Jennifer has a long history of impressively clueless judgements, but being unable to pick up on signals from a girl despite having previously been in a sexual relationship with her is a new feat of cluelessness
I think it may be as simple as Jennifer having mostly platonic feelings for Alice, while Alice has mostly romantic feelings for Billie. Jennifer is very consistent in her belief that you can bang your friends, and it doesn’t count as a romantic thing, and is just platonic. Maybe she does have deeper, latent romantic feelings towards Alice, and she isn’t very aware of them, due to her perspective. But, it could just be that she banged her friend a few times, and it meant something different to her, than it meant to Alice.
Bill Erak
Yeah, to her it meant “guys i promise I’m not gay i promise everyone is attracted to the same gender right I’m not gay I’m normal please believe me”
DashWallkick
“Alice is Billie’s Becky” would be a good storyline for Alice to go through. And very entertaining lessons for Billie to learn.
Li
If Becky and Joyce were having in sex in high school, I’m pretty sure a lot of things about Becky’s story would have been different, heh.
Clueless or playing hard to get. I’d give it even odds. Jennifer can be pretty clueless, but she understands power dynamics. It’s why she and Ruth are so toxically suited.
Alternately, maybe she really likes the attention from Alice and won’t admit to wanting to keep her hanging. Jennifer is also good at lying to herself.
Alice is pretty hot, but she could use a little more characterization beyond “desperately craves Billie’s cock”. I’ve been gradually cooling on her, but a makeout session with Billie might be a good idea.
Alice is about to learn the hard way that trying to overcome Billie’s self-loathing with positive flirting is like throwing a beach ball at a concrete wall
Beginning to think that the dynamic of this relationship has always been Billie feeling good about being needed by somebody, and getting her ego and self-image fueled by that, whereas Alice is specifically attracted to people whose attention is not easy to obtain.
It still amazes me how oblivious Billifer is to things at times. Alice is telling her all sorts of stuff about how she likes her in this strip, and she seems to not have noticed at all.
Billie is a lot like Joyce, in that her current perception/belief/framework of reality is immutable to her at face value. If she has something sorted into a particular category, whether it’s a person, or a behavior, or a judgement of something, it just doesn’t occur to her to examine those things from any other angle, besides the one she’s already internalized as true. That leads to her constantly missing the obvious, any time that her first impression of how things are would be contradicted.
There’s a reason there’s a popular and lightly bumped into part of the canon theory is that Billie is also autistic just not as much as Joyce/Dina and it’s why she’s like that.
I personally love the theory that she’s not but her Billieness just kind of makes her look like that, which is exactly the sort of implication that would (and has) really rankled her.
Definitely that’s a human thing. It’s cognitively difficult to update our views, and cognitively very easy to ignore contradictory new information. So we’re pretty bad at it. and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.
Given the way she reacted to Billie’s presence when they first encountered each other in college, her going from wanting nothing to do with her to desperately throwing herself at her just because Joyce (bless her heart) said she doesn’t suck as much as she used to feels way too fast and stupid to me.
–
But, sadly, there are in fact people stupid enough to take really shitty people back into their lives no matter how terrible an idea it is. So I’m mostly just shaking my head feeling sorry for Alice.
She slammed her head into Billie’s windshield pretty hard in that car accident. Maybe the concussion had an eight-month lag time before its effects set in.
That’s how it works with ex’s sometimes. She’s clearly still in love with and attracted to Billie and would really like it to work out this time. Or maybe she wants to be “platonic friends who bang” again. Perhaps her self-preservation and self-respect will come roaring back after she’s away from Billie’s animal magnetism/hot body and the rosy nostalgia flashbacks she’s causing.
That was what she felt she needed to keep herself from falling for Billie again. It was self-defense, in her mind. The last time they were together, they nearly died.
What it took is finding out that Billie isn’t drinking anymore, that she went to therapy, and that she was willing to ask for help before things get bad. That last one may not entirely be true, but it was at least what Alice could observe.
Even then, she needed some reassurance from the girl Billie was in a sexy suicide pact with.
This is removing the things that Alice felt were why she and Billie couldn’t be together and survive the experience. Whether those things had other things underlying them, and whether Billie has done much in the way of working on the underlying reasons, are things Alice hasn’t confronted yet.
All evidence shows she was a habitual drinker and alcoholic, she had it pretty bad last semester. It’s not surprising that she would drink enough to be an unsafe driver.
When? When was she roofied, Adam? And you can’t cite a dream or acid trip you had, it has to be from the actual comic. If you don’t give the exact strip where Billie was roofied or somebody explicitly said she was roofied within 9 hours, you’re unfortunately going to have to be blacklisted from the industry and exiled to Antarctica.
Well, at least it means Asma may have a chance.
It does look like Jennifer really did want her back as a friend, and is not interested in getting back together, sexually.
106 thoughts on “Important memories”
Doctor_Who
Anyone wanna tell me how someone with Jennifer’s incredible perception and situational awareness hasn’t figured out who Amazi-Girl is yet?
Steamweed
Whatinhell you sayin’? Clearly she knows it’s Sal.
Sharizard
I mean, she even rescued the costume out the cupboard for her. She’s practically Amazi-Girl’s Jimmy Olsen.
NGPZ
hint hint hint hint hint hint
clif
She should ask Walky for a hint. He managed to pass calculus somehow.
JC
Walky is a genius though, he’s just too scatterbrained and lazy to notice. Also it would give him attention he doesn’t want.
But he probably wouldn’t be able to help because he probably couldn’t explain how to solve the stuff, he just knows. :)
Sirksome
She’s not the starving one tonight.
Tan
No, no. Alice thirsts
kotarisu
For Sprite, right?
Dot
Alice, honey, you cannot want that cookie that badly
Sirksome
Hey, maybe it’s been awhile for the poor girl.
Thag Simmons
This campus apparently has an epidemic of pretty gay girls who cannot flirt to save their goddamn lives.
Jon
I am informed that this is a widespread issue for young people of any gender or orientation. It was certainly true of me as a young cishet male.
NGPZ
but i want that cookie 🥺🍪
Ray Radlein
EVERYONE IS IMPERVIOUS
Elf grrl
Aww, Alice is laying it on thick, too bad Billifer only responds to toxic flirtation. Maybe Alice should suplex her into the bed
Doctor_Who
Her safe-word is “femurs”
BYM!
Wait we actually are gonna get Billie being asked to go bowling and bringing Alice along with her, lol
clif
Probably not. They were only bowling because they were trying to hang out with Asma to make up for kissing at her protest.
IntangibleMatter
Girl weren’t you just trying to get into her pants a few days ago? And now you’re ignoring her?
I feel like if I knew Jennifer in real life she’s the kind of person I’d yell at a lot. Just because of her being stupid like this.
Sirksome
Jennifer was never trying to get in Alice’s pants. The friendship was always her motivation. Platonic friendship.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/skills/
ReFlex76
She said, as she rolled her eyes, and followed it with, “you’re allowed to bang, like, once.”
Thag Simmons
Jennifer has a long history of impressively clueless judgements, but being unable to pick up on signals from a girl despite having previously been in a sexual relationship with her is a new feat of cluelessness
Throwatron
I think it may be as simple as Jennifer having mostly platonic feelings for Alice, while Alice has mostly romantic feelings for Billie. Jennifer is very consistent in her belief that you can bang your friends, and it doesn’t count as a romantic thing, and is just platonic. Maybe she does have deeper, latent romantic feelings towards Alice, and she isn’t very aware of them, due to her perspective. But, it could just be that she banged her friend a few times, and it meant something different to her, than it meant to Alice.
Bill Erak
Yeah, to her it meant “guys i promise I’m not gay i promise everyone is attracted to the same gender right I’m not gay I’m normal please believe me”
DashWallkick
“Alice is Billie’s Becky” would be a good storyline for Alice to go through. And very entertaining lessons for Billie to learn.
Li
If Becky and Joyce were having in sex in high school, I’m pretty sure a lot of things about Becky’s story would have been different, heh.
Steamweed
Cluelessness, thy name is Billie.
Or Jennifer.
Or Billifer.
clif
Clueless or playing hard to get. I’d give it even odds. Jennifer can be pretty clueless, but she understands power dynamics. It’s why she and Ruth are so toxically suited.
clif
Alternately, maybe she really likes the attention from Alice and won’t admit to wanting to keep her hanging. Jennifer is also good at lying to herself.
Cholma
Wow. Jennifer. Way to go, having a completely separate conversation than the one Alice is having! Yikes.
(I mean, I’m historically inept reading women’s thoughts/body language, but yowza.)
John Campbell
We know what you meant, Alice.
darkoneko
Oh yeah, I’m sure Joyce think often about you
Yotomoe
I don’t necessarily think they should date. Or even hook up. Narratively it just doesn’t work well for their characters at this junkcture.
But god it would be so DAMN hot if they made out.
Taffy
Alice is pretty hot, but she could use a little more characterization beyond “desperately craves Billie’s cock”. I’ve been gradually cooling on her, but a makeout session with Billie might be a good idea.
Thing 2
Cock. Junk cture. Tee Hee.
clif
You have to remember that Jennifer is secretly Mike.
Fireprincesslily
As one of the few Billie Non-Haters, girl you are totally freaking blowing it.
ReFlex76
Alice could strip naked, open her legs, shove here crotch in Billie’s face and say, “put your tongue inside me!!”
Billie: “So, you want me to help you with your poli-sci homework?”
Throwatron
She’s just really committed to the bit of “being straight.” It’s a method thing.
DiDi
Oh… Oh, we’re playing the oblivious game again. All right.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No, No… that’s fine. Just great.
Lux
They are just talking past each other :(
Lee
Spoiler alert: in panel 2, that is not, in fact, what she means
Fail Earnhardt
Alice is about to learn the hard way that trying to overcome Billie’s self-loathing with positive flirting is like throwing a beach ball at a concrete wall
Throwatron
Beginning to think that the dynamic of this relationship has always been Billie feeling good about being needed by somebody, and getting her ego and self-image fueled by that, whereas Alice is specifically attracted to people whose attention is not easy to obtain.
Kyulen
It still amazes me how oblivious Billifer is to things at times. Alice is telling her all sorts of stuff about how she likes her in this strip, and she seems to not have noticed at all.
Throwatron
Billie is a lot like Joyce, in that her current perception/belief/framework of reality is immutable to her at face value. If she has something sorted into a particular category, whether it’s a person, or a behavior, or a judgement of something, it just doesn’t occur to her to examine those things from any other angle, besides the one she’s already internalized as true. That leads to her constantly missing the obvious, any time that her first impression of how things are would be contradicted.
DashWallkick
There’s a reason there’s a popular and lightly bumped into part of the canon theory is that Billie is also autistic just not as much as Joyce/Dina and it’s why she’s like that.
I personally love the theory that she’s not but her Billieness just kind of makes her look like that, which is exactly the sort of implication that would (and has) really rankled her.
Leorale
Definitely that’s a human thing. It’s cognitively difficult to update our views, and cognitively very easy to ignore contradictory new information. So we’re pretty bad at it. and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.
Shogo
Given the way she reacted to Billie’s presence when they first encountered each other in college, her going from wanting nothing to do with her to desperately throwing herself at her just because Joyce (bless her heart) said she doesn’t suck as much as she used to feels way too fast and stupid to me.
–
But, sadly, there are in fact people stupid enough to take really shitty people back into their lives no matter how terrible an idea it is. So I’m mostly just shaking my head feeling sorry for Alice.
Thing 2
Alice also had a long conversation with Ruth.
Techhead
It was definitely Ruth doing the work more than Joyce, Joyce just got the ball rolling.
Needfuldoer
She slammed her head into Billie’s windshield pretty hard in that car accident. Maybe the concussion had an eight-month lag time before its effects set in.
DramaQueen
That’s how it works with ex’s sometimes. She’s clearly still in love with and attracted to Billie and would really like it to work out this time. Or maybe she wants to be “platonic friends who bang” again. Perhaps her self-preservation and self-respect will come roaring back after she’s away from Billie’s animal magnetism/hot body and the rosy nostalgia flashbacks she’s causing.
Rosicrucian
That was what she felt she needed to keep herself from falling for Billie again. It was self-defense, in her mind. The last time they were together, they nearly died.
What it took is finding out that Billie isn’t drinking anymore, that she went to therapy, and that she was willing to ask for help before things get bad. That last one may not entirely be true, but it was at least what Alice could observe.
Even then, she needed some reassurance from the girl Billie was in a sexy suicide pact with.
This is removing the things that Alice felt were why she and Billie couldn’t be together and survive the experience. Whether those things had other things underlying them, and whether Billie has done much in the way of working on the underlying reasons, are things Alice hasn’t confronted yet.
Shakes
Jennifer’s never getting that Lesbian Love Sleuth diploma.
Adam Black
has jen figured out she was roofied yet?
Thing 2
Evidence
DramaQueen
All evidence shows she was a habitual drinker and alcoholic, she had it pretty bad last semester. It’s not surprising that she would drink enough to be an unsafe driver.
Taffy
When? When was she roofied, Adam? And you can’t cite a dream or acid trip you had, it has to be from the actual comic. If you don’t give the exact strip where Billie was roofied or somebody explicitly said she was roofied within 9 hours, you’re unfortunately going to have to be blacklisted from the industry and exiled to Antarctica.
David M Willis
jennifer was not roofied
she’s just typically bad at driving when inebriated
thumb
Jennifer, ace reporter. Forever picking up all the clues.
John Campbell
Hey, she figured out who Amazi-Girl was and kept her costume from being discovered by the cops!
DramaQueen
That was a big win. She was helping!
Illjwamh
Oof. TWO big swings, only to whiff both times.
Adept
Well, at least it means Asma may have a chance.
It does look like Jennifer really did want her back as a friend, and is not interested in getting back together, sexually.
Holly
If Alice leaves in a huff and bumps straight into Asma walking rounds a corner…
Speedball
Starting to see why these two broke up. Oh jeez.
Throwatron
I don’t think they dated, or if they did, Jennifer has eternal sunshined that part of her life.
John Campbell