Review Mode: Sometimes It’s Ruder to Not Be a Burden

Ultimately, it can be even more of a dick move to UNDER-stay your welcome.

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.

Among my less unique neuroses is my crippling fear of being a burden. I so desperately don’t want to impose on others that sometimes I end up being an asshole. Like this weekend, when friends invited me to their show, and I dipped without even saying goodbye.

Before we get into that, two quick bathroom-related dating anecdotes to illustrate my blind spots around this:

The first:

In 2021, around three months into dating someone, she told me that, on our first date, she'd thought I was cagy, because after I’d come up to her apartment to use the bathroom, it’d seemed like I was in such a rush to leave.

That was crazy for me to hear, because I remembered that moment very differently. I’d felt like the date had gone relatively well, and I liked her, but I wasn’t sure how she felt. So, I didn’t want to seem pushy. Like, sure she was gracious enough to let me use her bathroom before making the trip home, but I shouldn’t assume she’d want me to keep hanging around in her space. I was trying so hard to make it clear that I didn’t expect anything that I ended up making her feel rejected.

Turns out, when someone invites you over to their apartment, there’s a good chance they want you there. Not sure how I was supposed to figure that one out though — what am I, a mind reader?

The second:

This one is, like, physically painful for me to share, so it must be good.

In late 2019, I went on a date with this perfectly nice guy where it seemed clear to me that there was no real spark. I made some excuse about having to be somewhere. So, we started to say our goodbyes after just, like, 50 minutes, and before leaving, he went to the bathroom.

The thing is, I wasn’t sure if we were done saying our goodbyes yet or not. I was scared that, if I stuck around, he’d be like “What, so this asshole rejects me and then refuses to leave me alone??” So, I just left. He came out of the bathroom, and I was gone. Instantaneously, I went from having given a soft rejection to a cold, hard desertion.

He texted me about it. I texted some garbled apology, and then I think ended up ghosting after his reply anyway, because I felt so ashamed. So for those of you keeping score, in my effort to spare him the misery of my company, I managed to turn one rejection into three rejections.

All to say, I’m so quick to assume that people are already tired of me that it can make me accidentally kind of awful.

It’s worth noting that it’s especially hypocritical of me to be treating people like that as someone who’s sooo rejection sensitive.

Okay, back to the almost-present.

This past weekend, a couple of friends enthusiastically invited me to come hang at their standup show. I interpreted this as “They want more people in the audience,” not, “They want more people in the audience and want to see me.”

These are the kinds of friends where, if I saw them at a party, I’d smile really big and shout their name and run to hug them. They’re not, however, the kinds of friends who’d call me to comfort them after a breakup. Right in that space where I’m actually not insecure about whether or not they like me (which is huge), but I still can’t imagine they’d actively want to spend more time with me when there are so many other lovely people in the world they could be spending time with.

Like people who bake. Or people who can sing really well. Or people who are really good at trivia. If I were really good at trivia, I’d know exactly what people could want from me.

The show ended. They went back to the green room. I was waiting around to congratulate them, chatting with my friend who works at the front desk, but then Front Desk Friend had to get back to work, so I left to wait outside. I wanted it to be clear to Front Desk Friend that I didn’t expect her to entertain me while doing her job.

But then acquaintances kept passing by the door of the venue, and I started to feel very self-conscious standing around alone.

I considered texting the show’s hosts to see where they were, but I was hit with this anxiety of “It’s their show! Everyone here is here for them! Don’t force them to give you that time or energy.”

Despite the fact that they invited me, despite the fact that they greeted me warmly when they saw me.

I left. Didn’t text or anything. Didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t have anywhere else to get to, either — just went home.

Texts conversations reproduced with the permission of the authors. Provided here as evidence of the claim that they were being lovely, and I was being weird.

It took both of them texting versions of “Did you leave??” and making it clear that they’d wanted to hang out for it to even occur to me that that might’ve been a possibility.

And I never account for that possibility. Like, I don’t necessarily assume that me being somewhere is a detriment, but I don’t make the jump to thinking it could actively be a plus for anyone.

Someone could straight up be like, “Carson, I enjoy being around you and want to spend more time with you,” and I’d probably still hear it as them trying to politely excuse themself.

I feel like that could almost sound sympathetic (if also just pathetic) out of context, because it seems kinda modest, but what it results in is me being curt and disrespectful and abandon-y.

Ignoring people’s clear indications that they want to be friends is ultimately just not listening, and not listening sucks.

The Lesson That I Should but Probably Won’t Learn from This: Be a burden! Stick around. Don’t make everyone else bear all the rejection just cause you’re scared of the possibility of it.

Carson’s Life Updates

• Max Higgins and I are co-headlining QED in Astoria on Monday, which is coincidentally also Trans Day of Visibility, so come see us be visibly trans.

• Max Gross and I are bringing back Flamethrowers, the all-queer roast battle show, in Brooklyn on Apr. 17!¹ Come through! It’ll be fun, especially if you like gay people being mean to each other.

• Saw the band Of Montreal² live, and boy is it cathartic right now to hear 1,800 of Brooklyn’s weirdest gay people shout-singing along to lyrics like May we never be stripped of anything we love / may we grow so gentle, never go mental

• Oh also, I just started testosterone. I don’t have an answer yet to “how is it?” because I’m only on Chapter 1.

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.

1. At Hell Phone. 247 Varet St, Brooklyn. 7:30pm. Tix are $10 cash/Venmo at the door.

2. Yes, I know they style it “of Montreal,” but if I left that o lowercase, then it would be confusing to anyone who doesn’t know their music — a group that includes the vast majority of people.

It would look like I was saying “the band of Montreal,” as in the official band of the Canadian city, and that would imply a level of government involvement in the arts that has no place in this particular anecdote.

In fact, I’d argue that of Montreal’s music runs directly counter to the interests of most major institutions, though I can’t say I’m familiar with the specific ideological leanings of Montreal’s legislative bodies.

This digression was for no one’s enjoyment except mine, but let that be a lesson. Footnotes are Carson time. 🤘