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.
Okay so basically, when my new boyfriend’s friend texted me directly to invite me to his (the friend’s) birthday party, I got super in my head about it and acted weird. As I’m wont to do.
To relate these events, I do need to acknowledge the existence of the aforementioned new boyfriend, which stresses me out a little, cause I don’t have a clear, consistent set of principles about how public I’d like to be about my personal life.
Here’s one thing I am sure about: I don’t want to broadcast New Boyfriend’s identifiable information. So, I’ll give him a pseudonym. Obviously, it’s not hard to give a new partner a pseudonym. Anyone I’ve gone on even a few dates with has had some kind of pseudonym or another—the shorthand I used to talk about them to my friends. Some examples include Astoria Girl, the They/He, Hot Microaggressions Guy, and Foot Guy.1
Unfortunately, the nickname I’d been using for New Boyfriend divulges both his profession and his physical type. I guess, to honor the spirit of the original, I’ll stick with the format and fictionalize the details. Let’s call him Professor Twunk.
Last week, Professor Twunk’s close friend Noah texted me the Partiful link to his (Noah’s) birthday. Which first of all was super sweet! For context, Professor Twunk is, like, fun and beautiful, and so are all his friends. So, in my insecure moments (which as we know are frequent), I’ve worried that Professor Twunk’s friends see me as this weird new off-vibe person who’s suddenly hanging around. Like if you threw Doug into the world of Totally Spies! So, it meant a lot to me that Noah actively invited me.
However, it was also a new situation for me. I’ve never been invited directly to a new partner’s friend’s party. I’ve only ever experienced versions of my partnering saying “My friend’s birthday is coming up and said you should come!”
So, I handled this new situation the best way I know how: I panicked.
Because the thing is, I can easily imagine Professor Twunk having feelings about how he wants me integrated into his friends’ lives! Like, I have this close friend named Emaline. If I got the Partiful link to Emaline’s birthday party, and I RSVP’d yes, and then I was scrolling through the RSVP list (as I often do pretty obsessively), and I saw Professor Twunk’s name on there, it’d be kind of a jump scare. Honestly, I might even feel a little territorial!
I think the process of getting into a new relationship involves a lot figuring out what gets shared and what remains separate. I want Professor Twunk to be a big part of my life, and I want my friends to know and like him! I would love if Emaline said, “You should bring Professor Twunk to my party!” But right now, this early on, I don’t know that I’d be ready for Professor Twunk to have a relationship with my friends that’s completely independent of me.
I do think those are valid things to be thinking about. What’s less valid is putting all that on one Partiful link. And to be clear, it was just a link. There was no “I’d love to see you there!” or anything. I really am just reading all of this into a Partiful link.
When I got the invite, I was with a friend of mine who’s been in a relationship for four years. I expressed my anxiety to them, and it took them a while to see where I was coming from. Part of that, of course, is because I’m being entirely unreasonable. But I do think that part of it is also that the norms early on in a relationship are different from the norms years in.
If I’d been in a relationship with someone for four years, and my friends had known that person for as long, I’d probably feel offended if that person didn’t get invited directly! They’re their own person. (Though I’m not sure how many months/years into a relationship that shift occurs.)
So, I’m not sure how a non-anxious and intuitively socially gracious person would’ve handled the Partiful invite. However, it probably would not have involved instantly over-communicating to the point of making a non-thing into a thing.
When I pressed Four-Year-Relationship Friend about the situation, they said, “I don’t know, I think a lot of getting into a new relationship is over-communicating.”
So maybe there’s a right amount of neurotic to be in situations like this, but I’m still pretty sure I’m overshooting it every time.2
The Lesson I Should Probably Learn from This: I don’t know! What would you have done in this situation?? Even on further reflection, I still do not know the etiquette here. American Girl never covered this in Oops!: The Manners Guide for Girls.3
Carson’s Life Updates:
Well, I guess I already gave you the big update.
I’ve lost two $15 pens in as many weeks. It’s almost enough to make me think that I should stop buying $15 pens. Nah, I’m kidding, that would be crazy.
For reasons that would take too long to explain, I ended up going to a Tractor Supply store for the first time in my life, and wow, they have quite an array of reading materials! This picture that I took of the magazine rack includes titles ranging from “Best of Horse” to “Gun Dog,” the magazine for gun dogs.
The store really has range.
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.
Join their mailing list to find out about shows near you (which helps us all be less reliant on social media technocrats).
The Button Zone
As far as I know, Foot Guy never actually had a thing for feet. However, there were enough signals on his Tinder profile that I did have to show it around to people and say, “Do you think this guy is just looking to do foot stuff?” (No shade to foot people. It’s just not something that I personally would want to explore with someone I didn’t know well.) But basically, once someone has been given the nickname Foot Guy, it sticks.
In a meta way, I’ve reproduced nearly the exact dynamic of this situation by writing this Substack. Like, I asked Professor Twunk his permission to write this, but I didn’t ask permission to share the text screenshots. Or these details. Hopefully, I’ve struck the right balance of “Yes, communicate, but not every little thing needs to be a whole fucking conversation.”
Growing up, I looooved American Girl. The dolls, the magazines—all of it. I would always see the ads for the American Girl Library books, so of course I really wanted one. Then my parents finally got me one, and it was the one that fucking teaches you how to be more polite. Come on!
All the cool kids got The Care and Keeping of You, which teaches you about boobs and deodorant and body autonomy and stuff.
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.