy. You have no idea.

“Oh, I assure you, I am a fully functional human being with a backstory and everything,” I laughed.

He laughed with me. The light changed. We did a terrorist fist jab, and went on our separate ways.

I related this to Anne last night. She remembered all these things, because she was there for them.

“Weird shit happens around us a lot,” I said, “because of this weird job I have. But I read that whole thing, and I gotta tell you how grateful I am to know that I’m never showing up in one of those threads as the bad guy in someone’s story.”

“Except the bathroom guy,” she said.

I laughed. “I would love to hear that guy justify how he was the aggrieved party in that story.”

Of course, I know what that guy told himself. He told himself that he waited at the airport for hours and I owed him. That’s a thing that happens all the time, and it’s why I have this blanket policy of never engaging in photos and autographs at airports, ever, for any reason. And I don’t feel guilty about it. I used to, sure, thanks to all my mom’s conditioning, but I gotta tell you, the day I said to a belligerent guy at PDX, calmly and simply, “No, I’m not signing anything for you and I don’t care how long you waited here. You chose to do that, and I don’t owe you anything. Respect my boundaries.” And walked away while he sputtered in self righteous anger? Yeah, that felt great.

I am a fully functional human being with a backstory and everything. 99% of people I encounter know and honor that, and I am so grateful.