My guess is that he doesn’t trust his drunk self to treat Joyce with respect. So he’s holding himself from drinking to try to be a gentleman.
MisterJinKC
We haven’t really seen Joe drunk before though. He might not be a drinker at all. Possibly because of his dads lecherous history, though thats pure speculation.
If that’s the case, why doesn’t he just say “I don’t drink?”
Marisa Mockery
People always ask why. I don’t drink, and that’s my business why. Not “just one drink” or “awww why not”, fuck you.
/not at all a pet peeve
Needfuldoer
People get weirdly offended when you don’t want to do the thing they’re doing.
Mancuso
Ugh, don’t even get me started about my endless arguments with spontaneous combusters.
Needfuldoer
Those guys get really hot under the collar. Zero to white-hot fury in a flash.
Felian
i hate the normality of drinking culture and how people (esp drunk people) refuse to understand that you just don’t want to (for whatever reasons). I don’t drink. I don’t like it. I don’t like being around drunk people. A situation is not more fun for me by drinking. Drinking at a party feels volatile.
Emil
It has nothing to do with alcohol. If you don’t believe me, go out for lunch with a bunch of friends, and when you look over the menu, just go “You know what, Im not feeling hungry, I’ll just have water”. See what happens.
foamy
I go with “I don’t drink much”, which as a less absolute statement doesn’t invite as much prying IME.
thejeff
“I never drink … wine.”
CardinalFan
It used to be a pet peeve of mine too because I don’t drink. Not because I have anything against it or anything like that…I just developed a genetic blood thing earlier than most people in my family do where we have a platelet count that hovers right around the low end of where you want it to be. About the worst thing you can do for a platelet count is drink alcohol so I just don’t. I’m lucky that most of my friends know that and don’t bug me too much about it when they are imbibing.
anon
I don’t like most bottled stuff versus custom made cocktails but i wonder how ppl would react to ppl being like “well, i get nosy when i get drunk i’ll probably go through your things and try to take your valuables” or so
Tho , thinking on it, while it is a douchey move, depending on how big a party/house is i’m surprised more ppl don’t get their stuff stolen while hosting a party if it’s casual acquaintances invited versus actual friends
Lena
A friend of mine doesn’t drink for medical reasons, and people are awful to her about it, especially men she goes on dates with. I find it kind of skeevy how often guys she’s on like a first or second date with try to insist on her having a drink and then get angry at her when she says she doesn’t drink.
Stu
Jim Gaffigan has a great bit about that, as alcohol is about the only thing people will ask “Why?” with.
“Oh, you don’t like mayonnaise, why? Are you allergic to mayonnaise? Are you addicted to mayonnaise?”
brute
if you aren’t pregnant or a designated driver, most people will take “i don’t drink” as a challenge. since joe can’t use either of those excuses, he may as well resort to ~acting~
Shade
People get really weird when you say you don’t drink.
Needfuldoer
Really weird.
At least we have better options than O’Douls to shut them up now.
Rose by Any Other Name
Top Comment Thread: “People get weird when you say you don’t drink.” and “People always ask why.”
Every other Comment Thread: “Why is Joe not drinking? Let’s analyze him to figure out why!”
**tips imaginary hat to Marisa Mockery and Shade for calling it so hard**
CardinalFan
There are some really good 100% alcohol free IPA’s these days. Used to it was just Odoul’s which isn’t even 100% alcohol free. I was pretty impressed the last time I had a non-alcoholic 0.0% (not even .5% abv) IPA.
Needfuldoer
I’ve been trying different NA beers over the last year or so, here’s my take:
I haven’t liked a single IPA. They all taste like bitter grass clippings. Guess I just don’t like hops?
My current favorites are Partake Hefeweizen and Athletic Upside Dawn.
Corona NA is good. Coors Edge is good but tastes like liquid saltine crackers. Busch NA has become my go-to fridge filler shitty beer. Heineken 0.0 tastes almost the same as Busch NA but at twice the price.
Blue Moon is good citrus-y, Sam Adams Just the Haze is bad citrus-y. (It tastes like someone made tea with orange Juicy Juice.)
Guinness 0 was disgusting. The whole time my brain was going “you shouldn’t be drinking this it’s rotten you shouldn’t be drinking this it’s rotten“. I haven’t tried Kaliber yet because I haven’t been able to find any.
Disclaimer: I never drank the regular versions of any of these, so I can’t tell you how they compare.
CardinalFan
Oddly enough, I like Bud Zero. I don’t like regular leaded Budweiser or Bud Light but Bud Zero has an OK taste for your “Pee Water” level of beers.
Reltzik
Joyce has seen him hungover.
Wereg
I’d combo that with him knowing his reputation with this group, and being VERY aware that eyes are on him because of it. Here’s hoping that it helps the group see him in a better light moving forward!
Fay
I think it’s also that Joe doesn’t want his “firsts” with Joyce to happen while drunk
The past several comics he’s been in, he’s had a face like he’s been offended by stuff Joyce has said, and I think he’s just trying not to be the way he was, but still doesn’t like how he’s being treated…
Well, I read him as very uncomfortable in this situation, and not liking this “new Joyce” character as much as he liked “old Joyce”. (To be fair, *I* am uncomfortable around drunks (and parties in general) so I might be reading more into it)
Ryan
I’m getting the same vibe.
Jeremiah
I don’t think the issue is “the new Joyce” but that he simply don’t trust himself to not screw this up.
CulturalGeekGirl
Here’s my take:
Joyce knows being drunk lowers her inhibitions, and she wants to leverage that.
Joe knows that this can actually sometimes make someone go WAY further than they’d normally be comfortable with. He wants to make sure he’s sober enough to keep how “sober Joyce” might feel about what they do together in perspective.
And that’s where he feels lost. He feels like he can’t accurately estimate where the good compromise is: letting Joyce do a LITTLE BIT of lowered inhibitions stuff without going so fast that she (or her friends) will feel like it’s too far, either now or tomorrow.
I think he built up for himself that to be “good enough” for this relationship he’d have to be ready to go super slow, and now that Joyce wants to maybe start going faster things have changed. The thing is, he’s putting it all on himself, he thinks he has to be the one to perfectly guess the correct answer (without going over) when in reality this is probably going to have to be a conversation both of them have when both of them are sober.
Throwatron
i way prefer the way you explained it to how i did elsewhere
Jeremiah
This exactly it. Thanks you for putting it so clearly.
thejeff
Problem is, while they need to have that conversation when they’re both sober, they also need to have it now and she’s already drunk.
Meagan
Yeah I thought we all were on this page (no shade at you, I appreciate you articulating it). But apparently not, since there are still other explanations flying around.
Vanessa
Yes, very good explanation. Joe is really trying hard to be a worthy boyfriend and for Joyce to continue to like him and esteem him. He’s playing the long game, as he basically told someone (Jacob?) Joyce will be a great woman to be married to for a long lifetime.
Proto
Nah, I think you’re dead on. I think Joe is trying to be a better person for Joyce, but at the same time he’s watching her become a worse person and doesn’t like it. Okay, maybe “worse” isn’t the right way to say it (since everything’s subjective after all) but he’s seeing her pivot hard into this personality/behaviors that seem to just all stem from her just wanting to be the opposite of her old self (an Anti-Joyce, if you will 😉 ). Joyce never swore, so now New Joyce is gonna swear like a sailor; Joyce would never drink or think about sex but now New Joyce wants to get smashed and make out.
He’s watching her rapidly change her personality and it all comes right after they started officially dating. So from his POV, it might seem like she’s doing all this for him, or that somehow he’s responsible for these changes which (I think it’s pretty clear) he doesn’t like.
Felian
I think it’s more nuanced than old-Joyce-new-Joyce. He also delights in some new-Joyce attributes (like how she’s letting go of harmful beliefs). My interpretation is that he’s just worried for her safety, because right now, she’s throwing herself into unknown and potentially harmful situations she might be too inexperienced to judge well (in this case, just the alcohol and its effects. she’s otherwise safe because she’s home with her friends (and we know those are actually friends, not some shady people she thinks are friends). way less dangerous than going to a bar and being picked up by someone like Ryan.)
zee
I think he’s uncomfortable but it’s not because of “new Joyce”. Did y’all forget the speech he gave Jacob about how Joyce is constantly changing and that’s what he loves about her (paraphrasing)? It’d be mad out of character for him to say “I don’t like this new Joyce who’s finally getting comfortable with things most people her age are, I want the old repressed and anxious Joyce back :(“
Nymph
Sorry I’m just not paranoid enough to see what you see in his goofy smile that reads as discomfort.
It always feels like half the comments section is ready to find the worst interpretation of every situation and I’m just not interested in joining. They seem happy, this strip is adorable, the thing Joe liked most about Joyce was that she could change.
Also, it’d be pretty fucking hypocritical if Joyce wasn’t allowed to change while Joe is undergoing massive shifts of his own.
I genuinely am so sick of this pearl clutching.
CODDE117
Joe is fine with Joyce as she is. He loves her, actually! He just doesn’t wanna fuck things up. He’s being extra responsible, because Joyce is inexperienced, and he is very very experienced. There’s a difference of power due to this, and he is trying his best to take precautions against any possible abuse of that power. Meanwhile Joyce is as happy as can be, and that’s all he wants for her right now.
Tbf he’s been rethinking his life choices since he started liking Joyce (in a good way!)
I don’t think he’s not liking Joyce so much as being slightly uncomfortable with drunk Joyce because she seems to be a super affectionate drunk which either means he has to navigate returning affection mindfully because consent.
I don’t think “consent” is really the right framework for his thinking here, To legalistic and rape centric.
He’s afraid that Joyce will push herself to do something she’s not really ready for any will regret afterwards, especially if she’s drunk, but maybe even if she’s not. And he’s got recent experience with Liz “almost ruining herself forever” that’s probably running through his mind.
Mark
Indeed, one problem with using [whatever] to lower one’s inhibitions is that, when [whatever] wears off, the inhibitions come back, saying “now look what you’ve done.”
thejeff
It depends. Sometimes you just need to get over the hump to something that you already wanted to do sober.
Here’s a question: is Joe not drinking because he doesn’t like alcohol, because he wants to be sober in case of a situation, or because he doesn’t trust himself?
Most likely not the first one; we’ve seen him be hungover in the strip before (something about “if I’m old enough to go to war I should be old enough to get sloshed” and “it really facilitates the threesomes”)
Here’s a question for that. Was that maybe a lie? Because we know Joe was at least a little performative in his former toxic masculinity. The whole facilitating threesomes feels like a bluff in hindsight and anyone can say they’re hungover. I don’t know if we’ve ever seen Joe drunk.
Nono
He LOOKED pretty terrible and he only said he was after he was being told he looked rough.
Laura
Joe later did admit that he had never been in a threesome.
It doesn’t seem like he was lying about being hungover– in his previous strips, there wasn’t something that, like, maybe he was doing/going to do instead that left him in rough shape. We do know that the threesome part was posturing, so I think it’s possible he got drunk and had a bad time.
Did we? We saw him tell Joyce he was hungover. When she said he wasn’t old enough to drink he said her voice was so annoying it replicated the experience.
Last time he had sex was with Sarah’s sister, who was at first very enthusiastic before getting scared and deciding not to have sex after all. Joe is definitely scared of something similar happening with Joyce. Either that they’ll both be drunk and if Joyce says no during he will not hear (due to being drunk) OR if they both do go through with it, he’s scared she’ll wake up the next morning and be filled with regret that her first time was while drunk.
Yeah, from Joe’s perspective, he literally dodged the bullet of raping a girl. If she hadn’t withdrawn consent, whether anything came of it or not, most people would ultimately see Joe as a rapist in that situation. Hell, it’s pretty clear, he’d see himself as one, too. It’s a barrier he hadn’t considered himself capable of crossing, and he probably wonders if any of the myriad hook-ups from his past who may have been intoxicated, felt any serious regret as a result of his loose coercion into coitus. It’s just extremely important to Joe, to never even come close to being that guy, ever again. Especially not with the woman who he clearly hopes could someday be his wife.
Doopyboop
Aaaw, Joe and Joyce hubby and wife… they do make for a very cute couple. But, absolutely agreed!
thejeff
I don’t think he thinks of that as dodging the bullet of rape. (Or really that most people would see it that way – other than probably Sarah.)
It’s worse than that in some ways. He saw that just because there is consent and it’s not rape, that doesn’t mean it won’t mess someone up afterwards. He’s worried about Joyce, like Liz, pushing herself to do something she’s not really ready for and feeling afterwards that she’s ruined herself.
Taffy
Jesus Christ, that word gets thrown out so easily. Under what nonsense framework would Joe and Liz consensually banging, suddenly be called rape? Both were sober, she was enthusiastic (if anything, Joe was the apprehensive one), it was completely mutual, and the absolute second she asked to stop, Joe agreed to stop. If she’d decided to push herself through the religious shame (which seems like it would have been an internal thing, not said out loud) and they’d fucked, that’s just called having sex. Maybe weird and awkward sex, since it would be her first time, but can we not be busting out the Big Guns for that? Nobody with a lick of sense in their head would look at that situation and say “Yeah, he definitely forced her or took advantage of her”.
Doopyboop
The dodging the bullet part is referring to what would have happened if Joe did not accept her request to stop. That kind of situation is how some people may wind up committing rape without them like, obviously being a serial rapist.
It goes like this; a guy and a girl are both sober. Both enthusiastic. Both have verbally stated they want to have sex. As they get started, however, the girl suddenly becomes apprehensive and says “wait, stop, I don’t want to do this anymore”. Joe did the right thing and STOPPED. Not everybody DOES do that though. For instance, what if Joe said “but you literally told me you had sex five minutes ago”. Or, guilted her by saying “C’mon, you revved me up for nothing?”. That is how the wheel starts turning where, whether the other person truly intends it or NOT, they’re beginning to turn a consensual encounter into a nonconsensual one. Throwatron isn’t saying Joe is a rapist. I think they’re saying that’s the closest Joe’s ever come to being in a sexual encounter where consent was revoked and although he did the right thing, he understands that it would have been very easy to do the wrong thing. I’d think that’d shake someone a little.
171 thoughts on “Drunk with me”
Switchchris
I love how hard Joe is trying.
Animedingo
Trying to do what tho
DiktatrSquid
My guess is that he doesn’t trust his drunk self to treat Joyce with respect. So he’s holding himself from drinking to try to be a gentleman.
MisterJinKC
We haven’t really seen Joe drunk before though. He might not be a drinker at all. Possibly because of his dads lecherous history, though thats pure speculation.
Freezer
If that’s the case, why doesn’t he just say “I don’t drink?”
Marisa Mockery
People always ask why. I don’t drink, and that’s my business why. Not “just one drink” or “awww why not”, fuck you.
/not at all a pet peeve
Needfuldoer
People get weirdly offended when you don’t want to do the thing they’re doing.
Mancuso
Ugh, don’t even get me started about my endless arguments with spontaneous combusters.
Needfuldoer
Those guys get really hot under the collar. Zero to white-hot fury in a flash.
Felian
i hate the normality of drinking culture and how people (esp drunk people) refuse to understand that you just don’t want to (for whatever reasons). I don’t drink. I don’t like it. I don’t like being around drunk people. A situation is not more fun for me by drinking. Drinking at a party feels volatile.
Emil
It has nothing to do with alcohol. If you don’t believe me, go out for lunch with a bunch of friends, and when you look over the menu, just go “You know what, Im not feeling hungry, I’ll just have water”. See what happens.
foamy
I go with “I don’t drink much”, which as a less absolute statement doesn’t invite as much prying IME.
thejeff
“I never drink … wine.”
CardinalFan
It used to be a pet peeve of mine too because I don’t drink. Not because I have anything against it or anything like that…I just developed a genetic blood thing earlier than most people in my family do where we have a platelet count that hovers right around the low end of where you want it to be. About the worst thing you can do for a platelet count is drink alcohol so I just don’t. I’m lucky that most of my friends know that and don’t bug me too much about it when they are imbibing.
anon
I don’t like most bottled stuff versus custom made cocktails but i wonder how ppl would react to ppl being like “well, i get nosy when i get drunk i’ll probably go through your things and try to take your valuables” or so
Tho , thinking on it, while it is a douchey move, depending on how big a party/house is i’m surprised more ppl don’t get their stuff stolen while hosting a party if it’s casual acquaintances invited versus actual friends
Lena
A friend of mine doesn’t drink for medical reasons, and people are awful to her about it, especially men she goes on dates with. I find it kind of skeevy how often guys she’s on like a first or second date with try to insist on her having a drink and then get angry at her when she says she doesn’t drink.
Stu
Jim Gaffigan has a great bit about that, as alcohol is about the only thing people will ask “Why?” with.
“Oh, you don’t like mayonnaise, why? Are you allergic to mayonnaise? Are you addicted to mayonnaise?”
brute
if you aren’t pregnant or a designated driver, most people will take “i don’t drink” as a challenge. since joe can’t use either of those excuses, he may as well resort to ~acting~
Shade
People get really weird when you say you don’t drink.
Needfuldoer
Really weird.
At least we have better options than O’Douls to shut them up now.
Rose by Any Other Name
Top Comment Thread: “People get weird when you say you don’t drink.” and “People always ask why.”
Every other Comment Thread: “Why is Joe not drinking? Let’s analyze him to figure out why!”
**tips imaginary hat to Marisa Mockery and Shade for calling it so hard**
CardinalFan
There are some really good 100% alcohol free IPA’s these days. Used to it was just Odoul’s which isn’t even 100% alcohol free. I was pretty impressed the last time I had a non-alcoholic 0.0% (not even .5% abv) IPA.
Needfuldoer
I’ve been trying different NA beers over the last year or so, here’s my take:
I haven’t liked a single IPA. They all taste like bitter grass clippings. Guess I just don’t like hops?
My current favorites are Partake Hefeweizen and Athletic Upside Dawn.
Corona NA is good. Coors Edge is good but tastes like liquid saltine crackers. Busch NA has become my go-to fridge filler shitty beer. Heineken 0.0 tastes almost the same as Busch NA but at twice the price.
Blue Moon is good citrus-y, Sam Adams Just the Haze is bad citrus-y. (It tastes like someone made tea with orange Juicy Juice.)
Guinness 0 was disgusting. The whole time my brain was going “you shouldn’t be drinking this it’s rotten you shouldn’t be drinking this it’s rotten“. I haven’t tried Kaliber yet because I haven’t been able to find any.
Disclaimer: I never drank the regular versions of any of these, so I can’t tell you how they compare.
CardinalFan
Oddly enough, I like Bud Zero. I don’t like regular leaded Budweiser or Bud Light but Bud Zero has an OK taste for your “Pee Water” level of beers.
Reltzik
Joyce has seen him hungover.
Wereg
I’d combo that with him knowing his reputation with this group, and being VERY aware that eyes are on him because of it. Here’s hoping that it helps the group see him in a better light moving forward!
Fay
I think it’s also that Joe doesn’t want his “firsts” with Joyce to happen while drunk
ValdVin
Feed an infant strained peas, if panel 3 is any indication.
Hexx
The past several comics he’s been in, he’s had a face like he’s been offended by stuff Joyce has said, and I think he’s just trying not to be the way he was, but still doesn’t like how he’s being treated…
Dara
okay fine
be cute then
dammit
Grimey
Joe is proof that people can change and grow.
Lars
So is Joyce.
Sarah
Now I know how to compliment the next cocktail my friends mix for me.
Michael Steamweed
It’s very good! My sinuses burn! 😀
Sirksome
He’s not drunk. He’s two sobers in a trenchcoat!
Clif
Nice.
IntangibleMatter
Joe has been put on self-designated ‘partner babysitter’ duty, and I respect him for that.
Cholma
Joe is rethinking his life choices.
Nymph
Sure, if you read a totally different comic than this adorable strip above.
Cholma
Well, I read him as very uncomfortable in this situation, and not liking this “new Joyce” character as much as he liked “old Joyce”. (To be fair, *I* am uncomfortable around drunks (and parties in general) so I might be reading more into it)
Ryan
I’m getting the same vibe.
Jeremiah
I don’t think the issue is “the new Joyce” but that he simply don’t trust himself to not screw this up.
CulturalGeekGirl
Here’s my take:
Joyce knows being drunk lowers her inhibitions, and she wants to leverage that.
Joe knows that this can actually sometimes make someone go WAY further than they’d normally be comfortable with. He wants to make sure he’s sober enough to keep how “sober Joyce” might feel about what they do together in perspective.
And that’s where he feels lost. He feels like he can’t accurately estimate where the good compromise is: letting Joyce do a LITTLE BIT of lowered inhibitions stuff without going so fast that she (or her friends) will feel like it’s too far, either now or tomorrow.
I think he built up for himself that to be “good enough” for this relationship he’d have to be ready to go super slow, and now that Joyce wants to maybe start going faster things have changed. The thing is, he’s putting it all on himself, he thinks he has to be the one to perfectly guess the correct answer (without going over) when in reality this is probably going to have to be a conversation both of them have when both of them are sober.
Throwatron
i way prefer the way you explained it to how i did elsewhere
Jeremiah
This exactly it. Thanks you for putting it so clearly.
thejeff
Problem is, while they need to have that conversation when they’re both sober, they also need to have it now and she’s already drunk.
Meagan
Yeah I thought we all were on this page (no shade at you, I appreciate you articulating it). But apparently not, since there are still other explanations flying around.
Vanessa
Yes, very good explanation. Joe is really trying hard to be a worthy boyfriend and for Joyce to continue to like him and esteem him. He’s playing the long game, as he basically told someone (Jacob?) Joyce will be a great woman to be married to for a long lifetime.
Proto
Nah, I think you’re dead on. I think Joe is trying to be a better person for Joyce, but at the same time he’s watching her become a worse person and doesn’t like it. Okay, maybe “worse” isn’t the right way to say it (since everything’s subjective after all) but he’s seeing her pivot hard into this personality/behaviors that seem to just all stem from her just wanting to be the opposite of her old self (an Anti-Joyce, if you will 😉 ). Joyce never swore, so now New Joyce is gonna swear like a sailor; Joyce would never drink or think about sex but now New Joyce wants to get smashed and make out.
He’s watching her rapidly change her personality and it all comes right after they started officially dating. So from his POV, it might seem like she’s doing all this for him, or that somehow he’s responsible for these changes which (I think it’s pretty clear) he doesn’t like.
Felian
I think it’s more nuanced than old-Joyce-new-Joyce. He also delights in some new-Joyce attributes (like how she’s letting go of harmful beliefs). My interpretation is that he’s just worried for her safety, because right now, she’s throwing herself into unknown and potentially harmful situations she might be too inexperienced to judge well (in this case, just the alcohol and its effects. she’s otherwise safe because she’s home with her friends (and we know those are actually friends, not some shady people she thinks are friends). way less dangerous than going to a bar and being picked up by someone like Ryan.)
zee
I think he’s uncomfortable but it’s not because of “new Joyce”. Did y’all forget the speech he gave Jacob about how Joyce is constantly changing and that’s what he loves about her (paraphrasing)? It’d be mad out of character for him to say “I don’t like this new Joyce who’s finally getting comfortable with things most people her age are, I want the old repressed and anxious Joyce back :(“
Nymph
Sorry I’m just not paranoid enough to see what you see in his goofy smile that reads as discomfort.
It always feels like half the comments section is ready to find the worst interpretation of every situation and I’m just not interested in joining. They seem happy, this strip is adorable, the thing Joe liked most about Joyce was that she could change.
Also, it’d be pretty fucking hypocritical if Joyce wasn’t allowed to change while Joe is undergoing massive shifts of his own.
I genuinely am so sick of this pearl clutching.
CODDE117
Joe is fine with Joyce as she is. He loves her, actually! He just doesn’t wanna fuck things up. He’s being extra responsible, because Joyce is inexperienced, and he is very very experienced. There’s a difference of power due to this, and he is trying his best to take precautions against any possible abuse of that power. Meanwhile Joyce is as happy as can be, and that’s all he wants for her right now.
Bogeywoman
Tbf he’s been rethinking his life choices since he started liking Joyce (in a good way!)
I don’t think he’s not liking Joyce so much as being slightly uncomfortable with drunk Joyce because she seems to be a super affectionate drunk which either means he has to navigate returning affection mindfully because consent.
thejeff
I don’t think “consent” is really the right framework for his thinking here, To legalistic and rape centric.
He’s afraid that Joyce will push herself to do something she’s not really ready for any will regret afterwards, especially if she’s drunk, but maybe even if she’s not. And he’s got recent experience with Liz “almost ruining herself forever” that’s probably running through his mind.
Mark
Indeed, one problem with using [whatever] to lower one’s inhibitions is that, when [whatever] wears off, the inhibitions come back, saying “now look what you’ve done.”
thejeff
It depends. Sometimes you just need to get over the hump to something that you already wanted to do sober.
Puppeteer Nessus
Joe and Sarah share goals for a happy Joyce
Kyrik Michalowski
Here’s a question: is Joe not drinking because he doesn’t like alcohol, because he wants to be sober in case of a situation, or because he doesn’t trust himself?
Jo_cubstar
Probably a mix of the last two
Katosen27
My money is answer C, but he may use answer B as an initial excuse. Either that or a complete mix of the two reasons.
Sambo
Most likely not the first one; we’ve seen him be hungover in the strip before (something about “if I’m old enough to go to war I should be old enough to get sloshed” and “it really facilitates the threesomes”)
Sirksome
Here’s a question for that. Was that maybe a lie? Because we know Joe was at least a little performative in his former toxic masculinity. The whole facilitating threesomes feels like a bluff in hindsight and anyone can say they’re hungover. I don’t know if we’ve ever seen Joe drunk.
Nono
He LOOKED pretty terrible and he only said he was after he was being told he looked rough.
Laura
Joe later did admit that he had never been in a threesome.
Yumi
Since I went to the trouble of digging up that strip, here it is:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/hungover/
It doesn’t seem like he was lying about being hungover– in his previous strips, there wasn’t something that, like, maybe he was doing/going to do instead that left him in rough shape. We do know that the threesome part was posturing, so I think it’s possible he got drunk and had a bad time.
MisterJinKC
Did we? We saw him tell Joyce he was hungover. When she said he wasn’t old enough to drink he said her voice was so annoying it replicated the experience.
RassilonTDavros
I’m leaning towards C, personally.
Doopyboop
Last time he had sex was with Sarah’s sister, who was at first very enthusiastic before getting scared and deciding not to have sex after all. Joe is definitely scared of something similar happening with Joyce. Either that they’ll both be drunk and if Joyce says no during he will not hear (due to being drunk) OR if they both do go through with it, he’s scared she’ll wake up the next morning and be filled with regret that her first time was while drunk.
Throwatron
Yeah, from Joe’s perspective, he literally dodged the bullet of raping a girl. If she hadn’t withdrawn consent, whether anything came of it or not, most people would ultimately see Joe as a rapist in that situation. Hell, it’s pretty clear, he’d see himself as one, too. It’s a barrier he hadn’t considered himself capable of crossing, and he probably wonders if any of the myriad hook-ups from his past who may have been intoxicated, felt any serious regret as a result of his loose coercion into coitus. It’s just extremely important to Joe, to never even come close to being that guy, ever again. Especially not with the woman who he clearly hopes could someday be his wife.
Doopyboop
Aaaw, Joe and Joyce hubby and wife… they do make for a very cute couple. But, absolutely agreed!
thejeff
I don’t think he thinks of that as dodging the bullet of rape. (Or really that most people would see it that way – other than probably Sarah.)
It’s worse than that in some ways. He saw that just because there is consent and it’s not rape, that doesn’t mean it won’t mess someone up afterwards. He’s worried about Joyce, like Liz, pushing herself to do something she’s not really ready for and feeling afterwards that she’s ruined herself.
Taffy
Jesus Christ, that word gets thrown out so easily. Under what nonsense framework would Joe and Liz consensually banging, suddenly be called rape? Both were sober, she was enthusiastic (if anything, Joe was the apprehensive one), it was completely mutual, and the absolute second she asked to stop, Joe agreed to stop. If she’d decided to push herself through the religious shame (which seems like it would have been an internal thing, not said out loud) and they’d fucked, that’s just called having sex. Maybe weird and awkward sex, since it would be her first time, but can we not be busting out the Big Guns for that? Nobody with a lick of sense in their head would look at that situation and say “Yeah, he definitely forced her or took advantage of her”.
Doopyboop
The dodging the bullet part is referring to what would have happened if Joe did not accept her request to stop. That kind of situation is how some people may wind up committing rape without them like, obviously being a serial rapist.
It goes like this; a guy and a girl are both sober. Both enthusiastic. Both have verbally stated they want to have sex. As they get started, however, the girl suddenly becomes apprehensive and says “wait, stop, I don’t want to do this anymore”. Joe did the right thing and STOPPED. Not everybody DOES do that though. For instance, what if Joe said “but you literally told me you had sex five minutes ago”. Or, guilted her by saying “C’mon, you revved me up for nothing?”. That is how the wheel starts turning where, whether the other person truly intends it or NOT, they’re beginning to turn a consensual encounter into a nonconsensual one. Throwatron isn’t saying Joe is a rapist. I think they’re saying that’s the closest Joe’s ever come to being in a sexual encounter where consent was revoked and although he did the right thing, he understands that it would have been very easy to do the wrong thing. I’d think that’d shake someone a little.
Doopyboop
*told me you wanted sex, not told me you had sex