Sadly, I fear we’re rapidly approaching a time when college students didn’t grow up watching sitcom reruns on cable television, either.
(We are all very, very old. And if anyone here isn’t I don’t want to hear about it. Remove yourself from my nonexistent lawn.)
AbacusWizard
“Cable? Was that one of the early streaming services?”
Needfuldoer
Radio was the original streaming service. Then they figured out how to make it do pictures. then they figured out how to make it clearer by connecting a bunch of houses to one big antenna with a wire. Then finally someone had the idea to just hook up the wire and skip the transmitter/antenna part, which let them have way more options.
And that’s where cable came from.
Random832
The sliding timescale is already in effect, it just now extends to culture references that the author understands remaining relevant longe than they actually did.
Marianne
Man, remember when old people could afford lawns? And homes?
No, no, hell no, I refuse to accept Scrubs as being “old.” I used to watch reruns of it all the time on Comedy Central when I was a teen. I’m not even thirty yet! Nope, negative, I refuse!
Since I know it’s hard to read tone from text, in case it wasn’t clear, I’m being intentionally hyperbolic in a joking way. I don’t actually care that much if a pop-culture thing from my youth is considered “old.” Well, okay, I care a little.
Mark
_Scrubs_ is not old; _Dragnet_ is old.
Hof1991
The Tom Hanks / Dan Aykroyd movie? Dragnet is old.
Wizard
I was old enough to drink (legally) when Scrubs premiered. Get off my dang lawn! *shakes fist at the sky*
But I don’t really worry too much about dating myself. Thanks to the magic of reruns and recordings, my pop culture memory extends back several decades before I was actually born.
The Vengeance
As someone just out of college, I can testify: I watched Scrubs about a year back, thoroughly enjoyed it, have a couple just-older friends who like it, but the MAJORITY of people my age either haven’t heard of it, don’t care, or at best have watched an episode or seen a clip. To see someone like Walky bring it up is eyebrow-raising.
Yeah I’m assuming this is referring to the episode where she’s organizing her CDs with her boyfriend and says “I love U2.” And ofc it goes exactly how you’d expect.
Anyway this is a delightfully nostalgic reference. That show was my comfort media in college!
it’d be pretty upsetting/humiliating for lucy to be dumped after saying “love” but suppose it’s best to rip off the bandage. tho other than some rebounds/casual relationships i can imagine it causing subconscious/psychological problems in a next relationship
Walky obviously doesn’t hate Lucy. What he hates is serious emotional attachments. He’s incapable of healthy emotional conversations with himself or anybody else. Eventually he’s going to have to face having actual, serious emotions.
If he keeps running away from relationships when he starts developing emotions he’ll never progress as an adult human being. Breaking up with Lucy before having to deal with emotions wouldn’t be a good thing for him.
Walky isn’t running away from Lucy because he’s starting to develop feelings — the problem here is that she has intense feelings, and he really doesn’t.
Breaking up with Lucy because their feelings and goals and intensity are totally mismatched is ok for both of them.
thejeff
It’s ok, but it also shouldn’t be necessary. Feelings develop over time. This is why you don’t usually drop the love word a week into a relationship. It forces a crisis point where it seems you have to reciprocate or break up.
smolgrlboi
telling someone to stay with someone else DESPITE their feelings not matching just because “love may develop over time” is absolutely godawful dating advice. especially in college when it’s a perfect time to date around and figure yourself out before making serious emotional commitments.
Taffy
Okay, but they’ve been dating for like six hours at this point.
The Oracle
Is there no room in your mind for “I’d like to see where this goes”? Not every relationship has to be a soulmates situation before the wheels even hit the ground.
Rose by Any Other Name
Wow. Everyone in this section of the thread needs to calm the fuck down.
Is it okay for Walky to break up with Lucy over this? Yes.
Does Walky need to break up with Lucy over this? No.
Walky can stay with Lucy, or not. Either is fine – that isn’t the issue.
The issue is Walky avoiding the issue entirely. He needs to face it, not hide from it. Whatever way he ends up going is his choice (and potentially Lucy’s as well), and it isn’t even necessarily a binary choice (backing off the exclusivity would be a middle option, for example). The issue is that Walky needs to actually address what happened by talking to Lucy about it.
As for Dorothy, as noted below, when Dorothy did this, Walky specifically tried to blow it off and not address it – and that backfired.
HueSatLight
I mostly agree, except it doesn’t seem like he’s avoiding the issue. This seems like he knows there’s a different level of affection, that’s ok, but that Lucy doesn’t realize there’s a different level of affection, and he’s looking for advice on how to talk to her about that because whether or not he’s comfortable staying in the relationship, he wants to treat her right.
Needfuldoer
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Whoa.
What do you think you’re doing here, being all reasonable and not jumping to conclusions? This is the Internet!
thejeff
He’s not really hiding from it. He’s come seeking advice on how to deal with it. That’s completely different. He was knocked off balance and it’s probably only been a few hours – still the same day at least.
This is a tricky one, since saying he doesn’t love her is likely to feel like rejecting her and lead to a breakup even if he doesn’t want that.
Taffy
Did anyone seem un-calm to you? I thought it was a fairly chill exchange.
I’m inclined to agreed with thejeff, Walky really doesn’t seem to be hiding. He’s honestly doing something pretty mature and asking for advice/help with a problem he’s facing, instead of doing that thing #Dudes constantly do and pretending he can handle something on his own, which tends to lead to getting overwhelmed and messing things up.
Yumi
Um… I really didn’t think anyone was being intense here? Well, maybe one person, who was moreso down below, but your reply was like a level of intensity that wasn’t here before.
Freemage
Not only did Walky come seeking advice, but he specifically CHOSE to come to Dorothy. That’s actually important, here, since as the strip just prior to this one shows, Walky’s more perceptive than he wants folks to know about. He knew that he needed to make clear what kind of advice he was looking for when approaching Dorothy; he also correctly assessed Lucy’s anti-Billie/Jennifer vibe.
For someone who prides himself on being shallow, that’s some pretty solid insight. And in the end, he chooses to go to the one person who will absolutely not cut him any slack on the matter. In some ways, he’s a bit like someone who seeks out a workout partner to keep himself on track with a program, because he knows he’ll drop it after a week if he’s on his own.
That’s not a thing Walky has done in the past. It’s not even a thing he’s doing now.
He and Dorothy broke up because of her time management problems, not because he ran away. He and Amber broke up because of their trauma over Mike’s death, not because he ran away.
Yeah, he tries to avoid difficult emotional conversations, but he’s not incapable of having them and it certainly doesn’t keep him from relationships.
What he has had is two significant relationships, at least one of which he was seriously invested in, blow up on him in the past few months, for reasons mostly outside of his control. That could make anyone a little wary.
Nope. It doesn’t matter as much if Walky doesn’t love her yet. Emotions can change with time. What does matter is honesty and he clearly isn’t ready to talk with Lucy because that might be unpleasant. That’s the problem. For me he’d only have til the end of the day to talk to her or he’s starts dipping into jerk territory. But let’s give him a week to figure this out. Love or not he should talk to Lucy about this. He knows he’s not as invested. The fact he can’t talk to her means he’s afraid of the outcome.
thejeff
It’s still the same day and he’s come looking for advice on how to deal with it.
Freemage
And came looking to the one person whom he absolutely had to know would tell him what he needs to do. Sure, he’s arguing and resisting, but he could’ve just gone to, say, Joe, and gotten some reassurance that he shouldn’t worry about it.
I feel like maybe people didn’t understand my comment. I get that this just happened. I do think Walky has time to figure things out and even going to Dorothy is a good move. I just don’t think he has a lot of time. He knows Lucy has expectations on their relationship that he doesn’t. Every day he waits around trying to figure himself out while she believes he loves her takes advantage of her. He already missed an opportunity to correct things. How long is acceptable?
I personally don’t even think they should be together to begin this cause neither were willing to start the relationship. Walky was oblivious and Lucy was too shy. Dorothy started this relationship, which at least to me set them up for failure. This feels more like an arrangement of convenience (Walky literally described it as a taco he didn’t know he could order) than a relationship to me. Maybe everything will workout fine in the end and I’m just being dumb, but like it’s already starting to crack after a week.
I don’t, I prefer an 80% nitrogen, 19% oxygen, 1% other gasses atmosphere. 100% oxygen makes bombs out of almost anything flammable, even stuff that doesn’t usually burn, like diamonds.
So true! And definitely what humans say all the time, when we are not basking in our wealth of internal organs. (Liver and a spleen? What will we humans think of next!)
One moment, I need to go regulate my temperature by panting and/or by secreting liquid through my disgusting pores.
I think him getting angry about this is worse than just a no. Like if he said “no” I still think they’d have potential to get on track or readjust. Frustration is a bad sign.
Eh, Walky has a LOT of symptoms of a twice exceptional ADHD kid. I can’t remember if he’s diagnosed, but either way, he might actually have difficulty regulating emotions like anger and frustration. Everybody gets frustrated when their words are misunderstood. Neurotypical people can tamp that feeling down with reason, cool their jets, and look the situation over reasonably. ADHD strips people of that mechanism and so everything feels raw and unfiltered all the time. It’s why ADHD tends to lead to what many perceive as unreasonable outbursts.
I think he can be frustrated at the situation without being angry Lucy. Telling someone you love them after a week shows immaturity. It also puts your partner in an uncomfortable position. It’s pretty understandable for him to be annoyed and he’s not taking it out on Lucy.
It’s been almost exactly 1 week. Lucy’s been crushing of him for months, but they’ve only been dating for a week.
This is way early to be dropping the love word and that wouldn’t normally be a problem except for the sitcom bit.
They’ve known each other, or at least known of each other, since Jenifer, was transferred to a different dorm last semester. I don’t know how long they were hanging out together, but I think it happened sometime during the timeskip.
I’ve gotten the impression that he likes Lucy as a friend and as a person but it really feels to me that the only reason he’s dating her is because he thinks he’s supposed to (because she likes him and because Dorothy told him he should ask her out). Idk, just comparing how he’s acted with her versus how he acted with Dorothy and Amber, he hasn’t demonstrated affection for Lucy the way he demonstrated affection for either of them and we don’t have any other examples of Walky demonstrating affection yet, so it seems like that affection might not be there.
Probably not, but he likes her.
And NOW I feel like Lucy isn’t at the same emotional maturity level to correctly handle Walky saying no, but at the same time, I think she is, but in a different way?
Like she’d worry if she forced him into saying it.
Walky is going to dance around the issue for a while, huh? I’m secretly hoping this with Walky telling Dorothy that he still loves her and that he doesn’t love lucy.
263 thoughts on “Do my best”
Ana Chronistic
no YOU’RE the Scrub(s)
Skater Girl
We don’t want no scrubs
woobie
That’s an even older Scrubs.
hangin’ out the passenger side
of his best friend’s ride
trying to holla at me
Sirksome
Fun fact. Scrubs is actually older than Walky is now. Ya boy Walkman watched a lot of midday TBS or Comedy Central back in the 2010’s
Belegcam
Sadly, I fear we’re rapidly approaching a time when college students didn’t grow up watching sitcom reruns on cable television, either.
(We are all very, very old. And if anyone here isn’t I don’t want to hear about it. Remove yourself from my nonexistent lawn.)
AbacusWizard
“Cable? Was that one of the early streaming services?”
Needfuldoer
Radio was the original streaming service. Then they figured out how to make it do pictures. then they figured out how to make it clearer by connecting a bunch of houses to one big antenna with a wire. Then finally someone had the idea to just hook up the wire and skip the transmitter/antenna part, which let them have way more options.
And that’s where cable came from.
Random832
The sliding timescale is already in effect, it just now extends to culture references that the author understands remaining relevant longe than they actually did.
Marianne
Man, remember when old people could afford lawns? And homes?
Songbird
No, no, hell no, I refuse to accept Scrubs as being “old.” I used to watch reruns of it all the time on Comedy Central when I was a teen. I’m not even thirty yet! Nope, negative, I refuse!
Songbird
Since I know it’s hard to read tone from text, in case it wasn’t clear, I’m being intentionally hyperbolic in a joking way. I don’t actually care that much if a pop-culture thing from my youth is considered “old.” Well, okay, I care a little.
Mark
_Scrubs_ is not old; _Dragnet_ is old.
Hof1991
The Tom Hanks / Dan Aykroyd movie? Dragnet is old.
Wizard
I was old enough to drink (legally) when Scrubs premiered. Get off my dang lawn! *shakes fist at the sky*
But I don’t really worry too much about dating myself. Thanks to the magic of reruns and recordings, my pop culture memory extends back several decades before I was actually born.
The Vengeance
As someone just out of college, I can testify: I watched Scrubs about a year back, thoroughly enjoyed it, have a couple just-older friends who like it, but the MAJORITY of people my age either haven’t heard of it, don’t care, or at best have watched an episode or seen a clip. To see someone like Walky bring it up is eyebrow-raising.
Leorale
Another fun fact, the word ‘scrub’ as slang is way older than any of us, meaning ‘a small or insignificant person’ since the 1500s.
Yotomoe
He’s no superman.
davidbreslin101
Thanks for reminding me who Elliot Reid is – I was struggling with that reference!
Autogatos
Yeah I’m assuming this is referring to the episode where she’s organizing her CDs with her boyfriend and says “I love U2.” And ofc it goes exactly how you’d expect.
Anyway this is a delightfully nostalgic reference. That show was my comfort media in college!
Sirksome
Walky…my boy…you might need to breakup with Lucy.
Yotomoe
I’ve been saying that since they started dating. Prior to that I was saying “you probably shouldn’t date Lucy”
Kyrik Michalowski
No one ever listens, but we could learn a lot from you.
Mr. Random
If Lucy was not so “Joyce” in her dating goals, it might have been a decent casual relationship. Buuuuuut.
Yotomoe
Yeah! Joyce and Walky? I can’t imagine that working out.
Opus the Poet
Not in this timeline, but in the Roomies universe they were different enough to get married and have kids.
Yotomoe
“That’s the Joke”.
anon
it’d be pretty upsetting/humiliating for lucy to be dumped after saying “love” but suppose it’s best to rip off the bandage. tho other than some rebounds/casual relationships i can imagine it causing subconscious/psychological problems in a next relationship
Arawn
Walky obviously doesn’t hate Lucy. What he hates is serious emotional attachments. He’s incapable of healthy emotional conversations with himself or anybody else. Eventually he’s going to have to face having actual, serious emotions.
If he keeps running away from relationships when he starts developing emotions he’ll never progress as an adult human being. Breaking up with Lucy before having to deal with emotions wouldn’t be a good thing for him.
Leorale
Lucy isn’t just fodder for Walky’s growth.
Walky isn’t running away from Lucy because he’s starting to develop feelings — the problem here is that she has intense feelings, and he really doesn’t.
Breaking up with Lucy because their feelings and goals and intensity are totally mismatched is ok for both of them.
thejeff
It’s ok, but it also shouldn’t be necessary. Feelings develop over time. This is why you don’t usually drop the love word a week into a relationship. It forces a crisis point where it seems you have to reciprocate or break up.
smolgrlboi
telling someone to stay with someone else DESPITE their feelings not matching just because “love may develop over time” is absolutely godawful dating advice. especially in college when it’s a perfect time to date around and figure yourself out before making serious emotional commitments.
Taffy
Okay, but they’ve been dating for like six hours at this point.
The Oracle
Is there no room in your mind for “I’d like to see where this goes”? Not every relationship has to be a soulmates situation before the wheels even hit the ground.
Rose by Any Other Name
Wow. Everyone in this section of the thread needs to calm the fuck down.
Is it okay for Walky to break up with Lucy over this? Yes.
Does Walky need to break up with Lucy over this? No.
Walky can stay with Lucy, or not. Either is fine – that isn’t the issue.
The issue is Walky avoiding the issue entirely. He needs to face it, not hide from it. Whatever way he ends up going is his choice (and potentially Lucy’s as well), and it isn’t even necessarily a binary choice (backing off the exclusivity would be a middle option, for example). The issue is that Walky needs to actually address what happened by talking to Lucy about it.
As for Dorothy, as noted below, when Dorothy did this, Walky specifically tried to blow it off and not address it – and that backfired.
HueSatLight
I mostly agree, except it doesn’t seem like he’s avoiding the issue. This seems like he knows there’s a different level of affection, that’s ok, but that Lucy doesn’t realize there’s a different level of affection, and he’s looking for advice on how to talk to her about that because whether or not he’s comfortable staying in the relationship, he wants to treat her right.
Needfuldoer
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Whoa.
What do you think you’re doing here, being all reasonable and not jumping to conclusions? This is the Internet!
thejeff
He’s not really hiding from it. He’s come seeking advice on how to deal with it. That’s completely different. He was knocked off balance and it’s probably only been a few hours – still the same day at least.
This is a tricky one, since saying he doesn’t love her is likely to feel like rejecting her and lead to a breakup even if he doesn’t want that.
Taffy
Did anyone seem un-calm to you? I thought it was a fairly chill exchange.
I’m inclined to agreed with thejeff, Walky really doesn’t seem to be hiding. He’s honestly doing something pretty mature and asking for advice/help with a problem he’s facing, instead of doing that thing #Dudes constantly do and pretending he can handle something on his own, which tends to lead to getting overwhelmed and messing things up.
Yumi
Um… I really didn’t think anyone was being intense here? Well, maybe one person, who was moreso down below, but your reply was like a level of intensity that wasn’t here before.
Freemage
Not only did Walky come seeking advice, but he specifically CHOSE to come to Dorothy. That’s actually important, here, since as the strip just prior to this one shows, Walky’s more perceptive than he wants folks to know about. He knew that he needed to make clear what kind of advice he was looking for when approaching Dorothy; he also correctly assessed Lucy’s anti-Billie/Jennifer vibe.
For someone who prides himself on being shallow, that’s some pretty solid insight. And in the end, he chooses to go to the one person who will absolutely not cut him any slack on the matter. In some ways, he’s a bit like someone who seeks out a workout partner to keep himself on track with a program, because he knows he’ll drop it after a week if he’s on his own.
thejeff
That’s not a thing Walky has done in the past. It’s not even a thing he’s doing now.
He and Dorothy broke up because of her time management problems, not because he ran away. He and Amber broke up because of their trauma over Mike’s death, not because he ran away.
Yeah, he tries to avoid difficult emotional conversations, but he’s not incapable of having them and it certainly doesn’t keep him from relationships.
What he has had is two significant relationships, at least one of which he was seriously invested in, blow up on him in the past few months, for reasons mostly outside of his control. That could make anyone a little wary.
Mark
Maybe Walky doesn’t want to progress as an adult human being.
newlland(Henryvolt)
Because he’s not in love with her after a week of dating? Jumping the gun don’t you think?
Sirksome
Nope. It doesn’t matter as much if Walky doesn’t love her yet. Emotions can change with time. What does matter is honesty and he clearly isn’t ready to talk with Lucy because that might be unpleasant. That’s the problem. For me he’d only have til the end of the day to talk to her or he’s starts dipping into jerk territory. But let’s give him a week to figure this out. Love or not he should talk to Lucy about this. He knows he’s not as invested. The fact he can’t talk to her means he’s afraid of the outcome.
thejeff
It’s still the same day and he’s come looking for advice on how to deal with it.
Freemage
And came looking to the one person whom he absolutely had to know would tell him what he needs to do. Sure, he’s arguing and resisting, but he could’ve just gone to, say, Joe, and gotten some reassurance that he shouldn’t worry about it.
Tan
The incident happened at lunchtime. As of our last time reference 3 strips ago, it is approximately dusk (see lighting of last panel of https://www.dumbingofage.com/2023/comic/book-13/02-turning-saints-into-the-sea/kindasorta/), which in January would put us around 5:30-6pm. It has been a couple hours.
Sirksome
I feel like maybe people didn’t understand my comment. I get that this just happened. I do think Walky has time to figure things out and even going to Dorothy is a good move. I just don’t think he has a lot of time. He knows Lucy has expectations on their relationship that he doesn’t. Every day he waits around trying to figure himself out while she believes he loves her takes advantage of her. He already missed an opportunity to correct things. How long is acceptable?
I personally don’t even think they should be together to begin this cause neither were willing to start the relationship. Walky was oblivious and Lucy was too shy. Dorothy started this relationship, which at least to me set them up for failure. This feels more like an arrangement of convenience (Walky literally described it as a taco he didn’t know he could order) than a relationship to me. Maybe everything will workout fine in the end and I’m just being dumb, but like it’s already starting to crack after a week.
The Wellerman
? Is this what humans call déjà vu?
Kyrik Michalowski
This is definitely a human reaction, it is nothing like what a Zognoid would say. Who even likes Zognoids? Certainly not me, for I am a human.
Ryan
Clearly. We never doubted your
̶Z̶o̶g̶n̶o̶i̶d̶n̶e̶s̶s̶humanity, your Excellency!eh, whatever
I love breathing oxygen!
Opus the Poet
I don’t, I prefer an 80% nitrogen, 19% oxygen, 1% other gasses atmosphere. 100% oxygen makes bombs out of almost anything flammable, even stuff that doesn’t usually burn, like diamonds.
The Wellerman
That, and breathing 100% oxygen for long periods can cause some not-so-pleasant side effects. 🙁
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK430743/
Leorale
So true! And definitely what humans say all the time, when we are not basking in our wealth of internal organs. (Liver and a spleen? What will we humans think of next!)
One moment, I need to go regulate my temperature by panting and/or by secreting liquid through my disgusting pores.
Gosh. I love Earth!
Yotomoe
Clearly that’s a no.
butts
“not yet” is a perfectly legitimate answer tbh
Sirksome
I think him getting angry about this is worse than just a no. Like if he said “no” I still think they’d have potential to get on track or readjust. Frustration is a bad sign.
Heavensrun
Eh, Walky has a LOT of symptoms of a twice exceptional ADHD kid. I can’t remember if he’s diagnosed, but either way, he might actually have difficulty regulating emotions like anger and frustration. Everybody gets frustrated when their words are misunderstood. Neurotypical people can tamp that feeling down with reason, cool their jets, and look the situation over reasonably. ADHD strips people of that mechanism and so everything feels raw and unfiltered all the time. It’s why ADHD tends to lead to what many perceive as unreasonable outbursts.
Ari
I think he can be frustrated at the situation without being angry Lucy. Telling someone you love them after a week shows immaturity. It also puts your partner in an uncomfortable position. It’s pretty understandable for him to be annoyed and he’s not taking it out on Lucy.
William Leonard Reese Jr.
So I’m guessing that Walky *likes* Lucy but he’s not in love with her. Not like he was with Dorathy.
Or that’s my presumption anyway.
Maybe it can turn INTO love later on, but he’s not there yet I imagine.
HueSatLight
That’s what I’m guessing too, and that seems like it’s not a simple answer.
anon
i can’t imagine it’s been even a full month yet. At the very least walky doesn’t think it’s even the ‘third date’ yet either
thejeff
It’s been almost exactly 1 week. Lucy’s been crushing of him for months, but they’ve only been dating for a week.
This is way early to be dropping the love word and that wouldn’t normally be a problem except for the sitcom bit.
Opus the Poet
They’ve known each other, or at least known of each other, since Jenifer, was transferred to a different dorm last semester. I don’t know how long they were hanging out together, but I think it happened sometime during the timeskip.
Lan
I’ve gotten the impression that he likes Lucy as a friend and as a person but it really feels to me that the only reason he’s dating her is because he thinks he’s supposed to (because she likes him and because Dorothy told him he should ask her out). Idk, just comparing how he’s acted with her versus how he acted with Dorothy and Amber, he hasn’t demonstrated affection for Lucy the way he demonstrated affection for either of them and we don’t have any other examples of Walky demonstrating affection yet, so it seems like that affection might not be there.
Mr. Random
Probably not, but he likes her.
And NOW I feel like Lucy isn’t at the same emotional maturity level to correctly handle Walky saying no, but at the same time, I think she is, but in a different way?
Like she’d worry if she forced him into saying it.
shadowcell
Premature Emotional Vulnerability is nothing to be ashamed of, Walky. not uncommon. you know, one in five men–
Kyrik Michalowski
Walky is going to dance around the issue for a while, huh? I’m secretly hoping this with Walky telling Dorothy that he still loves her and that he doesn’t love lucy.
Odds? Slime to none. Hopes? There are plenty.
Sporky
“Slime to none” is my new favorite typo
Kyrik Michalowski
I’m not a bad slime, slurp!
Rabid Rabbit
Of course he doesn’t love Lucy. He just said he wasn’t in a sitcom. *Laugh track explodes*
anon