2013-09-13 Home sweet home

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Spidrift
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Re: 2013-09-13 Home sweet home

Post by Spidrift »

Gary ... Strategy ... Oh ... Oh please! ... You're killing me! My ribs can't take it!

Anyway, would a strategy be any good if the person making it was in denial about one of the key elements?
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Spidrift
"Brevior vita est quam pro futumentibus negotium agendo."
-- Motto of Hogshead Publishing of fond memory, and wise words to set your Foes List by.
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brasca
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Re: 2013-09-13 Home sweet home

Post by brasca »

Timeline be damned. Senna's reaction to Sandra's success is so much sweeter in this strip.

Ophidiophile
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Re: 2013-09-13 Home sweet home

Post by Ophidiophile »

Spidrift wrote:Gary ... Strategy ... Oh ... Oh please! ... You're killing me! My ribs can't take it!

Anyway, would a strategy be any good if the person making it was in denial about one of the key elements?
Sure. He merely has to want to get out, he doesn't have to be truthful to himself about why.

But, you are right; Gary does seem to be a rudderless ship. I've only gone through the archives once, and haven't read any of the comments, but it does seem that Gary taking the initiative is very rare. Oh, wait; he DOES seem to be taking the initiative here, doesn't he?

I think I might be right about the video games, though, based on Sandra's and Gary's current interests and objectives.

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Fluffy
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Re: 2013-09-13 Home sweet home

Post by Fluffy »

Spidrift wrote:Gary ... Strategy ... Oh ... Oh please! ... You're killing me! My ribs can't take it!

Anyway, would a strategy be any good if the person making it was in denial about one of the key elements?
Well, why not? He admits to freaking out over dating Senna; and is unsure about why he is, considering they had sex the night before without him freaking out.

So, why not sabotage the already doomed relationship by unconsciously 'ruining' things by doing stuff that will no doubt cause Senna to lose interest? It's really not out of the question for the likes of Gary; who seems to always screw things up for himself without being aware of it.
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Spidrift
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Re: 2013-09-13 Home sweet home

Post by Spidrift »

That implies that a strategy can be unconscious, which doesn't sound right to me. Forgive an old (and not very good) wargamer and board gamer, but strategies for me are something into which one puts effort and thought.

Now, it's quite possible that Gary is unconsciously trying to sabotage his relationship with Senna, because of his nervousness about her anatomy, sure. Not a strategy, just an improvisation. But on his past performance, that hardly seems a necessary theory. Why ascribe to unconscious malice what can be adequately explained by sheer blithering incompetence?

Unless, of course, anyone wants to suggest that Gary's whole history of social bungling is due to his subconscious trying to sabotage his chances of a sex life. Which would be an interesting theory, but the only problem is that we don't have enough information on why he should suffer from so much subconscious self-hatred. I guess that brings us back to his fabled religious upbringing. In which case, the way to stop Gary being such a dork is to help him come to terms with the fact that there is no god.

Bit deep for Ma3, that, I think, but it'd be an interesting turn of events.
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Spidrift
"Brevior vita est quam pro futumentibus negotium agendo."
-- Motto of Hogshead Publishing of fond memory, and wise words to set your Foes List by.
Avatar misappropriated from the wonderful XKCD.

Ophidiophile
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Re: 2013-09-13 Home sweet home

Post by Ophidiophile »

Fluffy wrote:
Spidrift wrote:Anyway, would a strategy be any good if the person making it was in denial about one of the key elements?
Well, why not? He admits to freaking out over dating Senna; and is unsure about why he is, considering they had sex the night before without him freaking out.
Does Gary even remember having sex with Senna the night before? He was drunk out of his gourd. And is Gary much of a drinker? Given his background, and failure to identify the drink Senna gave him as alcohol, I'd say not. Though, isn't it unusual for a non-drinker to down 7 drinks and stay conscious, let alone upright?
Spidrift wrote:That implies that a strategy can be unconscious, which doesn't sound right to me. Forgive an old (and not very good) wargamer and board gamer, but strategies for me are something into which one puts effort and thought.
I was using the term more as a description of what was happening. Exit strategy usually is something you consciously think about, as in, "What's your exit strategy?" I don't think Gary is conniving enough to deliberately be thinking of ditching Senna. However, it is my experience that the reason people give for their behavior is often not the real reason for their behavior. They often are not even aware of the real reason, especially if the real reason puts them in a bad light. No one wants to think of themselves as the bad guy. So they convince themselves that they are doing it for a reason that is more acceptable. This applies to both good behavior as well as bad behavior. For instance, people often volunteer for reasons that make them look good, when in fact they derive some benefit from it, which they don't even admit to themselves. In Gary's case, he might, for instance, allow his interest in Sandra to keep him from being alone too much with Senna, when the real reason is that he doesn't want to be alone too much with Senna. If you want to know the real reason for a behavior, look first at the result of that behavior, not the reason given. Sometimes, the two even contradict each other.
Spidrift wrote:Unless, of course, anyone wants to suggest that Gary's whole history of social bungling is due to his subconscious trying to sabotage his chances of a sex life. Which would be an interesting theory, but the only problem is that we don't have enough information on why he should suffer from so much subconscious self-hatred. I guess that brings us back to his fabled religious upbringing. In which case, the way to stop Gary being such a dork is to help him come to terms with the fact that there is no god.
Self-hatred is not needed. Extreme anxiety about having sex would be more than adequate to explain his difficulties, and could result from his religious upbringing. And I seriously doubt that becoming an atheist will make him any less of a dork.

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Spidrift
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Re: 2013-09-13 Home sweet home

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Ophidiophile wrote:Does Gary even remember having sex with Senna the night before? He was drunk out of his gourd. And is Gary much of a drinker? Given his background, and failure to identify the drink Senna gave him as alcohol, I'd say not. Though, isn't it unusual for a non-drinker to down 7 drinks and stay conscious, let alone upright?
You need to take another look at the relevant Ma3 strips - and ideally, at the ensuing board discussions. But to answer your questions:
1. Yes.
2. No.
3. Seven drinks, unknown strength, over about seven hours. It's mildly impressive, but not impossible. Given his lack of a serious hangover, he either has the constitution of a rhinoceros, or he wasn't actually as drunk as he looked. It's possible that the drinks were fairly dilute, but an unaccustomed Gary suffered a particularly spectacular disinhibition effect.
Ophidiophile wrote:If you want to know the real reason for a behavior, look first at the result of that behavior, not the reason given.
Frequently a sound principle in real life, but if you apply it to the Ma3 cast too much, you'll get a headache. Their actions are frequently bizarre, particularly in the light of the predictable consequences.
Ophidiophile wrote:Self-hatred is not needed. Extreme anxiety about having sex would be more than adequate to explain his difficulties, and could result from his religious upbringing.
We know that he was anxious - he said so after his first time. We also know that he really, really wanted it, on a conscious level - he fell on his knees and thanked Zii tearfully when she offered to help him. If one tries psychoanalysing Gary, the main conclusion is likely to be that he's a bit of a mess. If his problem is subconscious anxiety, it's inflated and disruptive enough to amount to self-hatred for any practical purposes.

But me, personally, I think he's just very, very geeky. The "religious upbringing" line was an early explanation for his problems that was never repeated. Plenty of geeks manage to have lesser versions of his problem without needing therapy.
Ophidiophile wrote:And I seriously doubt that becoming an atheist will make him any less of a dork.
So far as we've ever seen, he's default-agnostic at best already. But the point wouldn't be him becoming a card-carrying Dawkinsite; it would be him coming to terms with the conclusions that he apparently reached years ago. But that assumes that the religious upbringing is actually the point with Gary, which as I said, I don't actually think is the case.
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Spidrift
"Brevior vita est quam pro futumentibus negotium agendo."
-- Motto of Hogshead Publishing of fond memory, and wise words to set your Foes List by.
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Ophidiophile
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Re: 2013-09-13 Home sweet home

Post by Ophidiophile »

Spidrift wrote:
Ophidiophile wrote:Does Gary even remember having sex with Senna the night before? He was drunk out of his gourd. And is Gary much of a drinker? Given his background, and failure to identify the drink Senna gave him as alcohol, I'd say not. Though, isn't it unusual for a non-drinker to down 7 drinks and stay conscious, let alone upright?
You need to take another look at the relevant Ma3 strips - and ideally, at the ensuing board discussions. But to answer your questions:
1. Yes.
Doh! I should have reread the latest arc again. Once was obviously not enough.

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Fluffy
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Re: 2013-09-13 Home sweet home

Post by Fluffy »

Not to re-open an old debate; but not everyone feels Gary remembers the events of that night.

Yes, he acknowledges that he had sex with Senna and that he hadn't freaked out during the moment; but how much of the actual event does he remember and how much is he relying on what Senna had told him (that they had sex and he was a stallion)? Some folks want to say that he remembers everything, based on the fact that he acknowledges he did sex things with Senna and how he recalls that all he could think of was her perfect butt - but all that really says is that he acknowledges what happened and that he really likes her butt.

You can acknowledge something happened, but not be clear on the actual event as it happened.
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Spidrift
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Re: 2013-09-13 Home sweet home

Post by Spidrift »

Fights around these comics should always be conducted with Occam's Razor. Open and recently stropped.

Gary remembers that he had sex with Senna. He remembers that it was because he was taken with her perfect butt. We have no evidence that he's forgotten anything specific. Thus, he remembers last night. End of. Move along.
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Spidrift
"Brevior vita est quam pro futumentibus negotium agendo."
-- Motto of Hogshead Publishing of fond memory, and wise words to set your Foes List by.
Avatar misappropriated from the wonderful XKCD.

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