Kind of cute but also kind of sad. Love is sometimes also a leap of faith and trust. It seems like they never really trusted each other, or themselves, to still love each other.
Personally I think marriage is not about force, but about trust. It’s a confession of trust in your partner.
It’s a little hard to tell if the idea is that they at some point realize this will be a running joke between them but both agree that they no longer really believe it, or if each time they say it, it’s because they truly don’t want to commit to advancing the relationship.
Or because they are traumatized from childhood of abandonment and have learned to take the option of being abandoned into their own hands as a self defense mechanism.
I mean not that I’d know from experience.
Yeah, we can’t hear the tone in their voices, but these little jabs would make me concerned if they weren’t clearly joking. I’d feel very insecure if my wife were constantly reminding me that she’s ready to bolt at a moment’s notice if things get the slightest bit tough. We’d never have made it this far if we weren’t willing to work things out when the future looks bleak.
Why would one want to do this leap of faith if one can be happy without it? I’d rather have the relationship be based on regularly renewed interest than a leap. I don’t want someone to stay with me because of a past social success certificate. People change, you can’t predict if you’ll have the same feelings in 3 years. If it is still there great, if it’s not, I’d rather not make things administratively complicated on top of the rest.
I would say that even the easiest relationships are work and it’s not healthy to always have your eye on the door but what do I know?
It’s absolutely guaranteed you won’t have the same feelings. People change and the new relationship dopamine wears off after a few years.
However, building a life together is a special thing in its own right and that takes commitment to stay together and work on the relationship when times get tough.
I think that OP is talking about the commitment of marriage more-so than the actual document making it official with the government. I like the comic as a sweet notion of finding love when you weren’t looking for it. But a relationship without commitment and without the security that your partner would allow you to grow and change as a person and still stay committed would be hard to stay in realistically.
That’s one way to look at love, but I don’t look at it like that.
Sees other people being happy and wholesome
Calls them sad because they don’t share the same worldview as him.
Wut?
Just giving my perspective m8. You’re free to find it only cute and wholesome - your opinion is as valid as mine.
Just giving my perspective on your opinion m8. No need to feel personally attacked. Some people are extraordinarily happy and successful in their personal relationships and they don’t share the same opinion as you, and that’s alright.
It is alright and thanks for clarifying - your first comment made it seem like my view was unreasonable somehow.
I’m not sure I’d agree that a relationship with so much uncertaintly is that wholesome. I know I’d lose sleep if my partner kept telling me this is just a for now thing but still expected commitment.
You’ve missed the point. There’s no expected commitment, they are both of the same mind. They both feel like it would be ok if it doesn’t last. It’s because they share the same feelings that they continue to work well together, and the relationship lasts.
This is basically how me and my girlfriend’s relationship started off. No pressure, if it’s not working we’ll call it off and go back to being just friends.
We’ve been together for 15 some odd years, and we have 2 kids.
You really think this is more stressful than “we have to be together forever, unconditionally”. Forever is a long time. I’d take this over unhappy marriages that fight, bicker and argue all day everyday, hate each other’s guts and sleep on separate rooms out of spite for 15 out of the past 20 years. But are still together because of social norms and pressures.
This on the other hand is liberating and loving company. Nothing makes me feel more secure and confident than someone who can use that second to last line confidently “I would be fine on my own, but I’m better with you” it tells you clearly that this person is with you because they want to. Everything else in romantic manipulative BS.
“I want to be with you forever” makes me feel a lot more secure, comfortable and hopeful than “when this isn’t fun anymore I’m off”.
Everyone knows that “be with you forever” is a feeling, not a fact but it gives me a good idea of where my partner is in the relationship. My partner saying “once it isnt fun I’m out” makes me feel like I’m just a hobby, not a partner.
“be with you forever“ is a feeling
Yeah, it’s called obsession. Romantic love is very toxic, but it’s ideologically enforced into people at a very young age. Asking toddlers to confess to adults whom they like and with whom they want to marry when they grow up and similar performative acts, for example. The characters in the comic are acknowledging their humanity, instead of denying themselves with a pretension of immortality or infinitude to their human feelings. Lots of people who say “I will be with you forever” end up cheating or abandoning their partners anyways. Humans are neither immortal nor infinite, it’s immature and irresponsible to promise either.
Not to invalidate or guess how you think or feel, but that negative interpretation oozes insecurity and fear.
Or in the words of Oscar Wilde: “When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.” Romantic love is lying.
Falling in love isn’t fashionable on these forums.
To see how dysfunctional this couple is, imagine them having kids after panel 6.
For some people the feeling of not being committed helps being committed
The christian marriage (i left the church) or the legal one (a legal hassle)? Too bad there’s no confessionsless marriage like there are funerals. Because that’s something humans do, even without believing in a higher power.
The social one. I’m an atheist.
It’s not a confession of trust. It’s stepping on that bit of piled up grass and hoping there isn’t a bear trap under it when you’re in the woods where bears are hunted.
Unhealthy fear of committment
Their relationship seems healthy enough, doesn’t it? They enjoy each others company, and they treat each other well. So is this unhealthy fear of commitment? Or is it explicit acceptance of uncertainty?
I’m mostly imagining what my reaction would be if one of my friends described a relationship by saying that if it isn’t fun anymore they’re done, but they’re also thinking of moving in together. Major red flags.
Uncertainty is a huge part of life, but a large part of a relationship is being someone else’s certainty. No matter what happens, you’re there for them, through everything.
The relationship in the comic is cute because they made it, but I wouldn’t hold it up as exemplary or healthy. Most people who treat relationships this way don’t have relationships that last. They end up out their security deposit for breaking a lease on an apartment after a surprisingly nasty breakup.
I’m mostly imagining what my reaction would be if one of my friends described a relationship by saying that if it isn’t fun anymore they’re done, but they’re also thinking of moving in together. Major red flags.
I think that mischaracterises what is going on here. The characters in the comic aren’t describing a relationship to a third party. They are talking openly and honestly about their feelings to each other.
You’re talking about relationships not lasting, and being unhealthy, etc. - but there are multiple people in this thread who have publicly said that this comic reflects their own long-term ongoing relationship. I think it’s important to understand that different people communicate their feelings differently. To you maybe telling to your partner that you can’t promise to love them forever a red flag; - whereas to me, telling someone that you will love them forever unconditionally is a red-flag, because life isn’t really like that. I don’t want platitudes or empty promises.
I agree that it’s bit sketchy to say to your partner “if it isn’t fun, them I’m off”; (‘fun’, I think, is a bad word to use.) But on the other hand, the two characters in the comic agreed at the start that they weren’t even looking for a long term relationship. So they are on common ground. They aren’t just pulling out a bombshell from nowhere; but rather they are acknowledging their current and changing feelings. So in their relationship it can make sense to say something like that.
They are acknowledging the inherent mortality of relationships, and they seem to be doing fine together.
There is always the possibility of shooting yourself in the foot and being too scared of the relationship ending and screwing it up that way, but there’s also the possibility of it ending because you ignored the risks and warning signs.
It’s about striking a balance, and that balance is gonna be different for each relationship.
This comic makes me miserable. I’m going to die alone.
If its any consolation everyone dies alone
Nonsense. Plenty of people die surrounded by their creditors.
The fact that “creditors” is on a second line gave your joke even better timing. Love it.
Mood.
This is cute. Reminds me of my wife and I. We weren’t even close to this in denial, though. 😏
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You were looking for National Security Agency fun?
No strings attached
Me and my most recent partner also started similarly. Both had harsh breakups about at the same time, got into a FWB relationship, on date 4 I think we were both like “this is clearly not a FWB relationship”. We talked over what we wanted to do and both decided being partner-partners sounded good. Shortly after they invited me to join them out of country for a week and I was like fuck it, this will either go very well or very poorly. It went very well. Now my damaged self is trying to figure out when or if I should tell them how much I’m falling for them
Tell them when you’re about to leave at the end of the weekend. 🙂
I’ve done similar before x.x
Why not marry now?
Not everyone prescribes to the concept of state marriage. If they’re good without it who cares.
I’m not saying “go marry,” I’m saying to consider it.
Yes I’m certain after 13 years together and a child they were just waiting for a stranger on the internet to suggest they consider marriage.
There is no world where they haven’t discussed this topic already.
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A lot of psychoanalysts in the comments who can’t seem to identify that this is just a joke, the last panel being the punchline
What’s the punchline? The guy was zoned out on the computer the last 25 years and wasn’t aware of any relationship whatsoever? I still kinda don’t get it.
I don’t get it either. Is this supposed to be cute? She seems like the worst and him, the enabler.
The way I interpreted it, they’re both happy in the relationship, but both are telling eachother (but really themselves) that they aren’t going to commit, because they’re both afraid of becoming invested and subsequently hurt when it doesn’t pan out (likely due to bad past experiences). But they both act like this because they’re afraid of the other abandoning them. Eventually they’re together long enough that it has since become clear that neither of them are leaving and they’re both happy, so the last panel is them finally addressing that fact.
It’s a joke because 25 years is an absurd amount of time to come to that realization. In reality this couple would have figured this out after a few years. It’s exaggeration.
It’s “cute” because they’re both good, loyal people who love each other, but they were both on the defensive for a long time, which is an immature “toxic” behavior, but because they were both on the exact same page, they have grown out of that toxic behavior together.
The guy does kinda comes across like maybe he’s not sharing the same behavior because he’s a bit more nonchalant about it, but I think that’s the general idea.
I can’t argue with that.
Calm down Freud, it’s just a gentle comic!
It’s observational humor about how some people are so afraid of committed relationships that they have to slowly work they way into it. Which is funny to watch from the outside, since it’s clear to everyone else what is going on. Obviously if you haven’t made such experience yourself or observed situations like that, that joke wont work for you.
They’ve spent 25 years not acknowledging the relationship so it’s a surprise to one when the other does. At least that’s how I’m interpreting it.
So what’s her name Pissy ?
There is for sure a YouTube video or there where a therapist reacts to memes and comics and diagnoses them with unsecure attachment styles
I am Poopy
Might wanna go clean yourself up then
Maybe in 25 years
I feel called out on this one :D For years we were like “Marry and have kids? No way, we’re way too irresponsible ourselves!” After 14 years we thought we might as well marry. And now it’s been (counts on fingers) 27 years, and we have three wonderful kids and couldn’t imagine any other life!
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This is called an avoidant attachment system and it’s not rosy like the comic wants to suggest.
Summarizes the toxic modern dating culture very well. This is not a healthy pattern everyone, stop upvoting!
Exactly. This type of uncertainty in life isn’t fun. Not communicating or setting expectations about a relationship, it’s just awful. I’d understand not marrying, not having children if it was discussed beforehand and agreed to. But this whole spiel of “I don’t really care about you, you could leave at any time” or “we are not dating”, is very manipulative.
Its deliberately pitched as ironic. A lot of this “will we / won’t we” happens in the first few months, and the author has stretched it for comic effect to juxtapose it with the “time flies” feeling old couples can have looking backwards.
For folks who are used to meeting, dating, and breaking up every few months, a committed relationship can come as something of a shock. I was in and out of relationships for most of my twenties, and I definitely sympathize with the first - like - row of these panels. Finding myself in a happy, committed relationship one day, with a partner who felt the same way was surprising.
But as soon as you’re moved in together, its pretty plainly established as serious.
