Covered in sweat from both a phenomenal show and a sunny 100-degree day in Dallas, TX, Spencer Charnas, lead singer of Ice Nine Kills, a metalcore outfit from Boston, waits outside his merch tent to greet his most dedicated fans for questions and photos. One of those dedicated fans, yours truly, approaches the table not shyly but still awkwardly to ask him a few questions.

What’s it like playing Warped Tour with well-known acts such as Motionless in White and Crown the Empire? Are you intimidated? What inspired your last album?

The problem with these questions, however, is that they’ve all been answered time and time again. Being as obsessed as I am with anything and everything to do with my favorite bands, I’ve watched countless YouTube interviews and read all of the bands’ posts leading up to album releases, so I know how easy it is to come across this kind of information. But for some reason, I want to ask anyway.

I ask because I want a specific answer, one spoken only to me. I want to have a personal connection to Spencer, even though I know that kind of connection is impossible to achieve.

This, I feel, is what holds us back, ‘us’ being people dedicated to constantly begging for and sometimes receiving new knowledge about our interests—journalists and bloggers and everyday people with natural curiosity. We crave a relationship with those we admire because we only know what they let us know about them.

John Green (yeah I know, I gagged just typing that name) actually says it best in his novel Paper Towns: “On some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are. We idealize them as gods or dismiss them as animals.”

This quote can actually explain way more human situations than just fan culture, but I’ll stick to the issue at hand. When we as fans or reporters can’t see the actual person in front of us, if we instead see the idea of the perfect person, we’ll never be able to fully enter into a human relationship with them.

So as fans and journalists and whoever else this article applies to, we need to improve our communication skills. Getting nervous at the thought of interviewing a celebrity is a trend that needs to die out.

We need to recognize that people are people, and we need to recognize that we might not always like who people are, regardless of what they create.

When we don’t keep these things in mind, bands feel pressure to act in a way that makes them seem cool or acceptable or like they fit in in a culture that prides itself on standing out. By ignoring these people as individuals, they change from actual people into priceless artifacts on pedestals, something that takes away from the overall musical experience.

It’s worth it to take a step back and ask yourself if you’re a fan of a person or of the music that person creates. It’s fine to only like one or the other. It’s necessary, if you want to pursue a career involving people you think you love, to make this change.

So back to Warped Tour, back to the dehydration headaches, back to the complete feeling of being one with my environment. I walk up to Spencer Charnas, lead singer of Ice Nine Kills, and I freeze for a minute. This man has changed my life in so many big ways, but I’m taken aback by one small fact: he’s short.

And all at once, my perception of him is drastically changed. It’s not that I now think less of him, it’s just that I came to the realization that he isn’t who my mind had always perceived him to be.

In that moment, I decided not to ask him what it was like playing Warped Tour, I decided not to ask him if he was intimidated, and I decided not to ask him what his inspirations were for Every Trick in the Book.

Instead, I awkwardly approached his table and shook his hand. I introduced myself. I made a joke, and he laughed (probably out of pity). We chatted for about five minutes about books and tattoos and just random stuff you talk about when you meet someone new. Then someone else walked up, so I said goodbye.

Something about this experience resonated with me more than it probably should have. It’s not like I formed an impenetrable bond with the guy, but I feel like I got information I wouldn’t have been able to get in an interview setting.

Last Saturday, I saw Ice Nine Kills live again, and while I was being blown away (seriously, if you don’t listen to them, do), I was able to think back to the time I spoke freely and comfortably with the human being singing and screaming in front of me, and to me, that’s just as important as getting answers.