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WCDT Strips 3206 to 3210 (25 to 29 April 2016)

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Analogy:

--- Quote from: brightwings00 on 26 Apr 2016, 20:21 --- It's not the end of the world if a girl shoots him down (as politely as possible, even).

--- End quote ---

He's not angry about being rejected. What happened here was he had already resolved to put his thing for Emily behind him, he already knew nothing was going to happen there, except Claire decided to put him in a situation where he had to bring it back up again, she encourages him as if she knows it's going to go well for him, and that makes his hopes go way up. Only for Emily to shoot them back down again. This isn't a normal rejection, normally you're prepared for the possibility of a no and you don't invest emotionally in the outcome. Clinton is having his hopes brought up, and it's causing a lot more emotional investment than normal, making it hit a lot harder when Emily turns him down. He's angry because of the way Claire inflated his hopes, he's not angry that Emily turned him down.

jheartney:
Not feeling much sympathy for Clinton at the moment. He'd broken the ice with Emily, and even had a nice honest moment with her where they shared something of themselves. Then he obviously couldn't be bothered to keep it going - finding out something about her life (like where she was currently working), and putting in the effort to make contact, even (or especially) if the contacts weren't formal dates. IOW, building the relationship. Instead he let things refreeze to the point that asking her out again was as stiff and blind as a first date ask. Dumb.

Having been shot down, he then takes it out on Claire. Look, getting shot down is something that happens to guys. It hurts, but you should deal with it gracefully. Lashing out at someone else (like a sibling who can't just cut you off for being a jerk) is uncalled for and not justified. Clinton owes Claire an apology.

WRT the "meddling sibling" complaint against Claire, the fact is that Clinton actually wants to make things work with Emily, even if he's clueless about how to go about it. Claire is not just pushing him into some random gal-pal; this is someone Clinton kind of has some hots for. It would be meddling if she tried setting him up with a random someone. But not here.

jheartney:

--- Quote from: RyanW1019 on 26 Apr 2016, 20:31 ---Now, Claire has tricked him into another surprise meeting, and instead of this encounter having the appearance of an innocent meet-up, Claire says to him in front of Emily that the purpose of this meeting is for him to ask her out again.

--- End quote ---

The only reason that exchange is awkward is because Clinton himself makes it so. Instead of reacting to Emily's presence by acting like she isn't there and lobbing an angry accusation at Claire, Clinton could have taken the opportunity to chat Emily up, and try to recreate their connection. Then, after that, he could suggest a get-together. He's obviously clueless about this stuff, but you don't have to turn everything into a do-or-die date ask. WRT the embarrassing "you set me up!" conversation in public, Clinton should have held that till later. It's possible to do. Clinton is the one who insisted on having it right away, and in humiliating circumstances. (BTW, it's pretty rude to Emily for him to talk to Claire that way in front of her. And yes, he's the one who initiated the conversation.)

Analogy:

--- Quote from: jheartney on 26 Apr 2016, 20:34 ---Not feeling much sympathy for Clinton at the moment.

--- End quote ---

Probably because you're not bothering to properly empathize with him. You're acting as if he could have just magically pulled a bunch of social skills out of a hat and made the best of the situation. He's not capable of that, he doesn't have those skills. You need to put yourself in the shoes of a weird, introverted, nerdy dude with little to no romantic experience, and experience that interaction he just had through those eyes rather than your own.

Having to take an active role in interpersonal relationships as an introvert is exhausting. Every interaction you have requires an investment of your emotional energy, and you become very conservative about how you spend it because you want to get the most positive results out of the limited amount of energy you have to spend. The idea of having to invest your emotional energy into something that is very likely to have a negative result is terrifying. The fact that you have no experience to fall back on, increasing the odds that what you're about to do isn't going to work, pushes things into "why bother, at least I know my cat will love me" territory.

Introverts need to be able to approach social interactions on their own terms. Claire should have known this about her own brother.

TheEvilDog:

--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 26 Apr 2016, 19:39 ---That's a spectacular reaction to a routine rejection. I wonder what's going on in his head or in his history to account for it.

--- End quote ---

Who said it was routine?

Claire put two people on the spot for a rather personal conversation, one that can be difficult at the best of times and you're alone, even more so when you're put on the spot like that and forced to have that conversation and the added pressure of an audience.

I can see Clinton's point of view and utterly agree with him, I am a younger brother with an older sister and when you have someone interfering in your life for your whole life, its frustrating, irritating and that anger does build up and it can lead to exploding at them.

Claire put her brother and Emily in a pretty bad situation without any forethought of what might go wrong, its one thing to make mistakes in your own life, but when you mess with someone else's, that is asking for trouble.

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