The irony of this being that Sal actually struggles to make friends despite being “cool”. Her main character arc last semester besides fist fighting Amber was learning not to overly rely on her one friend and meet new people.
well there are probably nerd groups she could find even if this isn’t a particularly ‘nerdy’ college but even among cliques there’d still be some exclusion and some ppl not respecting ‘nerdy girls’ though hopefully ppl have changed the last decade, i have heard about guys being shitty as STEM majors towards women
Yeah, listening to Lucy hurts because I basically had the same beliefs when I first went to college. When I realized the opposite was true, that the social skills that I had never developed when I was younger now only held me back more than ever…. Well it was the start of a pretty big depression spiral for me. Just coming to terms with being a loser for life.
I kind of had what Lucy describes, though it wasn’t so much “everyone here is a cast-off nerd like me” as “since college is much bigger than high school, there are still enough to make a good friend circle”.
Lucy, yes, it should be like that, but it won’t be until you, personally, make it happen. Nobody will do it for you. Nobody can. The phoenix that rises from its ashes is not the same bird.
I had good friends in my department, but HATED the communal living side of it. Just could not deal with it at all. Probably didn’t help that I’d come in with the naive idea that university was full of smart people who are interested in stuff, whereas freshers’ culture was all “drink, puke, drink, puke and don’t EVER admit to reading a book.”
This is awful. She’s batshit crazy. He’s got to get away. The best way for her to get respect from those people is to be cool and aloof, not demand and beg for their approval. Yikes. Surprised her brother isn’t giving her a reality check here but encouraging her craziness.
calling her crazy feels like overblowing it. shes definitely far from figuring stuff out but uh yeah shes a teen thats expected. also obviously her big brother comment was a joke
This seems needlessly mean-spirited. She may be abrasive but “batshit crazy” is just rude.
Also, it’s almost 2023, the world has long since moved on from the need for “crazy” as a perjorative and I would encourage you to branch out and consider nuance before lambasting somebody as “crazy.” Even a fictional character.
Unless it’s the hypothetical girlfriend from this College Humor skit – https://youtu.be/QGHjjrWIiyM – calling a girl “crazy” like this is not productive.
She’s not crazy, though she sure does act the par here. She’s just immature and insecure, which makes her desperate for approval and tokens of social success (such as having a cool boyfriend like Walky and a successful, “i love you” style relationship).
Oh no, I was cringing with Walky being hung up on it and being passive aggressive. She’s already an awkward girl, so it’s okay for her to build up her self esteem awkwardly
The black stripe represents the patty
The white stripe represents the bun
And the other stripes represent all the various sauces, vegetables, etc. that you can optionally put in between
Walky is going to continue to be fascinated with his burger until it is polite for him to leave. He will then come up with a reason to go alone, and probably need to talk to someone about this.
I think Lucy’s trying too hard. I think she’s actually worked her way into a friend group with the main cast via Walky/walking too or sharing the same political science class. The hard part is done already. Constantly trying to show how capable a friend you are at this point seems like needless struggle.
Yes, the better strategy is to blow off all the people being jerks to her and find other people to hang out with. Then maybe once she isn’t begging people to like her, she’ll make friends at her dorm. She could try being snooty and rude to Jennifer, that would work better than what she’s doing.
I’m honestly not sure what Lucy’s looking for. It’s not like the main cast really hangout much together when they’re not walking to class. Joyce is kind of a focus that a lot of them occasionally hover around but even she only really spends frequent amounts of time with Becky and Dorothy. Sarah’s a hermit, Amber’s a hermit, I have no idea what Dina does when she’s not with Becky. Joe kinda floated in very recently cause he’s attracted to Joyce but he spends most his time with Danny. Sal is with Danny and maybe Marcy off panel. Jennifer is the most actively social now with the largest regular group but they’re mostly trash and the actual popularity is debatable. Ethan’s a hermit now. I think her core group of Walky and Booster is pretty solid (for the moment). Does she just want to be relied on, cause that takes time to let trust build.
I’d say she’s looking to gain what she thinks Jennifer has, high-school queen bee status which she wants to unlock by being a helper. Lucy is looking at Jennifers social group from afar and doesn’t yet get that their less popular and more clique based on parental status. The people who do appreciate Jennifer for her helping qualities are already friends with Lucy, just not as close to her yet because she’s a relatively new addition.
Walky can’t make her have self respect. If she wants respect, she can start by calling out her roommate’s disrespect in public and saying it’s unacceptable.
I’d like to add that there are lots of ways of having self-respect that don’t involve starting unnecessary conflict. “Eh, not worth my time” is a perfectly healthy response to other people being rude.
well, dan is a dork she’d probably get along with but he’s got his own thing going on now, even if sal was cool with them all hanging out
i’m sure amber and ethan would have overlapping media interests too even if she isn’t as intense a toy collector(as far as we know she only has posters)
and i think her and joyce get along well enough but if they’re not in the same dorm she wouldn’t really be prioritized as a friend to hangout with
ObSF: C J Cherryh’s “Foreigner” series, where a chronic problem in translation with the nonhuman atevi is that they don’t have the concepts of love or friendship, so they keep thinking humans are talking about they are desserts.
i don’t think ‘love’ being used sparingly or overused should decrease its value, i can love a friend/acquaintance , and also love my nail clippers for being functional
not that it shouldn’t have weight in a romantic relationship but maybe if walky was able to casually say it constantly maybe it wouldn’t freak him out as much
Carla just shows up to hang out with her sometimes. I know “there’s not enough Carla appreciation” is one of her bits, but I don’t think Lucy appreciates Carla enough. Like, hypothetically, if Lucy’s first boyfriend dumped her, Carla would be great at providing distraction.
Would he? I know Walky might of had a slight unintentional glow up but he’s still walky. Despite him being funny and a tad bit clever a 5 minute talk with his wise assery will tick the average person off.
All that aside as far as College goes given that fact you pick your own curriculum, on paper you would only be interacting with others who share similar interests unless your talking about dorm life which you haft really try to be outgoing to have a social life there.
First, I guess it depends on who they’re talking about. Like, if they were going to try with the main characters of the comic, Walky would have more influence than Lyle, who presumably most of them don’t know.
Second, there’s the possibility that Walky would have more pull in a social way because he’s her boyfriend (as opposed to her brother). Like, for some people, someone being in a relationship is an indicator of coolness– at least, I knew some people who seemed to take that stance in high school. Can’t say I hung out with anyone who thought that way during college, but I imagine it doesn’t just totally vanish.
As far as who you interact with in college, also keep in mind that Lucy is a freshman, and for many people, freshman year is a lot of prerequisites and general requirement classes.
Question time! I assume many of us here are nerds. May or may not connect to the cast-off nerd description (I don’t, really). Post high school/secondary education (whether that be college or elsewhere), where did you find your people/place?
For me, in college it was volunteering. I ended up not really connecting with my college and the general culture of it, but I joined a volunteer organization in the town over, and I got really involved in it over my time in college. Looking back, there were definitely some issues with the organization, but I really appreciated the connections with the people there, along with the skills learned and the opportunity to help others.
Mine was in college. First, via immediately locating the Anime club upon starting, joining, befriending the President, ‘helping’ the President, and slowly taking over his job by doing it better than he did.
Then I was the President.
Mwa ha HA HA HA HA HA!!!
Anyway, my social group branched off from there. I met some girls who were pledging a sorority (in Anime club), and they kinda swept me up into doing so as well. And I got in.
I should mention that this was not an ‘elite’ sort of sorority. They lived on campus, with a floor of a dorm reserved for them, and were basically 100% nerds of various flavors (hence why they were attending Anime club). One of them also introduced me to D&D.
I went to art school so most people were nerds. We found our cliques. I joined the people who played fighting games in the lobby. Tekken, Smash, etc. Honestly the best 4 years of my life. Also in class me and my friends would joke around with silly hypothetical and drive our teacher mad. I miss it.
I don’t necessarily belong anyplace to begin with, but I currently have a D&D group I haven’t attended a session with in over a year, and we sometimes meet up to play card games or Jackbox. That’s been happening for about three years now, give or take, and before that I just hung out with whoever came to visit whoever I lived with for 2 years at a time.
Closest I get is lingering in the periphery of other people’s friend groups for a couple years and then that inevitably ends without fanfare or second thoughts.
Nerd boarding school… but like I wasn’t popular. I just wasn’t cast off and bullied and I had people happy to eat lunch with me. College I had casual friend and study groups and somehow gained popularity my last couple years with people who lived near me even though I don’t keep in touch with them. Grad school I have friends I keep in touch with though definitely not popular.
Basically my goal has been to not be socially ostracized and that started when I left public school.
I mostly didn’t. I continued to be friends with a guy from my high school class who was in the same major at the same college. I stumbled into friendly relations with one or two others.
I might say that, socially, college was like high school only more so. Same groups, more concentrated. But there were thousands of students so it was easier to just block out the ones I didn’t understand.
That’s basically it. For me it all spun off from a D&D game I got involved in, initially through a guy I knew in high school, but didn’t really like.
One of the weird things about DoA to me is how much of the socializing is just based around what dorm floor you got assigned to. I rarely hung out with people in any of my dorms and none of them became close friends.
i think my answer to being a teenage cast-off nerd was not so much to “find my people” as to make my peace with the fact that i don’t have “a” people. I tend to dip my toes in various circles, and run away when i sense i’m getting sucked in, but keep strong friendships with the one or two people i struck up a close connection to.
my first real experience with having a loving circle of friends was in technical school (after i dropped out of college). i think we were all some shade of nerdy, and people found my own nerdiness endearing? somehow this was completely new. and such a relief. i think it was the first time i felt like it was ok to be me.
i have more online friends than irl friends but i don’t mind the distance, tho tinder dating and potential creeps aside it’s a lot easier to distance yourself from those types of ppl as opposed to hanging out in ‘nerd’ groups/circles and deciding you don’t like certain ppl/they’re the type of nerdy ppl you may not get along with despite similar interests
It’s always been choirs for me. Not all of them but the nice thing about choirs is, even if you are a cast off nerd, you can still enjoy the singing and bond over it. But I’ve also noticed that my feeling at ease with people very much depends on self-acceptance and willingly taking on a role in a group (shifting from “the uninteresting/invisible one” to “the gal who does X” does wonders, even if it’s mostly in my head).
I’m glad we’re seeing some more cracks in the veneer of happiness Lucy has been putting on since the beginning. This whole storyline has made me much more interested in her character.
Of course, that was pre-timeskip, so they weren’t together yet. Should have been clear that he was talking lightly, “Ha, ha, ha, I love you, that’s great!” But, the way she blushed, it looked like she was seeing the potential for relationship budding right then and there.
Yeah, he’s never seemed very invested in it, but now? He knows he’s not ready for that kind of commitment or responsibility, and whatever else you might say about him, he’s not one to lead someone on or lie. He seems to want out and I understand that.
Or, maybe he’s nervous because the last time Dorothy told him she loved him, and he reciprocated by saying the same thing right away, it became a huge blowup. (Because he explained immediately afterward that he knew mirroring her words was “the correct answer” and was his way to “unlock” a “life hack”. – or words to that effect. I wonder whether Lucy thought she was giving the “correct answer” as well?)
I’m curious is the vibe at Lucy’s school was actually ‘only nerds go to college’ bc at my school it was ‘if you don’t go to college you must be some kind of failure’ (and it wasn’t the richest school or anything)
Aren’t they at the state flagship? I went to a selective college and was kind of shocked by how many anti-intellectual people were ther. There were academic nerds in my major but not so many out of it.
I feel sad for Lucy. It will be a very bad day for her when she figures out that Walky’s only cares about himself and that she has to stand up for herself instead of waiting for people to change.
It occurred to me that Walky is like Joe. He has a story about who he is that he tells to everyone, even (especially?) to himself. But he is not that person. He acts careless, perhaps, because caring is powerful and scary.
…and then Walky and Lucy had a frank discussion and talked about their feelings and insecurities, and agreed to move more slowly and just enjoy each other’s company for the time being and see what happens…
“But not *in love* with burger, you understand? I love this thing, but I am not in love with it. A propos of nothing. This is a random observation, unrelated to anything that happened a minute ago. Sorry, what are we talking about?”
the way to a man’s heart is his stomach/they say, if she had bought him mcnuggets earlier on i’m sure the relationship would’ve moved a bit faster /shot
Even if it’s only been a month, she should know by know college and high school aren’t that different, and neither is post college. Clicks, judge bastards who think they’re better than you, shy people who just want to be alone and utter monsters exploiting any weakness they find, popularity contests and gossip ears. It’s all the same everywhere.
Someone I know on a forum says that when she picks up her kids after school, the other mothers keep trying to pull the same cliquey mean-girls power plays on her that their eleven-year-olds do to each other. She just ignores it all, which baffles them.
What a truly bizarre thing to do. What kind of power play can you even make, picking a kid up from school? Show up, kid gets in car, leave. Not exactly a lot of room for skullduggery. Some people are just desperate, I suppose.
For a lot of moms (it is mostly moms, or i guess nannies in richer areas) school is absolutely a social node. moms may stay and chat with one another after dropping the kids off, or get there early before picking them up. As in any social group, power relations occur.
you’d think they’d try to get along in case their kids befriend other kids (i can understand not wanting another person’s kid at your house for free [tbh i’m surprised if they aren’t already friends, that parents would pay the other parents money whenever a sleepover happens] and not wanting to take responsibility in case tehy get sick from eating or hurt somehow but shouldn’t be against like kids wanting to play at the p ark together or so)
Possible reference to Burger Chef? A regional chain that was eventually gobbled up by Hardees. We had one between the two main buildings of the 38th Street campus, which was handy. (This was well before the days when colleges built their own food courts with name-brand restaurants as tenants.)
Takes a while for Walky to reboot. He went full blue screen of death there. He’s working his way through things he loves. Eventually he’ll get around to that he loves being with Lucy.
As for burgers, he may love them but they don’t love him back. That’s the deepest meaning of today.
Is she implying that only cast-off nerds go to college?
I was also a cast-off nerd in high-school, and everyone, including myself, thought I would really start to thrive socially when I went to college and “found my people”. In reality it was the worst mental health years of my life and I had ZERO friends
Oof. I feel you there– college was also a suckfest in terms of mental health for me. While, as I mentioned above, I did sort of “find my people” (only a couple of which turned into lasting relationships) through an off-campus organization… I am left with no warm feelings toward the college I attended, for reasons I can’t fully articulate.
I went to one of the big state schools around here, and now when there are sporting events or rivalry discussions that come up, people expect me to be, like, all for my alma mater… in truth I do not care, I regret having gone there, and would be happy to never hear about it again.
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I feel like the only brothers cast-off nerds are likely to listen are my brother, my brother, and me
Hey-oh!
Unless…
An advice show for the “modren” era.
My text tone on my cellphone is Justin Mcelroy saying “I cook an egg with a spoon!!”
burger on his mind
I love burger too! 😋🍔😊
nothing wrong with a good burger but those buns look kinda pale haa
They’re probably at one of the dining halls, so that’s to be expected.
Burg’er? He barely knows ‘er.
i love the power glove
it’s so bad
Ahhhhh no, Lucy, that’s not how this works
Yeah.
Now if SAL said “This person is cool, be their friend” it would somehow work.
The irony of this being that Sal actually struggles to make friends despite being “cool”. Her main character arc last semester besides fist fighting Amber was learning not to overly rely on her one friend and meet new people.
When the model for “cool” is “aloof loner rebel”, being cool while making friends becomes difficult.
Walky needs a Ring Of Power, so he can bend other peoples’ minds to his will, and make them like Lucy.
Why would he do that when he could have unlimited burgers.
But consider: making people like Lucy, and unlimited burgers
And Mountain Dew
well there are probably nerd groups she could find even if this isn’t a particularly ‘nerdy’ college but even among cliques there’d still be some exclusion and some ppl not respecting ‘nerdy girls’ though hopefully ppl have changed the last decade, i have heard about guys being shitty as STEM majors towards women
Yeah, listening to Lucy hurts because I basically had the same beliefs when I first went to college. When I realized the opposite was true, that the social skills that I had never developed when I was younger now only held me back more than ever…. Well it was the start of a pretty big depression spiral for me. Just coming to terms with being a loser for life.
I kind of had what Lucy describes, though it wasn’t so much “everyone here is a cast-off nerd like me” as “since college is much bigger than high school, there are still enough to make a good friend circle”.
It’s never too late to acquire a new skill. Go for it!
Lucy, yes, it should be like that, but it won’t be until you, personally, make it happen. Nobody will do it for you. Nobody can. The phoenix that rises from its ashes is not the same bird.
Drat, that was supposed to be a new thread.
I had good friends in my department, but HATED the communal living side of it. Just could not deal with it at all. Probably didn’t help that I’d come in with the naive idea that university was full of smart people who are interested in stuff, whereas freshers’ culture was all “drink, puke, drink, puke and don’t EVER admit to reading a book.”
Y’know what? Valid.
uh oh, I’m starting to criiiiiiiinge
This is awful. She’s batshit crazy. He’s got to get away. The best way for her to get respect from those people is to be cool and aloof, not demand and beg for their approval. Yikes. Surprised her brother isn’t giving her a reality check here but encouraging her craziness.
calling her crazy feels like overblowing it. shes definitely far from figuring stuff out but uh yeah shes a teen thats expected. also obviously her big brother comment was a joke
This seems needlessly mean-spirited. She may be abrasive but “batshit crazy” is just rude.
Also, it’s almost 2023, the world has long since moved on from the need for “crazy” as a perjorative and I would encourage you to branch out and consider nuance before lambasting somebody as “crazy.” Even a fictional character.
Unless it’s the hypothetical girlfriend from this College Humor skit – https://youtu.be/QGHjjrWIiyM – calling a girl “crazy” like this is not productive.
She’s not crazy, though she sure does act the par here. She’s just immature and insecure, which makes her desperate for approval and tokens of social success (such as having a cool boyfriend like Walky and a successful, “i love you” style relationship).
Oh no, I was cringing with Walky being hung up on it and being passive aggressive. She’s already an awkward girl, so it’s okay for her to build up her self esteem awkwardly
Walky’s still messed up about the declaration of love. He’s not being passive aggressive, he’s not parsing the rest of the conversation.
She’s not crazy. She’s still just a freshman.
(tho it is a nice change from referring to the cast as children and toddlers, I’ll give you that)I have some insight now as to why this isn’t working for her.
Walky’s shirt looks like a pride flag but I can’t figure out which one.
This has been bothering me for like a week now.
Oh, it’s the burgerromantic flag. Willis loves to do foreshadowing like that, where the payoff is in the last panel of this strip.
The black stripe represents the patty
The white stripe represents the bun
And the other stripes represent all the various sauces, vegetables, etc. that you can optionally put in between
Emphasis on “can” and “optionally”.
Burgerlovers pride 🍔
It’s very similar to the top half of the lesbian pride flag, plus an extra stripe of purple
Yes i was just thinking about this.
It’s not a pride flag. Willis tweeted about it, and it’s just some random aesthetic stripes based on a shirt sold at Macy’s.
It would be a good flag for interracial couples/ bi racial pride
Feel kind of like Wesley Crusher’s shirt
It’s pretty close to the Ace flag, just with a pink stripe instead of purple.
It’s the saturation gradient pride flag.
Pretty sure it’s the Kohl’s flag, I think Willis tweeted that it’s just a shirt he stole from Kohl’s website.
i also love burger. walky’s got a point
Walky is going to continue to be fascinated with his burger until it is polite for him to leave. He will then come up with a reason to go alone, and probably need to talk to someone about this.
Walky do you really love the burger, or are you just saying it beacuse you saw it?
The answer depends on whether that burger was an exclusive to the restaurant’s menu app or not.
I love burger. [emotionally] I love burger.
😋💛🍔😊
Grilled to perfection over charcoal (no lighter fluid).
That does seem like the safest response here to this looniness.
Relatable, Walky.
I can’t decide who would be funniest for Walky to go to for advice on this. I kind of want a montage of him going to everyone.
Carla.
I think Lucy’s trying too hard. I think she’s actually worked her way into a friend group with the main cast via Walky/walking too or sharing the same political science class. The hard part is done already. Constantly trying to show how capable a friend you are at this point seems like needless struggle.
college might have more ‘cast off nerds’ but i’d hardly consider jen one even with the star wars appreciation
but outside of knowing all the dorm neighbors i don’t think she’s joined any clubs or extracurricular stuff as far as i know
Yes, the better strategy is to blow off all the people being jerks to her and find other people to hang out with. Then maybe once she isn’t begging people to like her, she’ll make friends at her dorm. She could try being snooty and rude to Jennifer, that would work better than what she’s doing.
I’m honestly not sure what Lucy’s looking for. It’s not like the main cast really hangout much together when they’re not walking to class. Joyce is kind of a focus that a lot of them occasionally hover around but even she only really spends frequent amounts of time with Becky and Dorothy. Sarah’s a hermit, Amber’s a hermit, I have no idea what Dina does when she’s not with Becky. Joe kinda floated in very recently cause he’s attracted to Joyce but he spends most his time with Danny. Sal is with Danny and maybe Marcy off panel. Jennifer is the most actively social now with the largest regular group but they’re mostly trash and the actual popularity is debatable. Ethan’s a hermit now. I think her core group of Walky and Booster is pretty solid (for the moment). Does she just want to be relied on, cause that takes time to let trust build.
I’d say she’s looking to gain what she thinks Jennifer has, high-school queen bee status which she wants to unlock by being a helper. Lucy is looking at Jennifers social group from afar and doesn’t yet get that their less popular and more clique based on parental status. The people who do appreciate Jennifer for her helping qualities are already friends with Lucy, just not as close to her yet because she’s a relatively new addition.
Approval. She wants to be the nucleus of a strong friend group.
I hate this feeling: when you’re figure out you are trying too hard fo something… :/
Walky can’t make her have self respect. If she wants respect, she can start by calling out her roommate’s disrespect in public and saying it’s unacceptable.
I’d like to add that there are lots of ways of having self-respect that don’t involve starting unnecessary conflict. “Eh, not worth my time” is a perfectly healthy response to other people being rude.
i’m sure she and dina would get along, even if she wouldn’t wanna join lucy and becky for church
Down where?
who is she even talking about?
Yeah, it feels disjointed, but there was conversation that was ongoing in the last panel of yesterday’s strip, so maybe it’s meant to?
at least Walky is as lost as me
well, dan is a dork she’d probably get along with but he’s got his own thing going on now, even if sal was cool with them all hanging out
i’m sure amber and ethan would have overlapping media interests too even if she isn’t as intense a toy collector(as far as we know she only has posters)
and i think her and joyce get along well enough but if they’re not in the same dorm she wouldn’t really be prioritized as a friend to hangout with
“down to the dorm”, I think.
Down under.
Where women glow and men plunder.
You better run.
You better take cov-er.
Downton Abbey, she’s bingeing on TV series now.
BORGAR (or something)
He’s probably trying to water down the word “love” until it means nothing again.
ObSF: C J Cherryh’s “Foreigner” series, where a chronic problem in translation with the nonhuman atevi is that they don’t have the concepts of love or friendship, so they keep thinking humans are talking about they are desserts.
I love ObSF.
i don’t think ‘love’ being used sparingly or overused should decrease its value, i can love a friend/acquaintance , and also love my nail clippers for being functional
not that it shouldn’t have weight in a romantic relationship but maybe if walky was able to casually say it constantly maybe it wouldn’t freak him out as much
I’d say that’s more Lucy’s problem than Walky’s.
He said it pretty casually “I love that you get that about me”. She took it as a declaration of romantic love.
Carla just shows up to hang out with her sometimes. I know “there’s not enough Carla appreciation” is one of her bits, but I don’t think Lucy appreciates Carla enough. Like, hypothetically, if Lucy’s first boyfriend dumped her, Carla would be great at providing distraction.
You’re completely right. -hands you a Carla appreciator button pin-
I would like a banner to hang on my wall tyty.
Would he? I know Walky might of had a slight unintentional glow up but he’s still walky. Despite him being funny and a tad bit clever a 5 minute talk with his wise assery will tick the average person off.
All that aside as far as College goes given that fact you pick your own curriculum, on paper you would only be interacting with others who share similar interests unless your talking about dorm life which you haft really try to be outgoing to have a social life there.
First, I guess it depends on who they’re talking about. Like, if they were going to try with the main characters of the comic, Walky would have more influence than Lyle, who presumably most of them don’t know.
Second, there’s the possibility that Walky would have more pull in a social way because he’s her boyfriend (as opposed to her brother). Like, for some people, someone being in a relationship is an indicator of coolness– at least, I knew some people who seemed to take that stance in high school. Can’t say I hung out with anyone who thought that way during college, but I imagine it doesn’t just totally vanish.
As far as who you interact with in college, also keep in mind that Lucy is a freshman, and for many people, freshman year is a lot of prerequisites and general requirement classes.
feels like that’s part of his ‘charm’/attractiveness to lucy because she didn’t rly crush on him because of his maturity
Question time! I assume many of us here are nerds. May or may not connect to the cast-off nerd description (I don’t, really). Post high school/secondary education (whether that be college or elsewhere), where did you find your people/place?
For me, in college it was volunteering. I ended up not really connecting with my college and the general culture of it, but I joined a volunteer organization in the town over, and I got really involved in it over my time in college. Looking back, there were definitely some issues with the organization, but I really appreciated the connections with the people there, along with the skills learned and the opportunity to help others.
Mine was in college. First, via immediately locating the Anime club upon starting, joining, befriending the President, ‘helping’ the President, and slowly taking over his job by doing it better than he did.
Then I was the President.
Mwa ha HA HA HA HA HA!!!
Anyway, my social group branched off from there. I met some girls who were pledging a sorority (in Anime club), and they kinda swept me up into doing so as well. And I got in.
I should mention that this was not an ‘elite’ sort of sorority. They lived on campus, with a floor of a dorm reserved for them, and were basically 100% nerds of various flavors (hence why they were attending Anime club). One of them also introduced me to D&D.
I went to art school so most people were nerds. We found our cliques. I joined the people who played fighting games in the lobby. Tekken, Smash, etc. Honestly the best 4 years of my life. Also in class me and my friends would joke around with silly hypothetical and drive our teacher mad. I miss it.
If Lucy thinks its hard to make friends in college then shes really not going to like entering the work force
Mine was the game dev community, but mostly the DoA community. Thanks everyone. 🥲
I don’t necessarily belong anyplace to begin with, but I currently have a D&D group I haven’t attended a session with in over a year, and we sometimes meet up to play card games or Jackbox. That’s been happening for about three years now, give or take, and before that I just hung out with whoever came to visit whoever I lived with for 2 years at a time.
Closest I get is lingering in the periphery of other people’s friend groups for a couple years and then that inevitably ends without fanfare or second thoughts.
Nerd boarding school… but like I wasn’t popular. I just wasn’t cast off and bullied and I had people happy to eat lunch with me. College I had casual friend and study groups and somehow gained popularity my last couple years with people who lived near me even though I don’t keep in touch with them. Grad school I have friends I keep in touch with though definitely not popular.
Basically my goal has been to not be socially ostracized and that started when I left public school.
I mostly didn’t. I continued to be friends with a guy from my high school class who was in the same major at the same college. I stumbled into friendly relations with one or two others.
I might say that, socially, college was like high school only more so. Same groups, more concentrated. But there were thousands of students so it was easier to just block out the ones I didn’t understand.
That’s basically it. For me it all spun off from a D&D game I got involved in, initially through a guy I knew in high school, but didn’t really like.
One of the weird things about DoA to me is how much of the socializing is just based around what dorm floor you got assigned to. I rarely hung out with people in any of my dorms and none of them became close friends.
i think my answer to being a teenage cast-off nerd was not so much to “find my people” as to make my peace with the fact that i don’t have “a” people. I tend to dip my toes in various circles, and run away when i sense i’m getting sucked in, but keep strong friendships with the one or two people i struck up a close connection to.
my first real experience with having a loving circle of friends was in technical school (after i dropped out of college). i think we were all some shade of nerdy, and people found my own nerdiness endearing? somehow this was completely new. and such a relief. i think it was the first time i felt like it was ok to be me.
i have more online friends than irl friends but i don’t mind the distance, tho tinder dating and potential creeps aside it’s a lot easier to distance yourself from those types of ppl as opposed to hanging out in ‘nerd’ groups/circles and deciding you don’t like certain ppl/they’re the type of nerdy ppl you may not get along with despite similar interests
Roller derby.
Bungers !
It’s always been choirs for me. Not all of them but the nice thing about choirs is, even if you are a cast off nerd, you can still enjoy the singing and bond over it. But I’ve also noticed that my feeling at ease with people very much depends on self-acceptance and willingly taking on a role in a group (shifting from “the uninteresting/invisible one” to “the gal who does X” does wonders, even if it’s mostly in my head).
That was supposed to be a reply to Yumi’s post! 😅
Ohh, Lucy. I hope she gets to date Dina after her first love falls apart, too.
Why would you wish that on poor Becky and Dina? They’re perfect together.
Yeah, like, they’re a LOT of girls to her choice in DoA.
Gotta love Walky.
I’m glad we’re seeing some more cracks in the veneer of happiness Lucy has been putting on since the beginning. This whole storyline has made me much more interested in her character.
poor walky. poor lucy. poor lyle. awesome burger
Now I want a burger.
Oh this is deeply uncomfortable.
I think Walky’s about to check outta this relationship. Or like, already has. This is clearly not what he signed up for.
Yeah, but I can see how Lucy got the impression that he was saying it first, when he said, “I love that you get that about me.”
Walky had also said it once before:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/04-vote-for-robin/proselytize/
Of course, that was pre-timeskip, so they weren’t together yet. Should have been clear that he was talking lightly, “Ha, ha, ha, I love you, that’s great!” But, the way she blushed, it looked like she was seeing the potential for relationship budding right then and there.
Yeah, he’s never seemed very invested in it, but now? He knows he’s not ready for that kind of commitment or responsibility, and whatever else you might say about him, he’s not one to lead someone on or lie. He seems to want out and I understand that.
Or, maybe he’s nervous because the last time Dorothy told him she loved him, and he reciprocated by saying the same thing right away, it became a huge blowup. (Because he explained immediately afterward that he knew mirroring her words was “the correct answer” and was his way to “unlock” a “life hack”. – or words to that effect. I wonder whether Lucy thought she was giving the “correct answer” as well?)
I’m curious is the vibe at Lucy’s school was actually ‘only nerds go to college’ bc at my school it was ‘if you don’t go to college you must be some kind of failure’ (and it wasn’t the richest school or anything)
Aren’t they at the state flagship? I went to a selective college and was kind of shocked by how many anti-intellectual people were ther. There were academic nerds in my major but not so many out of it.
I feel sad for Lucy. It will be a very bad day for her when she figures out that Walky’s only cares about himself and that she has to stand up for herself instead of waiting for people to change.
I feel sad for Wally. It will be a bad day for him when he realises that Lucy is obsessed with popularity and do anything to get it.
I mean, if we’re just making stuff up based on the last thing someone said.
It occurred to me that Walky is like Joe. He has a story about who he is that he tells to everyone, even (especially?) to himself. But he is not that person. He acts careless, perhaps, because caring is powerful and scary.
(No, I’m not projecting at all.)
…and then Walky and Lucy had a frank discussion and talked about their feelings and insecurities, and agreed to move more slowly and just enjoy each other’s company for the time being and see what happens…
Given what this comic has been like lately, that might go that way? It’d also be a subversion of the expectations built up last season.
“But not *in love* with burger, you understand? I love this thing, but I am not in love with it. A propos of nothing. This is a random observation, unrelated to anything that happened a minute ago. Sorry, what are we talking about?”
Unpacking, Walky is saying “burger amply fulfills my desire.” Pure lust.
I expect that what Lucy is feeling is chiefly desire as well, but she is talking about (and believing) a more full-spectrum love. She is “in love”.
the way to a man’s heart is his stomach/they say, if she had bought him mcnuggets earlier on i’m sure the relationship would’ve moved a bit faster /shot
Even if it’s only been a month, she should know by know college and high school aren’t that different, and neither is post college. Clicks, judge bastards who think they’re better than you, shy people who just want to be alone and utter monsters exploiting any weakness they find, popularity contests and gossip ears. It’s all the same everywhere.
You reminded me of the song “High School Never Ends” by Bowling For Soup
there is that phrase/saying of like “some ppl never leave high school” mentality and attitude wise
Someone I know on a forum says that when she picks up her kids after school, the other mothers keep trying to pull the same cliquey mean-girls power plays on her that their eleven-year-olds do to each other. She just ignores it all, which baffles them.
What a truly bizarre thing to do. What kind of power play can you even make, picking a kid up from school? Show up, kid gets in car, leave. Not exactly a lot of room for skullduggery. Some people are just desperate, I suppose.
For a lot of moms (it is mostly moms, or i guess nannies in richer areas) school is absolutely a social node. moms may stay and chat with one another after dropping the kids off, or get there early before picking them up. As in any social group, power relations occur.
you’d think they’d try to get along in case their kids befriend other kids (i can understand not wanting another person’s kid at your house for free [tbh i’m surprised if they aren’t already friends, that parents would pay the other parents money whenever a sleepover happens] and not wanting to take responsibility in case tehy get sick from eating or hurt somehow but shouldn’t be against like kids wanting to play at the p ark together or so)
Are you actually wagging your finger at the moms this one online friend of davidbreslin’s thinks are bongoy? This is ridiculous.
Uh oh. Walky’s going full Brick Tamland.
Walky is resetting…
waiting…
waiting…
Re alt text: I love Chef too!
♫ Serious…serious profession! ♫
Ugh. Lemme try again.
Re alt text: I love Chef too!
♫ Serious…serious profession! ♫
Possible reference to Burger Chef? A regional chain that was eventually gobbled up by Hardees. We had one between the two main buildings of the 38th Street campus, which was handy. (This was well before the days when colleges built their own food courts with name-brand restaurants as tenants.)
Takes a while for Walky to reboot. He went full blue screen of death there. He’s working his way through things he loves. Eventually he’ll get around to that he loves being with Lucy.
As for burgers, he may love them but they don’t love him back. That’s the deepest meaning of today.
Olive burger? Gross!
A little feta, a little tomato, a little olive, that’s a good burger
I also love burger.
Getting that 70s show flashbacks
Is she implying that only cast-off nerds go to college?
I was also a cast-off nerd in high-school, and everyone, including myself, thought I would really start to thrive socially when I went to college and “found my people”. In reality it was the worst mental health years of my life and I had ZERO friends
What got me through crushing depression and a shitty middle/high school experience was looking forward to college. It was fucking great.
Oof. I feel you there– college was also a suckfest in terms of mental health for me. While, as I mentioned above, I did sort of “find my people” (only a couple of which turned into lasting relationships) through an off-campus organization… I am left with no warm feelings toward the college I attended, for reasons I can’t fully articulate.
I went to one of the big state schools around here, and now when there are sporting events or rivalry discussions that come up, people expect me to be, like, all for my alma mater… in truth I do not care, I regret having gone there, and would be happy to never hear about it again.
poor boy is trying to reboot
Only another minute or so before the next page and I am very nervous.