We could be friends!

[missroserose]

There's an old saw that's been circulating the Internet for at least a decade now, apparently written by someone who was having a pity party about relationships. I unfortunately don't have the Google-fu to find a version of it to link to, but it basically went something like "Asking a girl out is like interviewing for a job, and having them tell you 'I'm sorry, we decided to hire someone with half your qualifications who's probably a drunk and is going to slack off and treat us badly, but we want to keep you around as 'just a friend' so we can call you at midnight and cry to you about how awful this dude is, and maybe talk about how we should really hire you but never actually do it,'" etc. etc.

I think today's xkcd is a very nice rejoinder from the other side of that dynamic:

Comments

[moonwick.livejournal.com]

Is it me, or does it seem like the xkcd guy has issues with women? This isn't the first comic that's given me that feeling...

[rapier.livejournal.com]

I can't say if the author has issues with women in general. I seem to remember his other comics tend to have women who are smart, clever, witty, and capable.

This particular comic seems to be communicating some issues with the Nice Guy. The woman in this strip is merely a flawed human being (in a manner of speaking, since she's just a stick figure). It's the Nice Guy who is a scheming, manipulative dickhead.

This particular comic hit a little too close to home for me - I've been the Nice Guy before. I've since come to the conclusion that the Nice Guy isn't so nice, and I've reformed my ways. I never thought my own schemes through to the logical conclusion presented in this comic, and I bet other Nice Guys haven't either. Hopefully those same Nice Guys will read this and conclude that this sort of behavior is Not Cool.

Unfortunately the comic doesn't offer an alternative set of behaviors, but what do you want out of a single comic strip? Maybe the author will explore this theme further in future strips.

[moonwick.livejournal.com]

*boggle*

It wasn't until you replied that I actually caught that entire manipulative "Nice Guy" aspect of the comic. When I look at it under that light, there's an entirely different, creepy meaning to it that I'd missed until now.

Thanks, I think. :)

[alexmegami]

If rapier hadn't said it... :)

I think that the women run enough of a gamut that I think they're just... honest, yanno?

[strand.livejournal.com]

If I recall correctly, around the forty minute mark of his google talk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJOS0sV2a24) he talks about gender discrimination and how easily society turns a blind eye to it... My impression has always been that Randall Munroe is a feminist.

[sigma7.livejournal.com]

In addition to the "interview for a job" allegory, there was also a pretty epic Craigslist (!) post a while back blaming women for the dearth of the "nice guys" -- MightyGodKing disassembled it with workman-like precision so I don't have to, and it's worth a read for entertainment value alone.

Munroe's work on xkcd will, once a month or two (and more so in the strip's earlier days), just have an idiosyncratic comic, one that makes me more than a little worried about the guy and his issues with relationships, not so much that I think he's at all misogynistic or even necessarily socially disconnected, just worried on an empathetic level. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd omitted the last panel, you see -- he's enough of an unrepentant romantic and a man of obvious yearning that I could see him buying into that mindset totally, oblivious (unwittingly or just self-delusionally) to the fact that the nice guy simply isn't. This strip actually renewed my faith in the guy -- and made me worry a little bit less about him on a personal level.

[errant-variable.livejournal.com]

Mr. Craigslist has crafted a considerable amount of shit into that diatribe, yes.

However, MightyGodKing isn't firing on all cylinders, and the % of rational arguments vs. denigrating descriptions approaches GOP levels.

-1

[errant-variable.livejournal.com]

Hm. Classic conversion method of 1 picture = 1000 words... was pondering if it was possible to write out this idea. However, given the wall of text that would create, will probably simply use this.

Also, the flavor text went missing. Pity.