I don’t get it. Where is the joke. (Seriously, I’m lost)
The joke is the absurd and funny statement, “ladies, my wife is single (and you should date her (implied))”. Basically they are best friends who broke up and now they are supporting the other dating by joking absurdity of the situation.
They’re married?
I guess they are acting right away instead of waiting for the paperwork to get sorted out.
Not really seeing this as a haha funny moment as much as it is two people who realize their marriage isn’t going to work out having a calm and rational discussion followed by being supportive of each other. Well, it isn’t long enough to show the passenger being supportive, but kind of assume they must be based on context.
In some states you have to be separated for at least a year to file for divorce.
The link has extra panels and a comment from the artists that explains it more. This isn’t a joke so much as it is explaining their situation in a joking manner.
Amicable divorces are apparently funny?
I don’t know. It’s an odd one.
Comics don’t have to have a joke, they can just tell a story. This is a nice story of two people who care for and support each other in spite of discovering their selves and life goals don’t sync with continuing the original relationship. They manage to break up the romance with each feeling freed rather than dumped, so they can continue to be friends. Hopefully their eventual new partners will appreciate this.
The artist / writer literally mentions their joke in the bonus panel and they’d “die if they stopped being funny”.
The funny part is supposed to be: my wife is single.
Pretty sure it’s that they were a lesbian couple but one realises they’re a guy and the other realises they want kids so they break up but remain besties and try to set the other up
That’s pretty wholesome, tbh.
To all of the people saying this is sad, not all relationships have to last forever.
It’s okay to get separated, even if you are married. It’s actually good to realize your differences, decide that you work better apart, and provide support to an ex-spouse emotionally while you move on with your life as well.
I’m not sure that I fully agree. I mean, to each their own etc., but what you’re describing seems to be more suited for relationships without marriage. The whole idea of being married is that your discuss this stuff before your wedding and then don’t just get separated because you “don’t feel it anymore”. The idea is that, if you feel like you drifted apart, that your work on that and don’t just get out of that relationship on a whim. That’s the promise you give. And even if you agree with your partner to just go separate ways (yeah yeah, consenting adults can do whatever the fuck they want, sure), a divorce has the significant chance to screw you financially for decades. I mean, I don’t know how it is in the US, but I’ve seen too many people who got their finances completely fucked by partners that they consentingly parted ways with, who they swore would treat them fairly. Too many houses repossessed, too many careers ruined.
Is it okay to get separated? Sure. It’s obviously also okay to remain close and support each other, of course. But this comic promotes a lighthearted approach to something that deserves a much more careful and serious take that I don’t agree with. Those first few panels should have made them get counselling, not divorced.
Ok, I mean if you’re getting financially screwed by your partner in a divorce, it’s probably a good thing that you’re getting divorced.
Lol why? what moral ground are you coming from to suggest that other people should be serious about what you think is serious? Nothing is serious, we’re all just meat bags. If you want to get counseling go for it. For most people it’s better just to divorce quicker and not prolong your dissatisfaction because of some weird social or pseudo-religious adherence to norms.
Nice nihilism you got there. If “nothing matters and we’ll all die eventually” is your counterpoint to “marriage is a legal construct that goes beyond well meant promises and might result in severe financial issues so don’t lightheartedly get married or divorced”, then fine, yeah, in the grand scheme of things I guess you’re right.
Those that want to keep the small existence they built and don’t want to lose their house in the current economy might disagree though. The universe doesn’t care about their demise, true, but they themselves might just do.
Im not a nihilist. I didn’t say nothing matters. There’s no -objective- meaning. I create my own. What matters to me is education, sex, music and freedom. I want to create a society where people don’t need to stay in bad marriages to survive.
Cool. Try the “there’s no objective meaning, I create my own” strategy in court when they tell you that the meaning of the law is that you have to pay up after a divorce and tell me how that went for you.
I’m divorced, it was amicable and there was no property to divide. Not everyone is living in your sad little world. For example, the people in the comic. Which I thought we were talking about.
A random person on the internet would like you to not die. Take a breath.
Depends. Marriage being for ever is social baggage. Marriage existing is social baggage. Society unfortunately doesn’t make it easy to get divorced because it doesn’t tolerate any alternative types of unions. Why can’t I marry my two boyfriends if we all live together?
What? You and your two boyfriends can live together all you want, but marriage is a legal construct that shares responsibility and burden between people and because of the responsibility part it’s by design hard to get out of. Don’t like how hard it is to get divorced? Easy: Don’t get married.
I didn’t criticise that this comic promotes getting in and out of relationships. I criticised that it suggests that a divorce has virtually no ramifications and boils down to two respecting adults separating on best terms, which is pretty fucking far from both, my personal experience and what’s written in the law.
Thank you and that’s why I won’t get married ever because it’s very unlikely that my understandings and morals aligne with anyone else. We live in a time of tiktok and people don’t seam to feel obligations for anything anymore. Then they shouldn’t get married, but you can’t trust the other one anymore to be mentally grown up enough to understand this.
Marriage is just for a fancy dinner and tiktok short clips to share online, right? /s
Maybe your limited experience and the law is not respecting people who just happen to fall a bit outside the norm? The OP comic and my personal experience being just 2 examples of how the law is incompatible with our lives. You’re making a hell of a lot of assumptions about our lives to decide that we’re not serious about marriage. Heck, western countries were still figuring out gay marriage some yes ago.
The main reason why we can’t have different modes of marriage is bureaucracy.
But that’s not what this is about?
Should marriage be rethought and adapted to new realities? Yes. Good that we’re on the same page there.
Alright… So lesbian relationship. One of them decides they’re not a woman anymore. They both decide to devorce…
Maybe I’m missing something, but is there supposed to be a joke somewhere in here?
Their mutual regard for one another transcends what they want from the relationship, which contrasts humourously with hetero norms of trying to change one other to get what you want
Being selfish is hetero normative? I’m probably being defensive but this feels like a weird statement to make.
It’s societally normative, as is heterosexuality. Correlative, not causative.
I’m here as a het to tell you that the gays do laugh at us, and it’s fine
So stereotyping is suddenly okay if the gays are the ones doing it?
If your jokes made around stereotypes in queer communities are offending people the jokes are probably just veiled insults. You can do things, you just need to be at least a little versed in the community and understand how to make respectful jokes instead of demeaning ones.
Or some queer people are too sensitive. Some people live to get offended, they choose to get offended about damn near everything everyone says.
Yeah it’s weird how people holding bigoted views are also often easily offended. People are people ig…
As long as they stereotyping gayness and they are gay it kinda seems ok. Laughing about your self is okay i think
Please understand the difference between punch-down and punch-up comedy on your own time.
Ok, but… That’s not something that’s funny.
It would work in a greater narrative, perhaps, where we as readers know the characters. Not this one off thing.
Not every joke is gonna be for you, don’t worry about it
The humor for me is that you kind of expect something like this to end in bitter tears and a sad goodbye, but they’re both actually totally fine with a divorce and even hype each other up for new relationships.
A lot of trans discovery/coming out stories don’t end very happily, so it’s nice to see one that does.
Also, it’s a comic strip, which does not necessarily mean there is a joke.
Brenda Starr and Mark Trail were goddamn laugh riots.
This isn’t the “jokes” community, it’s the “comic strips” community
There’s a weird feel from this comic for me. I’m glad that these two people could have an amicable divorce. I think the thing that feels off is how casual the decision feels in the comic. I suspect this might be why some people are having a negative reaction as well.
Even if you think marriage isn’t forever, it’s still a promise to love and care about someone, to cherish them and share your life with them. I think if you’ve been in a marriage and seen your loved one through hard times together, this comic just feels capricious. A discussion about ending such an important component of your life happening in the span of two panels in a car ride just feels abrupt and unserious.
I imagine in real life the conversation was more serious and the impact of changing you relationship from one of romantic love to friendship weighed on both parties more than the comic has space to show.
If you’ve loved and supported your spouse through difficult and unexpected change or been the recipient of that love and support, this comic can feel dismissive. If you’ve gone through the heartache of losing your special person, even if they are still a part of your life, the celebratory tone sounds wrong.
I am happy that they can separate and still care about each other, but I also understand why people feel like something is wrong about the comic.
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Sometimes big life decisions come easy. Sometimes small life decisions come hard (no double entendre intended). As long as they’re both on the same page when it comes to commitment, hopefully the concerns you mentioned don’t apply to them and we can feel happy about it as a third-party spectator.
I liked that about the comic.
Our society has adopted this expectation that once a relationship has turned into love, it must remain that, and if its not eternal soul mates in total devotion, it’s not true love. You’re not allowed to dial it down, take a break from it or return to being friends, or it’s a “failed” relationship.
The message of the comic subverts this, showing that without such baggage, you could just change the relationship to something else and still be happy.
Instead, we assume from the beginning that the relationship is forever, throw our households together, and when the point would be right to return to normal friendship, we force ourselves to stick close until we can’t stand each other anymore.
The comic isn’t talking about love, it’s talking about marriage.
I’ll preface this with the fact that I’m a straight male atheist, and I’m married. My wife and I have had rough patches, as every relationship does, but I made a commitment to her. I swore an oath that I would support her through whatever happens in this life. I didn’t swear this to God or anybody but her and myself.
I’m a very principled person, one of those principles is that if you say you’re going to do something, you should try your level best to do it until it becomes clear it’s not possible. I don’t make promises I don’t expect to keep.
The thing that strikes me as off about this comic is the fact that they are married. If they’d just been partners, then that’s one thing, there’s less commitment there. But marriage is a commitment to a person. It’s not a promise to having sex or feeling romantic every single day, but just a promise that you’ll be there with them during the good times and the bad times. That you’ll support them in what they want to do. There’s no need for these people to divorce if one of their sexualities is changing, because marriage isn’t about the sex.
If my wife told me out of the blue that she thought she was interested in women, or might be trans, I would never offer divorce first. We’d have a conversation about what that means for our romantic relationship, but I still respect and care for her as a person, and would feel like I’m failing as a husband if I wanted to cut and run during a hard transition like that. I made a commitment to her, and if that’s what she wants to do, then I’ll ride it out and make sure she has as many resources as she can for a major change like that, and I know she’ll do the same thing for me. Hard times and changes don’t mean the end of a marriage, it means it’s time to buckle down, come together with your partner, and come up with a plan on how to face it together.
I also respect that nuance like that is impossible to fit into a single page comic like this, and there does seem to be that message of supporting your partner in their decisions. I just have issue with the flippant call for divorce. Relationships and people do change, and it’s good to talk about that and acknowledge that that we should support people when they change, but divorcing them is not supporting them. The comic would have been just as good if they left out the panel about divorce and just went to “my wife is single” because an open marriage is still a valid marriage, it just means you’re not devoting your genitals to one person.
I agree with you that our society puts a lot of importance on love, maybe too much. I’ll always love my wife, eventually. Believe me, marriage is hard, you’re not gonna feel the warm fuzzies every day, or maybe even every week, but the point is that you try. I promised myself to her because I love her. But my takeaway is that I loved her so much for years, that I promised I would always be there for her even if we’re both sick, or I’m mad at her for something, or if she’s changing as a person, and she promised the same thing. That commitment is more important than the love, because love is temperamental. You marry someone because you love them so much, you promise to be there even when you may not be feeling that love.
I guess not all comic strips have to be funny or you know make sense.
What the fuck is this bullshit
I can’t tell if the author was serious or trying to be funny… I know I laughed at how dumb their dialogue sounds
inevitable consequence of the democratisation of publishing
I’m slightly confused, was this a lesbian relationship where the driver came to realize they are more gender fluid or a trans man? The rest I get.
I was confused too, but the blog mentions his pronouns as he/him, so that’s the interpretation I also arrived at.
Seems like it, they are announcing that the wife is single to the ladies after all.
That’s my take on it, they’re lesbians and the driver realizes they’re more into men
What?
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Cringe
Why is it cringe?
It’s making it out like such a revelation wouldn’t be damaging. Being a single woman and not being young is not easy. Her taking it in stride like that is unrealistic.
Ask yourself how you would feel in that situation after investing years in a relationship. Would you be that thrilled to be on the dating scene again and having to start over with someone new?
Not saying it couldn’t be amicable like it has been portrayed, but this strip makes it out like there is nothing sad or difficult about the situation, only focusing on the perspective/agenda of the trans person.
The person you expect to be sad also wanted to end the relationship because they realized they wanted children and were married to someone who didn’t. It isn’t just about the perspective/agenda of the trans person.
If I was faced with a choice between breaking someone who I loved’s heart or never being a mother, it would be relieving to have that no longer be weighing on me.
we used to call it caring
They start discussing how to split their assets and suddenly it becomes less peaceful
Is this supposed to be…a good outcome? I’m sad now!
I think if you’re able to stay good friends with an ex-partner after a divorce, that’s a good outcome.
Ending a relationship it’s always, at least, a bit sad. But if that means that the people involved can continue to pursue happiness, and they can do that without resenting each other, that’s cause of celebration.
I liked it. I think its sweet. They can still be besties (best friends) because they realize they aren’t compatible romantically. I think its a sweet comic ❤️
I’m sure someone finds this relatable
Tossing relationships like this away is a sign of narcissism. It’s fine to move on but it’s definitely maladapted to be giddy about it.
“Several months ago” … Not exactly suggesting it would happen over night. Recognizing a schism and supporting eachother through the changes in life is preferable to doing so depressed and hatefully, no?
Why should you have to be miserable about it? They still have a relationship, it’s just no longer a romantic one.
You don’t have to be miserable, but the misery from leaving someone you love, even if it’s 1000% mutual and friendly is not really a choice, but a natural and healthy emotional reaction.
Sure, but it’s not the only valid response. It’s perfectly natural to be upset when a relationship falls apart, but it’s just as natural to mutually decide things aren’t working out and move on without grief or regret.
