You don't like people showing new and unexpected sides of themselves? His behaviour still makes perfect sense to me, from experience. By your logic, my own relationship shouldn't exist - because I'd been a drama queen with everyone else for years, and he couldn't stand staying with one person and always had a very different "type" anyway. His on-and-off ex is still weirded out by how out of character it is for him to be with me, while people who know me (including myself) find it fascinating how chill I am around him. The person you're with can make a huge difference for the way you feel and act, and for me the SS Claireten is a beautiful example of this.
As I said, the worst part is how Marten acts around Claire now is
BORING. It might be good for him as an (imaginary) person, but without some level of conflict and/or drama in an ongoing story, there's really no reason to show/tell it at all. Happy ever after only really works if it's the epilogue - the finale. If he's going to have a happy but boring relationship with Claire, I want the one-on-one interaction between them to be left off-panel for the most part - unless/until there is significant drama to explore.
I think it's cool to have Marten grow as a character, and staying with a running gag of "Marten is a passive dork who doesn't know what to say to ladies" would get boring, but he could become a more comfortable and confident guy without magically turning into The Perfect Date Who Always Does Everything Exactly Right.
This is exactly part of what bothers me. Marten seems to have transformed himself into a wish fulfillment fantasy for Claire, and for the shippers of Clairten in the forum by proxy. He's saying/doing all the right things to an uncanny degree - so much so that I'd think he was consciously trying to be the perfect date. But his comments to Faye in the most recent strip suggest this is all somehow happening by instinct? It's friggin weird - and doubly so because this is a woman he's know for awhile, and had established chemistry with (of a sort) before they actually began dating.
I'm 35, and in the usage I'm accustomed to, "making out" definitely does not include sex. Typical usage might include:
I'm the same age as you are. I remember "hooking up" as being the term which could mean anything from makeouts to 'fuckin. I wonder if the (long defunct - right?) indie dating site makeoutclub was what helped spread the modern terminology.
Thanks to a timely sig, it occurs to me that the only reason Marten seems out of character to some is that they are selectively remembering Marten's character. It's not that he's usually confident and comfortable. He usually isn't. But he's certainly capable of it.
I know, I know. There's arguments against it. I'm sure your argument is really cool. Listen--
What do you know about Pokémon?[/i]
Marten's attitude during that encounter is pretty much the definition of confident and comfortable. The situation's different, yes. But then Marten's already showing the he wasn't expecting it out of himself. The key point is that the attitude is something we've seen from him before.
I think Martin has noted before that "friendsight is 20/20." That he displays confidence dealing with romantic situations which don't involve him says nothing in particular about situations which do involve him.
I suspect Marten's weird calm and the following conversation about it with Faye means that he's actually falling deeply in love - something he might not have experienced before.
Uhh...you must feel very different when falling for someone than I remember feeling. I remember feeling like I was overcome with emotion - giddy with excitement. I remember feeling slightly queasy and not having an appitite. Feeling almost obsessive about the person, going over the last makeout in my head again and again and shivering in anticipation. Literally not feeling like I could wait to see the person again. There was no centered sense of calm until months into the feeling, when the endorphins died down a bit and there was that level of perfect comfort with the lass in question.
In my experience, you can only get "the zen" down on first dates when you are a bit emotionally detached - if you are really looking at the date in a borderline PUA manner, as more of a game of chess than anything.