Review Mode: You’re Not a Provocateur, You’re Just a Dick
Sometimes, when I shoot for charmingly disarming, I land at rude and weird.
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.
Like apparently people don’t like it in small talk when you ask if they hate their relatives.
The other day, I was helping out on a friend’s short film, and during the downtime, a couple of us were chatting with the woman doing makeup, whom I’ll call Savannah.
Savannah’s great. Mid-50s, artsy, frazzled. She gives friendly witch aunt vibes, like a character out of an Alice Hoffman novel. And also like an Alice Hoffman character, she’s a little hard to read and unsettlingly earnest. Not very playful.
At one point, we all got on the subject of siblings.
“I have one brother,” said Savannah.
“Older or younger?” asked someone else.
“Younger, but only by 11 months.”
“Oh wow,” I said. “Did you guys hate each other?”
She was silent for a long moment before saying, “Well, no. Maybe we fought a little, but we’ve always loved each other.”
Whoops.
First of all, let me at least explain the rationale behind the question, even if I can’t totally account for why I would choose to ask it out loud. I feel like the whole Irish twins thing (is that problematic?) is tricky. The siblings I’ve known who were born within like a year of each other have had pretty tough relationships. Competing for parents’ attention, etc. (At least, from my own highly scientific observations with a rigorous sample size of maybe four people.)
The tougher thing to explain is why I wouldn’t just keep that question in my head.
So the thing is, I’ve said in a previous installment of this Substack that my one move in social situations is to reveal something vulnerable about myself, a move designed to put people at ease, but I’m realizing that that’s not totally true. I have one other move, and it’s kind of the opposite. Saying something mildly provocative in an effort to skip a few small talk steps and get into real shit.
When it works, it works. There are definitely people who hear a blunt, presumptuous question and go “Okay, sweet, this is someone I don’t have to tiptoe around. This could be fun.”
Thing is, this move almost by design runs the risk of ignoring/overstepping people’s boundaries. Of me being kind of an asshole.
Honestly, more often than not, I hate other people who pull this kind of shit. Saying something provocative or overly familiar. Like, step back — we don’t know each other well enough for you to talk to me that way.
In fact, according to some psychology site I haven’t vetted, this kind of baiting is a narcissistic tactic1.
“Narcissists … use baiting to elicit emotional reactions and garner attention from their targets, providing the narcissists with the validation they seek,” explains this could-be-legit-but-who-knows website. “Additionally, narcissists may use baiting to divert attention away from their own flaws, mistakes, or negative behaviors.”
Hahhh yikes.
People who poke and prod like that usually put me on edge, and I want to get away from them as quickly as possible. Like, I don’t feel safe around them.
And it is important to me that people be able to feel safe and comfortable around me. In fact, I tend to think putting people at ease is one of the relatively few things I do well in social situations. If I can’t be cool or confident or shiny or sexy, I can at least be a soft place to land.
Being edgy, being an antagonist, goes against everything I’m trying to do. But still. (Whiny) I don’t wanna give up saying that kind of stuff!
So, if I refuse to give up this rude and narcissistic practice, there’s only one path left for me. I’ve just got to get better at it. Better at reading how people might respond to it, better at holding off when it seems like someone wouldn’t enjoy it, better at spotting where people’s lines are and not crossing them.
Basically, what I’m saying is, I have to get better at reading people’s minds. “But Carson, people can’t read each other’s minds.” Uhhh yeah, with that attitude.
The lesson that I’m determined not to learn from this: Be respectful of people’s boundaries. If you don’t know someone very well, don’t take liberties that could make them upset or uncomfortable.
Carson’s Life Updates:
New Yorkers, come hang 4/17 at Flamethrowers, the all-gay roast battle show cohost with Max Gross. At Hell Phone (247 Varet St, Brooklyn) at 7:30pm. Tix are $10 cash/Venmo/Cash App at the door, though no one will be turned away due to lack of funds.
I went to gay figure drawing at a gay bar with my gay friends. Made me realize how much I miss drawing and how much I don’t miss predominantly cis gay male spaces.
I maintain that the new Japanese Breakfast album is better than the new Lucy Dacus album, but neither is as good as what’s been released so far of the new Julien Baker album. Disagree? Fight me.
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.
I mean, it’s a psychology site from the U.K. I don’t trust the Brits with psychology. They’re not a people known for their ability to unflinchingly engage with messy emotions. What does a British psychologist even do? Hear you talk about your trauma and then go “Oh, that’s not very nice, is it? Well. Fancy a cup of tea?”
When I studied abroad in Dublin, I took Clinical Psych with a British professor, and he said that Jews are unhappy because our god is too judgmental. Dude, we’re in the Catholicism heart of the English-speaking world, and the first example of a judgmental god you can come up with is the Jewish one? They don’t even have Jews here!!
(Not technically true, but like, true enough. Finding a reform synagogue to observe Yom Kippur at was nearly impossible. And then I had to break the fast with the only other Jew in my program, and she was so annoying. Wouldn’t shut up. I know more about her debate teammates’ prom dates than I know about many of my relatives.)