2013-10-29 Your bedroom floor

[DrAngryEd]

Alex, son, you dissapoint me...

[mjaden44]

women do this all the time when... WHAT AM I EVEN SAYING, no woman has ever seen his bestfriend as a boyfriend.
And how is Alex suppose to NOT do the same thing. If my guess serves me right, she probably never made any advances on him til now.

[themacnut]

So instead of being a bit more proactive by say, kissing him, she instead gets mad at him for not reading her mind and realizing she's suddenly started liking him. This is nothing more than another example that men often have trouble getting women's subtle hints, people.

And yeah I've probably missed an opportunity or two this way in my younger days.

[Cortez]

Plus there are girls who do just want to be friends, so i can't blame Alex for thinking that's the case here.

If they grew up together, he probably thinks of her as family at this point.

Quote removed. The DAMNed

[Raamyah]

Here's another version that crossed my mind as I was drawing this strip (the one that appears here is the original script Dave wrote). It's totally not canon but I just thought it'd be funny so I roughed it out.

I just about laughed myself silly at this version. It certainly makes his pathetic cluelessness take a back seat to the pain.

But I don't think Marie is done just yet. Alex will get hit with the realization of what he's done in a few more panels, I'm betting. My hope is Marie will make him earn her back.

[Hoosier_Jedi]

And thats my friends, is why tsundere is bullshit. (my spelling check suggests to replace it with dysentery)
They've probably had the same type of relationship for years, and this is first time she even hinted at liking him. So why poor guy gets more hate than swimming instructor who couldn't tell someone likes him if he was getting blowjob?
You've been friendzoned, dumbass, you get what you deserve.

Funny how it's the person missing the hints, rather than the person who can't be CLEAR with their feelings who always seems to get the most hate.

[Dastardly]

Standard scenario. Boy and girl are childhood friends. Girl grows up to like boy. Boy is thick as a brick.

Nothing to see here, move along!

Girl doesn't make the first move and is upset when boy, who seems to be a childhood friend, doesn't.

[MoonshadowDark]

Until he gets hit by an empty shirt... "Here's a hint!"

Personally, she's adorable... lol

Realistic expectation: "Oh wow! You took your shirt off for me? You must want to have sex with me!"

Ma3/SotR Reality: "You dropped your shirt on me. Do you want me to do your laundry?"

[Spidrift]

Girl doesn't make the first move and is upset when boy, who seems to be a childhood friend, doesn't.

I guess that some girls are just old-fashioned enough that they want or expect the guy to make the first move, if only because they're afraid that bad words will be attached to girls who make the first move.

But yeah, this strip does trigger a double "For God's Sake!", at both the characters (he's clueless, she's unreasonable) and at the writer, who's borrowed this sort of plot from pre-existing sources before.

Which said, Marie is very cute in the first frame.

[rpr]

The winner of the Prize for Most Clueless (clueleast? guy is... Alex!

Come on! I can feel the warmth of the situation from here...

[Spidrift]

The trouble is, he lives in the same universe as Gary. Therefore, he has a long way to go before he can play in the big leagues of cluelessness.

And let's remember, the poor sod may be having problems with the Westermarck effect.

(I have to admit, though, this is the sort of strip that reminds me why I have quite such a large soft spot for Scary-Go-Round - a comic where even teenage geeks can take this sort of hint when it's staring them in the face.)

[Tako]

Oh Gawd, not another clueless dork....

Really, someone hand me a shoe I'm about to smack this kid

Just how far could he have gone if he just had enough clarity of thought to kiss her by the second panel? And I don't necessarily mean sex. Just the start of a new relationship would have been nice!

You dork!

Hey, according to storytelling logic, he has a greater chance of bumping uglies with her!

If he had tried to push forward she would be all:

Quick, Marie!! Knee the Adulterer-Rapist in the Balls!!!

Marie: Adulterer! Er, I mean...Rapist! Um...wait...I mean...Pervert! Yes that's the one! PERVERT!

[vampire hunter D]

You know, this may not be the first time she's laid out a hint. Also, that he's so obviously not affected by the position they wound up in, would indicate he's just not interested. So she may be thinking either he doesn't find her attractive, or he's friendzoned her*.



*I don't know how girls take being friendzoned, but as a guy who's been there many times (hell, I've found a whole district of the friendzone most guys probably never imagined) i can tell ya it sucks.

[Spidrift]

Aside from possible full-on Westermarck Effect problems, it may take a bit more of a jolt to shift Alex from thinking about Marie as a friend to seeing her as a sexual being. And no, even fairly close physical contact may not be enough. Meanwhile, Marie seems to be quite assertive and self-confident most of the time, and Alex is a teenage geek, and hence is probably a bit nervous of girls. Even if he has thought of Marie that way, perhaps semi-subconsciously, he may be worried about damaging a perfectly good friendship by making a clumsy move, and thinking that if Marie is interested, she's likely to make an overt first move. Marie, though, is maybe just old-fashioned enough to worry that girls aren't supposed to make the first move, and nervous enough of her own feelings and Alex's possible reactions that she wants to be sure that he's interested. Still, all she has to say is "Kiss me you idiot"...

Ah heck. This is massive over-analysis. Alex is a clueless geek, Marie is mildly tsundere, and that's all we need to know. These comics don't do deep character motivation when mild teen comic/manga clichés will do the job.

Personally, I'd be quite happy if the comic cut away from this scene now, and then cut back to these two in a couple of weeks or months, comic time, to discover them in a clinch or even in bed, with Alex saying "sorry if I was a bit slow to take the hint" and Marie saying "it's okay, it was worth the effort".

[Motorcycle]

*starts to pass the hint to buy Alex a clue*