Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT strips 3681 to 3685 (19-23 February 2018)
ckridge:
--- Quote from: Perfectly Reasonable on 23 Feb 2018, 18:41 ---So what are Marigold's good points?
--- End quote ---
She is a hardcore geek girl. She is a hardcore geek girl who likes boys. She is a hardcore geek girl who likes boys and who has not been so mutilated by the girl mutilation machinery as to be incapable of sexual pleasure. Those are like gold, like the golden apples of the sun, like Helen of Troy. They are one of life's great prizes. Marigold has as yet no idea that this is the case. If Dale fucks this up, Marigold is going to wind up with two or three sweethearts stacked up in holding patterns, and he is going to spend the rest of his life wondering what in the world he was thinking of.
Emperor Norton:
Do people really think that becoming incredibly noticeably angry because your boyfriend is laughing at something an attractive female coworker said to him, at work, isn't a problem that needs to be worked on?
This isn't something that communicating better is going to fix.
(I also agree that Momo's wording very much makes it sound like Dale is settling, and May's wording while I think she doesn't mean it that way, "tasty as hell" vs "good, too" does make it not sound like an equal but different comparison. I mean, if someone was like, which of these two dishes do you want, this one is tasty as hell, and this one is good, too, which would you think the person offering liked more?)
Emperor Norton:
--- Quote from: Tova on 23 Feb 2018, 15:36 ---
--- Quote from: Emperor Norton on 23 Feb 2018, 13:49 ---On Dale's side, sure, but on Marigold's side, this isn't about communicating, this is about learning to control your feelings.
--- End quote ---
I'm being finicky, or maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but it's about developing self-esteem and security in the relationship. It's also about expressing her feelings more effectively and confidently, which is where the communication part comes in.
I think that feeling intensely jealous but controlling her feelings (aka bottling them up) is less healthy than what we've already seen.
--- End quote ---
Controlling your feelings is not bottling them up. Its not letting them control you. If someone started throwing punches when they were angry and I said "you need to control your emotions" would you assume I meant to bottle it up?
She became immediately, noticeably irratated/angry. She had zero contemplation over whether what she was feeling was rational. She immediately just jumped to a conclusion "Dale prefers Emily to me" and then everything she did revolved around that conclusion, driven solely by emotion. Even when Momo tried to talk to her about it just being a miscommunication, she still jumped to that conclusion, again, not considering that she could be anything but right about it. And she honestly has zero contemplation about how her emotions/actions are affecting Dale. Notice that Dale's questions to May are "how do I fix this" whereas Marigold is more concerned about how she feels.
Controlling your emotions is not about bottling up your emotions, its about examining them.
brightwings00:
--- Quote from: Emperor Norton on 24 Feb 2018, 07:22 ---Controlling your feelings is not bottling them up. Its not letting them control you. If someone started throwing punches when they were angry and I said "you need to control your emotions" would you assume I meant to bottle it up?
--- End quote ---
I mean, strictly speaking, the problem isn't they're angry, the problem is that they're throwing punches. If every time they were furious they sat quietly in a chair and did nothing, that would suck for themselves, personally, but there wouldn't be a problem with other people. In your situation I'd go with "hey, stop hitting people" and then a talk about why exactly they're so angry and how they can better handle it.
--- Quote from: Emperor Norton ---She had zero contemplation over whether what she was feeling was rational. She immediately just jumped to a conclusion "Dale prefers Emily to me" and then everything she did revolved around that conclusion, driven solely by emotion. Even when Momo tried to talk to her about it just being a miscommunication, she still jumped to that conclusion, again, not considering that she could be anything but right about it. And she honestly has zero contemplation about how her emotions/actions are affecting Dale. Notice that Dale's questions to May are "how do I fix this" whereas Marigold is more concerned about how she feels.
--- End quote ---
Feelings aren't rational, though! Believe me, as someone with multiple phobias, I would love to be able to logic my way out of panic attacks, but feelings don't work that way. People feel things, and they may not be nice or fair or reasonable or logical, but they still feel those things, and that's okay! It's okay to feel things. Marigold is allowed to feel jealous. She's not entitled to act like a jerk about feeling jealous, but honestly, if her worst behaviour is asking some pointed questions before storming off in a huff, that's pretty freaking tame. She's not some hideous monster for feeling things.
Emperor Norton:
I am honestly baffled that "hey, check your emotions and try and make sure that they aren't controlling you" is getting blowback.
And no one called Marigold a monster. I've repeatedly said that my issue is that NO ONE in the comic is actually bringing up that that level of jealousy is a problem in and of itself. If you can't handle your SO talking to a coworker and laughing because they happen to be pretty, then there is some fundamental problem that you need to work on. That is not healthy. It's a disproportionate reaction to a frankly benign circumstance.
If I got angry enough to stomp out of the room every time my wife put the Milk in the door of the fridge rather than the main compartment, would you think that that is reasonable and that there is no burden on me to learn to deal with something so small and petty?
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