Review Mode: Carson gets called out for self-plagiarism

You know those things in your life you have to talk about so often that you have your little go-to quips about em? Yeah, the trick with that is to not get caught.

Welcome to Review Mode, a biweekly newsletter where I mark up my social interactions, mining my, like, medical-grade self-monitoring for your reading pleasure.

I think that one of the most unattractive things a person can do on a date (outside of anything actually bad) is be noticeably inauthentic. Well, last week, I gave someone the ick.

Whenever someone asks me about my job, writing data reports about payment technology for a business research website, I always smile sardonically (I think? maybe it’s wryly? glibly? self-deprecatingly?) and say “When you do what you love, you never work a day in your life.”

Unless someone from my job is reading this, in which case, I smile sincerely and say “When you do what you love, you never work a day in your life.” I’m deeply passionate about the work we do, and I’d like to keep doing it forever.

So, I was on this Hinge date last week. Truth is, it was going just okay, but for the sake of this anecdote having higher stakes, let’s say I was really into them. Let’s say they were the prettiest, sweetest, smartest person I’ve ever met, and they have a laugh that sounds like angels singing.

Anyway, this god among men (godx among menx?) tells me about their cool, impactful job rescuing babies and puppies from natural disasters, or whatever, and then asks me to remind them what I do. I tell them, and I say my little line.

Then they say a phrase that makes my blood go cold: “I think you already said that when we were chatting.”

Well, I’ve been caught. So this is what Oz the Great and Powerful felt like when Dorothy noticed him behind that curtain, huh? I’m a fraud. A phony. They see right through my little tricks.

I have to imagine that I’m not the only person who has a little phrase they use when asked about their job. I mean, other people must also have jobs that aren’t very interesting to talk about, and surely many of them have their stock answers to help them survive those conversations too, right? (If so, lmk yours. If not, fuck.)

I think it’s okay to have those. But I guess, to slightly paraphrase Clea-Duvall-as-hot-butch in But I’m a Cheerleader, the trick with that is to not get caught.

It’s hard to know how much to study up on the available materials before a date. Like, you should definitely make sure you know their name, but after that, it gets a little less cut-and-dried. If you don’t remember anything, you seem thoughtless. If you remember too much, you seem creepy. It’s a fine balance.

On this particular date, I managed to both overshoot and undershoot.

On the overshooting side, I’d checked this person’s profile again right before the date, so it came off as weird when I referenced them being a Pisces in a hint I gave when we were playing Catchphrase. (What? The bar had games. Also, if you’re curious how to play Catchphrase 1-on-1, I can’t help you — we never quite nailed it.)

On the undershooting side, if I’d just refreshed myself a little on what we’d messaged about on the app, I would’ve known we’d mentioned our jobs, and I could’ve kept myself from sounding scripted and fake. I didn’t need to reinvent the wheel: I can still be kinda flippant and cagey about my job. It’s when it gets into verbatim self-plagiarism that it becomes a problem.

The Lesson That I Should but Probably Won’t Learn from This: If you’re gonna have a little quip at the ready, also have backup lines for those times when you may have already used the first one.

Alternatively, engage with people openly and authentically rather than deflecting with rehearsed responses. Hahahahaha I’m kidding. Can you imagine?

Carson’s life updates:

• The Bob Dylan movie is proving to be huge for my ability to do casual small talk with straight men. Thanks for that one, Timothee.

• I’m starting a new show called Friendly’s, cohosted by the very funny Max Higgins at C’mon Everybody on 1/21. The lineup is ridiculous — Nico Carney, Esther Fallick, Michelladonna, Jess Henderson. Come through! This would be a good one to bring your friends to if you wanna show off that you know about cool queer comedians.

• People keep asking me what I think about the TikTok shut down, but I don’t have a take yet. If you’re smarter and more thoughtful than I am, can you just tell me your opinion about it, and then that can be mine?

The Boilerplate

Carson Olshansky (still they/them, despite the haters) is a Brooklyn-based comedian and writer. If you don’t already, you can follow them at @carsonolshansky on Instagram and TikTok and at @carson-olshansky on YouTube.