Review Mode: Have I Been Serving People Gross Water?
I bet if I used a Brita, I’d be a cool, normal person who everyone liked.
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.
Recently, when a friend was over at my apartment, I got him a glass of water from the sink. As he went to refill it himself, he headed straight for the Brita pitcher.
Fuck.
Years of my bad hosting flashed before my eyes.
I don’t have people over very often. You know how the whole thing with this Substack is that I can be pretty insecure and have a tendency toward low self-esteem? Yeah, so having people in the space I live in feels pretty fraught. It’s like saying, “Here, come see more things you can judge about me.”
Eagle-eyed observers may note that the same fears could be said of any situation that lets people get to know you better. Yeah, well eagle-eyed observers can go fuck themselves. I’m amazing at intimacy and not weird about it. 🤘
Two out of the three most recent times I’ve gotten over myself enough to invite a date over to my place, it ended up being the last date. Granted, in both of those cases, it was only the second date, and in both of these cases, the chemistry just wasn’t there. But still. It was probably cause something they noticed in my apartment made them realize I was a fundamentally repulsive person.
Maybe there was some odor I’ve grown immune to. Maybe it was the fact that my wall looks more like that of a college student than that of someone in their late twenties. Maybe the messiness of every surface made them realize I’m hanging on by a thread.
Or maybe the way I’ve been serving people water is disgusting and disrespectful and shows that I’m incapable of recognizing and meeting another person’s needs.
It’s probably that one.
So recently, I had a friend over to watch a movie, something that I was doing in part as a deliberate challenge to myself to get more comfortable sharing my space with people who’ve given me every reason to trust that they like me and aren’t going anywhere.
My therapist didn’t even tell me to try this — I’m just that good. This is why I’m her favorite client, probably.
Manners aren’t intuitive to me, but I do know that, when people are in your home, you’re supposed to offer them something. I picked up on this after hearing several people say things to the effect of, “I’m being a terrible host — I haven’t even offered you anything.”
More people should run commentary on how good or bad a job they’re doing meeting expectations, so that I can know what those expectations are.
So when my friend was over, I was crushing it. I was like, “Can I offer you anything? Water? Beer? Tea? Those little cupcakes you get at the supermarket?”
“Water would be great,” he said.
I stuck the landing with “Ice or no ice?”
“Sure, I’ll have ice.”
I was doing so well. I got a glass — not even one of the ones with weird, permanent stains. I filled it with ice. But then the screeching violin horror movie soundtrack started to play as I walked in slow motion from the freezer to the SINK.
At some point growing up, someone told me that New York City tap water is some of the best tap water in the world, and since then, I’ve always seen filters as an unnecessary step. Why mess with perfection?
And while a cursory Google search (with “-ai” tacked onto the end) would validate the science of my habit, it says nothing for its social acceptability or for its emotional impact on other people.
I’ve had ample opportunities to realize that my choice of tap water was not the norm. I mean, every time I help myself to water in other people’s homes, they say, “You know, we have filtered water!” I, however, have entirely missed the slight judgment in these interjections. I’ve always heard them as people being needlessly over-considerate.
When I handed my friend his tap water, he didn’t say anything about it. In fact, repulsed as he may have been, he even drank it.
But when he got up to refill it himself, I thought at first that he was going the wrong direction — odd, because our kitchen sink is kind of hard to miss. It’s not, like, a really little one.
Turns out, he was going straight to my roommate’s Brita pitcher on the counter.
I immediately recognized the error of my ways — not only that evening, but on all the rare occasions I’d had people over. My brazen disregard for their sanitary comfort levels. I’d been revealing myself as not only a dirty, heedless tap water swiller but also someone who would thoughtlessly reduce everyone around me to the same.1
Not gonna happen again, I’ll tell you that much. I’m gonna start serving people so much filtered water. I’m gonna run my roommate’s Brita pitcher into the ground, and then I’ll replace it, cause I’m gonna be considerate as fuck.
Can’t promise I’ll internalize the broader point though, which brings us to...
The Lesson That I Should but Probably Won’t Learn from This: If every time you’re over at people’s homes, they comment on this one thing you do, then maybe that thing is weird, and you should take the hint.
Carson’s Life Updates
The next Friendly’s (the all-queer comedy show I cohost in Brooklyn with Max Higgins) is 5/28 at 7pm - tix here.
Went to my cousin’s graduation, and my main takeaway was that I miss school, and more people should be teaching me stuff. So if you’ve got any syllabi you wanna send my way, hit me up.
I miss being a front-of-the-class kid. A front-of-the-class kid without a class is just an annoying adult.
Speaking of childhood, I recently stumbled on some old photos from my b’nai mitzvah. These photos challenge the idea that it gets better. No it doesn’t — no one’s offered me a free bucket hat in years.
The Boilerplate
Carson Olshansky (still they/them, despite the haters) is a Brooklyn-based comedian and writer. You can follow them at @carsonolshansky on Instagram and TikTok and at @carson-olshansky on YouTube.
This past weekend, I stayed with my cousin Emma, who happened to mention she reads this Substack. She was a wonderful host. She did, however, serve me tap water, so I had to caution, “Hey, heads up that I was thinking of writing this week’s Substack about [this]. Letting you know now, so that you don’t think it was pointed.”
To which she said, “Ooh, can I be a footnote?”
Which — thank God. Cause I didn’t bring her any gift or anything. I’m arguably as bad a guest as a host. So, consider this footnote to be in lieu of flowers or a nice bottle of wine. Love you, Emma!
Also, while I have you, I accidentally stole your pen. Sorry. I’ll give it back in August — I promise.