Hi, I'm back - hopefully with better quality posts than yesterday (instead of quantity). I have to remind myself that experience is that quality that allows you to recognise your mistakes when you make them again.
I agree (although it didn't occur to me at the time) that Faye's spiel does read a bit like a glib moral at the end of a US sitcom episode. Easier said than done, even - especially for someone who is passive by nature. Still, I'm not sure that anyone here is going to argue that it would be bad for Marten to become a little less passive in his life.
Still, he's tried before and been kicked, right? That's going to make it harder for him. True, and I've got a couple of observations about that.
First of all, Marten becoming less passive is really going to be a process of focussing less on simply pleasing those around him and more on his own needs and goals. Well, it stands to reason that his first attempts at doing so are going to involve people being ... well ... less than pleased with him. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't persevere! It's a matter of learning his personal boundaries - balancing his own needs and desires against those of the people around him.
"You gotta DO stuff" - like, say, standing up to your girlfriend when you think she's behaved objectionally, and thus ending the relationship, or standing up to your mother when she's being obnoxious, and being made to look stupid in front of your friends? Or chasing another girlfriend across the country and getting your heart broken and winding up in a dead-end job?
The burned hand teaches best, but hopefully it should teach the right lesson. Let's look at those examples one by one.
"standing up to your girlfriend when you think she's behaved objectionally"
(hoo boy my archive-fu skills are lacking)
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1797When did this really go off the rails? It wasn't when he stood up to her - if he'd simply insisted that she crossed a line and he was angry about it, I think this episode would have ended fine (this time at least). Where it really went wrong was where Marten made a snipey, bitter statement that indicated that he was carrying around anger about Dora's past mistakes as well. Now, I don't want to get into a massive revisiting of the whole breakup topic - I just want to say that they didn't break up purely because he stood up to her. It's more complex than that.
"standing up to your mother when she's being obnoxious"
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1835This is actually pretty much the same issue - instead of resolving the issue at the time, he carries it around with him, then it comes out in a totally snarky, inappropriate manner when all his mother is doing is asking what everyone would like to do next. That wasn't standing up to her when she was being obnoxious, it was being passive aggressive when she wasn't. Before you start on me - I am not placing fault, nor am I saying that Marten's mother dealt with the situation perfectly or even close to it. All I am saying is that had he been properly assertive instead of just rude, then he would not have had to be embarrased.
"chasing another girlfriend across the country and getting your heart broken and winding up in a dead-end job"
(no particular comic for this one - phew)
That's a fair comment - the immediate outcome wasn't what he wanted. But again, I hope he would learn that right lesson from this. I won't try and discuss what the right lesson is, because that's yet another can of worms. But I would like to the think that the lesson is NOT "stop trying, you'll only get hurt."
Well, it still ended up too long, but hopefully it's a bit better than yesterdays efforts.
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Topic: WCDT 2101-2105 (January 16-20, 2012) - A New Hope (Read 102663 times)