I was at the same party and Dave was not surrounded by baying mobs of nerds, far from it. In general, he had a couple of people from his entourage (who arrived

I was at the same party and Dave was not surrounded by baying mobs of nerds, far from it. In general, he had a couple of people from his entourage (who arrived with him) that he spoke to most of the time. In fact, at one point he was clearly looking for more conversation, as I saw him wandering through the crowd alone and finally arriving at our group and joining the conversation. Perhaps the baying crowds of nerds were in the author's mind.