Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT strips 3681 to 3685 (19-23 February 2018)
brightwings00:
--- Quote from: ckridge on 19 Feb 2018, 06:16 ---That nails it. The thing to say here is not whether, how, or in what respect Marigold is better or worse than Emily. The thing to say is that you like Marigold better than Emily. Then you say, not why you like her better, but how you like her better. You fuck saying it up completely, because you did not rehearse for this, but you reel forward blushing, sweating, and stammering, because your sweetie is suffering because of how she feels about you, and this is what you can do to help. With a little luck you get credit for having the right feelings though no ability to express them, and she feels better. What matters is that she should feel better. The whole concept here is that you care about how she feels.
--- End quote ---
That's the nicest thing I've ever heard a naked mole rat say. :-)
Emperor Norton:
--- Quote from: brightwings00 on 19 Feb 2018, 06:22 ---
--- Quote from: Emperor Norton ---Here, let me explain more thoroughly by what I mean about a lack of sympathy for people who are having to deal with other people's mental issues (which I agree are self esteem issues are not necessarily pathological, but it is still on the list of things that we generally fall into this trap over)
=snip--no offence intended, just wanted to reply to the whole post=
--- End quote ---
Thing is (what I'd argue),
a) I honestly don't know if Marigold's putting Dale on the defensive so much as seeking validation. There's "So you like working with Emily, huh" and "What were you laughing about as I came in?", but that doesn't quite read to me as an accusation. I think if she was accusing him of cheating there would be a lot more of "How much time do you spend together?" and "You think she's pretty, huh? Tell me more". It looks like she wants reassurance, primarily, and when Dale doesn't provide it she storms off in a huff--which no, definitely not an ideal response, but, well, she feels hurt and upset, and if Dale's not allowed to be perfect than Marigold's allowed to not be perfect, too.
b) There is (depressingly often) a dynamic at play where people--guys, primarily--get away with being tactless or thoughtless or socially illiterate under the guise of "just being honest" or "I'm only being logical" or "oh, they're just like that", and other people--primarily girls--are expected to pick up the emotional labour. I don't think anyone expects Dale to be perfect at reading people's feelings, but I also kind of hope "don't your SO they're not as pretty/smart/nice/funny as x person" would be social literacy 101.
--- End quote ---
A second note, in combination of it being 9 posts before anything other than Dale is incompetent being posted in this thread: When the comic was posted that showed that Marigold was clearly jealous because Dale was having fun with a coworker, the first post had 0 accusations against Marigold, and the second post included both sympathy for Marigold in the situation and sympathy for Dale. Marigold is irrationally jealous = sympathy, Dale doesn't react perfectly = post after post about how incompetent he is.
And bringing gender into it muddies the water a lot more. A man with low self-esteem who reacts to their girlfriend enjoying the company of a male coworker with irrational jealousy would be considered literally dangerous. (There is also a lot to say about men having been culturally indoctrinated to bottle up their issues, solve every problem, and to try and never be a burden to their significant other with their emotions).
And again: The only area where he actually confirmed what she said was Emily's intelligence, which is in the level of literal super genius. He said they were both funny in different ways. The comment on prettier was in air quotes, wasn't taking it as a given that it was the case, and he never even finished his sentence so we have no idea what he was going to say. And again, she put him in the situation of having to respond to it, as even not acknowledging she said it is a response, which is an incredibly hard situation to be in.
Also a note on the whole burden of emotional labor: Everyone is talking about what Dale needs to do to fix this. Why is this being put solely on him to fix?
SpanielBear:
I specifically said that Marigold has to put in work to fix this.
I also think that in a lot of cases (and most definately mine, a naked mole-rat as romantically aerodynamic as a concrete donkey) the reason people focus on what Dale should have said is because we have all been there, and have spent quite a lot of time since then replaying that moment over in our heads going "I wish I'd said x". So when you see someone else falling down that rabbit hole, you watch through your fingers and go "Oh Dale... sweety, no. This is going to end sooo badly".
'Cause the other thing to bear in mind is that Dale also has the easier job when it comes to self-examination after the fact (easier, not easy). He just has a conversation to reflect on, and to think "well maybe she meant this". Marigold is going to have to recognise that her emotions and self-esteem issues are causing huge problems for her, before she can start to move beyond them. We're talking a major shake-up of her world view, which is a pretty big task. It's also a pretty specific problem- lots of people will be where Dale is, not as many will be where Marigold is. And if they are, a) they may, like her, not realise it or b) its not the kind of problem that one can point out how to fix in a pithy forum post.
You are right that men get pressured to always appear emotionally strong, and showing vulnerability is seen as weakness, that's true. But I don't think it's unbalanced to note that Dale's response, while honest, wasn't the one Marigold wanted to hear. That really isn't Dale's fault, but it's still the case that there are ways to navigate the conversation that wouldn't have resulted in Marigold exploding. My point about Dale's emotional literacy, or lack of it, is that I don't think he intended to make Marigold upset but due to misreading the situation he did anyway.
As a final point, I can't stress enough that I don't think Dale is a bad dude. He's still as decent a guy now as he was last week. Marigold has been sitting on her self-esteem issues for *years*, and been using physical intimacy with Dale as a sticking plaster at best. This is her problem. Dale is well within his rights to say "fuck it" to the whole thing because he doesn't have to put up with her issues. That's a fair choice, and he deserves credit if he sticks around for the hard part. But if Dale wants to be supportive (which I think he does), there are things that will help and things that wont. Learning which is which is his job.
Emperor Norton:
I think that the idea that there was necessarily a way he could have navigated it that wouldn't have led to her exploding is assuming things we will never know. She was ready to explode before he even realized there was a problem.
If he had just expressed his feelings for her, or had just started listing things he liked about her, she could have exploded because she assumed he was avoiding the commenting directly on what she said because he DID think she was prettier, funnier, smarter.
If he told her he thought she was prettier, smarter, and funnier, Marigold could have exploded because she assumes he is lying to her.
The idea that there was a right answer is an assumption. She was already angry, and angry people don't tend to even listen to what people are saying. I'm not sold on the idea that there was something he could have said that would have made the situation turn out better.
SpanielBear:
--- Quote from: Emperor Norton on 19 Feb 2018, 07:18 ---The idea that there was a right answer is an assumption. She was already angry, and angry people don't tend to even listen to what people are saying. I'm not sold on the idea that there was something he could have said that would have made the situation turn out better.
--- End quote ---
Fair enough. It's true to say that there may not have been a good answer. But I do think that in the list of possible answers the one he gave, even incomplete, was particularly ill-adapted for the environment and thus would probably not have succeeded.
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