It's got to be said that Faye is being hypocritical here.
She's had part of this chat before
http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2025In today's strip I am seeing Faye calling him out for not going to Padma and trying to do... something.. regardless of the fact Padma is leaving - is she saying he should have gone with her? I don't think so. How could he have convinced Padma to stay? She's booked the tickets, she's packed her bags. She's going.
But Marten isn't. Why should he have went over and potentially allowed himself to be hurt? It was his decision to minimise his exposure - not the most gallant of choices but certainly within the bounds of reason.
Thirdly, a comment about wasting a life is like: daaang! I know Faye's got Angus now and she's been doing her sculpture and stuff, but daaang man, Marten helped paved the way for her to be able to do that with her life by being a good friend, I would have hoped she'd have tried to do it back.
To be honest I actually think Marten should stand up to Faye. I don't know if anyone here agrees, but I think Faye is actually quite detrimental to Marten's personal development.
There's an example of it in today's comic. As the conversation between Faye and Marten here shows, as long as Marten plays to the back foot Faye just does her usual berating, but in panel 4 when Marten throws some sarcasm in there, gives her some cheek back - she proceeds to shut him down.
I think the point I'm trying to make is that Faye is part of the problem. Marten is pretty lame at making choices, but part of that is experience. He rarely asserts himself and every time he does, there's a huge explosion in response. As I said: experience is part of learning. What has Marten learned? to be a doormat. He only ever ends up in these situations now because his emotions get the better of him.
I'm not blaming Faye for Marten's behaviour, however Faye is part of the process (as all behaviour is contextualised by those around us) and she's not helping.
I genuinely think going with Padma would probably have been better for Marten's mental well being, if rather destructive towards QC as a comic.