Considering in my experience, the only reason to go to the bookstore is to get textbooks, and 7/10 times you don’t get the textbooks anyway……yeah, there’s no way Walky knows where the campus bookstore is
Yeah, when I was at school you walked into the bookstore to:
A) Find out how much they’d buy your textbook you were done with back for (an insulting amount)
B) Find out how much they would then sell your textbook to some other poor schmuck for (several times that insulting amount).
Then you walked outside, said “I got Linear Algebra 1, for (a multiple of that insulting amount far less than the one inside)!”.
I assume these days such transactions are handled entirely online, but I am An Old.
Dalrint
God, right? Senior year I sat outside the school store and sold my textbooks for 25 dollars a piece. I made three times as much as the store offered me for them, and it was less than half of what they were selling the used copies for.
misanthropope
the company store pissed me off so much i got into the habit of reading my textbooks twice in the first week and then returning them, while i could still get full price. turns out to be the only good student habit i ever developed, completely on brand that i only did it out of spite.
Or even a dang drugstore, like a CVS or Rite-Aid or whatever they have in Bloomington, IN.
Needfuldoer
Don’t you know the world outside campus ceases to exist while class is in session, except for a couple restaurants?
I worked for a college for a bit and seemingly all the freshman forgot about the outside world (except the fast food joints) after a few days. If the bookstore or commissary didn’t have something, it was unobtainable, even though there was a strip mall with a drugstore, grocery store, and discount store within walking distance.
Yeah, but he’s not looking for an entire ream of paper. Sure he’d probably use it if he stuck with this gig for a long time, but I don’t think he’s thinking that far ahead that he wants to actually spend real money to invest in something that he might not actually use, especially now that there may be competition.
To each their own. My wife says I kiss better when I have a beard.
Jenn
Based on your name, I’m presuming you’re a man, but I absolutely pictured Becky saying that because of your gravatar, and boy that was some fun imagery.
Yet_One_More_Idiot
As a guy who grows a bushy beard (not long, but pretty thick), trust me Walky – beards are more hassle than they’re worth, they itch like fu…dge, and they’re also a pain to trim regularly.
To be quite honest, I wish I *couldn’t* grow a beard.
Jhon
Shaved off my covid beard this morning. It was itchy. And making me look too much like Willis. Keeping the knit cap though.
Usually, colleges have printers and copiers on badge access. You have to scan your student ID so it knows whose account to charge 10 cents a page (or whatever).
The trick is to go through the menus on a printer to make it spit out its configuration page, then you can draw on the back. This is very easy on HP LaserJets.
Also, a lot of people don’t innately make the connection that they can photocopy nothing and get a blank sheet of paper. “But there has to be something to copy!” It will just copy the bottom of the lid.
I think he doesn’t know better, and also maybe he’s afraid to commit to this.
PS For “doesn’t know better” look at Erika Moen fessing up to this when she was first at Periscope Studio, and much ore experienced than an undergrad studying something besides art.
I think that beat panel was him knowing exactly what she was talking about, but having absolutely no idea how to politely express his lack of interest.
(Though if it turns out later strips contradict this conclusion…)
I think you’re right. He was pretending to deflect anything serious. When I first read it, I thought that he was pleading stubble to avoid any face to face contact.
Screwball
I’m not convinced by a long shot he does realize what she actually means…
.
Daniel here. As someone who did not do much dating back in School (constantly FIGHTING off bullies turned me into a Loner), I know something like this would have gone completely over my head without even ruffling my hair. Until Uni started, he was completely uninterested in girls with Dorothy snapping him out of that with Monkey Master. As a Loner, girls were pretty things to look at but I never really paid attention to them. Turns out the Little Sister of a friend had a crush on me for a while (though I don’t know why) but I never knew until someone actually told me. Plus after a girl asked me if I was going to the high School prom, I replied that those types of things didn’t interest me. Literally took me 11 YEARS to figure out she was trying to ask me to go to the prom with her!
.
To me, Walky has as much knowledge as I did back then about interpreting the actions of the girls around him, so it is quite possible that quiet panel was him trying to work out what she meant, and coming to the wrong conclusion. I know I probably would have replied with “Well I wouldn’t mind a couple million dollars, but I think it might cause problems if I robbed a bank for that…” as it went so far over my head not even the tallest basketball player would be able to reach it…
Clif
Okay. This is complicated. Walky is actually a smart guy. I don’t think for a minute that he’s that oblivious. If he’s missing the not very subtext, I have to think it’s intentional. At the same time I don’t think he’s completely uninterested. If nothing else, he likes the attention. And there’s some evidence he likes her. As Nightguy, he was making sure she got back to her building safely. He doesn’t discourage her from hanging around him and he’s here now seeking her out. He’s had two relationships go south in a single semester and he hasn’t really recovered from the first one yet. So maybe he’s just gun-shy right now.
But for whatever reason, if she isn’t going to explain in plain language that she’s attracted to him and would like to know if he’s up for various activities, then she’s going to have to up her game, as for example, by asking for help in selecting the underwear that looks best on her. And proceeding to model, changing between them in front of him. If he has room to deflect, he will. For whatever reason.
Using plain language is hard, but works best. A relationship with someone you can’t talk to is asking for problems.
milu
that was an oddly specific underwear story ?
Clif
It might be loosely based on a thing that might or might not have happened.
Being smart has little to do with being oblivious to someone’s interest in you. Smart people can have blind spots as easily as anyone.
zee
Yeahhh no, I’m not buying for a second that walkys aware of lucy’s crush. You can be very smart and super oblivious to people’s feelings. My boyfriend is very smart, he’s also as sense as Walky is here. Once (before we started dating) he literally had a girl grind on him at a party and he still didn’t realize she was into him. I spent days flirting with him so hard i did just about everything but flat out say i would sleep with him and he still didn’t realize I was into him until I said straight up I’d date him if he confessed to me.
Concolor44
This. All of this. I had a friend-girl in school who dropped a series of ASTONISHINGLY blatant (in retrospect) hints that went right by me. Had I been even slightly less oblivious, we’d probably be married now.
Seregiel
This is a thing that happens to grown adults too.. I know many who are all “no one is interested in me” as person #3 sits in their lap and flirts all night or a person magically appears who knows all the right things when you’ve had your worst day and is willing to do it for you. Either those aren’t the people you want, your self esteem is that low or you have zero clue what you’re looking at/what to do with it. Almost all of them had back luck/relationships in their youths and it apparently just sticks your life view in an odd way. It’s like they don’t know what affection looks like beyond a rom com script.
Demoted Oblivious
“It’s like they don’t know what affection looks like”.
Let me stop you right there. Because you are 100% correct. The “beyond a rom com” doesn’t even apply, because at this point those only leave me feeling confused and awkward.
I’ve been abused, insulted, perjured about, threatened and bankrupted. The obvious conclusion became obvious and I opted out before the 3rd one made me kill myself. Fool me once. etc.. The shame is on me, but ” third time’s a charm” would be my death sentence. I definitely grew up not knowing what affection looked like, mom made sure of that. Now I’m so messed up from two tremendously failed relationships that it’s painfully obvious the only people I find attractive and find me attractive always end up insulting and emotionally abusing me. And I let it happen. So until I can learn to show myself affection and let myself feel it, it’s not safe to be involved with others. And at the rate I’m going, I’ll be dead before I learn.
So… yes it sticks with you. But to be clear, at first you want to see affection, but you don’t know what it looks like. Later, after a few horrifying errors, you think you might have an idea of what it looks like, but now I don’t want to see it because it’s just way to f’ing dangerous to be wrong, again.
Seregiel
Not all of them had that experience, but I’m sorry you did.
It definitely some it applies to, but others they have put on glasses to the point relationships have to be perfect all the time or there are serious problems etc level. Its hard to think something feels right when it takes vastly more good signs to cancel out that one doubting bad one. which can be anything from perfectionism to depression.
I myself had a similar experience to you, but I was lucky to have friends that did have healthy relationships and I wanted it so much it hurt. I gave away so much of myself thinking thats what you do for people. Walky is definitely skewed from golden child syndrome and two frankly odd starts to relationship dynamics. But hes also just traumatized and emotionally drained in general.
Personally, I made so many judgement calls that caused me harm because I wanted that level of affection from other people, but I didn’t know what it looked like to give it to yourself. I could forgive others endlessly but not myself. Realizing I could have and needed my own boundaries to be able to be a functioning member of a relationship and that those weren’t bad things also helped. I wish you all the luck. It took me… too many years but the process was worth it. I have fewer relationships now but most are so much better than I ever thought possible.
Allandrel
I recently reconnected on social media with a woman who I went to college with. She said that she had harbored a huge crush on me in school.
Me: I had no idea. I wish you had said something.
Here: I flirted with you constantly.
Me: I was pretty oblivious, you probably would have had to crawl into my lap.
Here: I did that twice!
Needfuldoer
Realizing you missed the signs years after the fact hurts.
Julez
You gotta keep in mind that Lucy has also been following him around like a puppy for basically the last four months at this point. I am pretty sure he’s gathered she’s interested, he just isn’t.
Demoted Oblivious
Yeah, you really haven’t absorbed what people are saying about being oblivious in their own lived experiences. I’ll get your member card out to you straight away.
Insanenoodlyguy
I literraly had the same situation in high school. That is to say, a geeky black girl blatantly interested in me. I had no fucking idea, and that sure wasn’t her fault. Took me five years to be all “Oh shit wait” and kick myself over that one.
Not really news. I periodically post the time so people can see the delta between a synced clock and DoA server’s time. Apparently the host company doesn’t keep the server clocks synchronized.
I thought he said limitless paper at first. Like when I used to be a security guard and they gave the keys to the stationary closet. Didn’t they know I comic?
He’d be stuck drawing with a mouse. (Have we ever seen him with a tablet? Even then, digital painting with your finger on a touchscreen tablet isn’t great either.)
Maybe he can go to the art building and sneak some time on a computer with a Wacom tablet.
289 thoughts on “Nonsense”
Ana Chronistic
beard?? shit, *I’d* be into Walky if he grew one
does he not know what a campus bookstore is tho, or whatever the name is now for where they sell things one might use in a college
Bicycle Bill
I’m sure he does, but why buy some if you can mooch it from your friends?
Heavensrun
Yep. Your completely platonic, nonromantic friends.
jonrock411
Considering in my experience, the only reason to go to the bookstore is to get textbooks, and 7/10 times you don’t get the textbooks anyway……yeah, there’s no way Walky knows where the campus bookstore is
Doctor_Who
Yeah, when I was at school you walked into the bookstore to:
A) Find out how much they’d buy your textbook you were done with back for (an insulting amount)
B) Find out how much they would then sell your textbook to some other poor schmuck for (several times that insulting amount).
Then you walked outside, said “I got Linear Algebra 1, for (a multiple of that insulting amount far less than the one inside)!”.
I assume these days such transactions are handled entirely online, but I am An Old.
Dalrint
God, right? Senior year I sat outside the school store and sold my textbooks for 25 dollars a piece. I made three times as much as the store offered me for them, and it was less than half of what they were selling the used copies for.
misanthropope
the company store pissed me off so much i got into the habit of reading my textbooks twice in the first week and then returning them, while i could still get full price. turns out to be the only good student habit i ever developed, completely on brand that i only did it out of spite.
Thag Simmons
Or like, a Staples
Norah
Or even a dang drugstore, like a CVS or Rite-Aid or whatever they have in Bloomington, IN.
Needfuldoer
Don’t you know the world outside campus ceases to exist while class is in session, except for a couple restaurants?
I worked for a college for a bit and seemingly all the freshman forgot about the outside world (except the fast food joints) after a few days. If the bookstore or commissary didn’t have something, it was unobtainable, even though there was a strip mall with a drugstore, grocery store, and discount store within walking distance.
Devin
Yeah, but he’s not looking for an entire ream of paper. Sure he’d probably use it if he stuck with this gig for a long time, but I don’t think he’s thinking that far ahead that he wants to actually spend real money to invest in something that he might not actually use, especially now that there may be competition.
Rose by Any Other Name
Bleck! Oh no – no beards. Beards are a deal breaker for me. Sooo weird and itchy and gross.
A short trimmed goatee can be okay, cause the hotness makes up for the itchiness, but I can’t stand actual beards when kissing.
BarerMender
I’m reaching for a joke from Emily Dickinson’s line “My Cactus — splits her Beard/To show her throat –“, but I’m not finding one.
Chris Phoenix
To each their own. My wife says I kiss better when I have a beard.
Jenn
Based on your name, I’m presuming you’re a man, but I absolutely pictured Becky saying that because of your gravatar, and boy that was some fun imagery.
Yet_One_More_Idiot
As a guy who grows a bushy beard (not long, but pretty thick), trust me Walky – beards are more hassle than they’re worth, they itch like fu…dge, and they’re also a pain to trim regularly.
To be quite honest, I wish I *couldn’t* grow a beard.
Jhon
Shaved off my covid beard this morning. It was itchy. And making me look too much like Willis. Keeping the knit cap though.
Concolor44
Oh, hello, Dear! (Didn’t realize my wife followed this comic.)
Demoted Oblivious
Now is that actually Rose, or are you joking about the complaint about beards?
He Who Abides
Almost certainly a joke, considering some of Rose’s posts on the Walky!verse comics.
Demoted Oblivious
Figured as much, but part of me was hoping to witness a romantic re-meet-cute.
NelC
What if he grew a beard like Ted Cruz’s, tho?
Norah
Ew, nope.
Ryek Hvek
Cruz isn’t sporting a beard – it’s an embarrassment – an em-beard-assment
Needfuldoer
I do not like that man Ted Cruz
I do not like his fascist views
I do not like him with a beard
I do not like him freshly sheared
RowenMorland
Huh, I guess I’ve only ever read his name and not heard it said pout loud because I thought it rhymed with Crudz rather than views.
RowenMorland
Or scuz.
ValdVin
Or an unattended photocopier. Or even an attended one, sometimes.
Needfuldoer
Usually, colleges have printers and copiers on badge access. You have to scan your student ID so it knows whose account to charge 10 cents a page (or whatever).
The trick is to go through the menus on a printer to make it spit out its configuration page, then you can draw on the back. This is very easy on HP LaserJets.
Also, a lot of people don’t innately make the connection that they can photocopy nothing and get a blank sheet of paper. “But there has to be something to copy!” It will just copy the bottom of the lid.
ValdVin
Oh, configuration pages: So easy for you or me to punch up, sometimes so difficult to guide someone on the phone to do.
I miss the time when I was on the team with admin access to printers; it was a chunk easier to help people for that startup task.
Reaver
TBH His family is disgustingly wealthy and he has a shit ton of free cash, so I KINDA think it’s lame he’s mooching off other people x.x.
ValdVin
I don’t think he’s mooching.
I think he doesn’t know better, and also maybe he’s afraid to commit to this.
PS For “doesn’t know better” look at Erika Moen fessing up to this when she was first at Periscope Studio, and much ore experienced than an undergrad studying something besides art.
zee
They’re upper middle class, definitely not disgustingly wealthy. That would be the ruttens, *maybe* the billingsworths
Fetch85
I mean, he’s at a university where they’re paying for room and board. Go to the computer lab, open a printer, grab a couple sheets.
RowenMorland
Is there any Walky-whiskers fanart?
Plain Marie
Poor Lucy. Not only is he Night Guy or what evs, he’s also Captain Oblivious.
Jane
I think that beat panel was him knowing exactly what she was talking about, but having absolutely no idea how to politely express his lack of interest.
(Though if it turns out later strips contradict this conclusion…)
Plain Marie
I think you’re right. He was pretending to deflect anything serious. When I first read it, I thought that he was pleading stubble to avoid any face to face contact.
Screwball
I’m not convinced by a long shot he does realize what she actually means…
.
Daniel here. As someone who did not do much dating back in School (constantly FIGHTING off bullies turned me into a Loner), I know something like this would have gone completely over my head without even ruffling my hair. Until Uni started, he was completely uninterested in girls with Dorothy snapping him out of that with Monkey Master. As a Loner, girls were pretty things to look at but I never really paid attention to them. Turns out the Little Sister of a friend had a crush on me for a while (though I don’t know why) but I never knew until someone actually told me. Plus after a girl asked me if I was going to the high School prom, I replied that those types of things didn’t interest me. Literally took me 11 YEARS to figure out she was trying to ask me to go to the prom with her!
.
To me, Walky has as much knowledge as I did back then about interpreting the actions of the girls around him, so it is quite possible that quiet panel was him trying to work out what she meant, and coming to the wrong conclusion. I know I probably would have replied with “Well I wouldn’t mind a couple million dollars, but I think it might cause problems if I robbed a bank for that…” as it went so far over my head not even the tallest basketball player would be able to reach it…
Clif
Okay. This is complicated. Walky is actually a smart guy. I don’t think for a minute that he’s that oblivious. If he’s missing the not very subtext, I have to think it’s intentional. At the same time I don’t think he’s completely uninterested. If nothing else, he likes the attention. And there’s some evidence he likes her. As Nightguy, he was making sure she got back to her building safely. He doesn’t discourage her from hanging around him and he’s here now seeking her out. He’s had two relationships go south in a single semester and he hasn’t really recovered from the first one yet. So maybe he’s just gun-shy right now.
But for whatever reason, if she isn’t going to explain in plain language that she’s attracted to him and would like to know if he’s up for various activities, then she’s going to have to up her game, as for example, by asking for help in selecting the underwear that looks best on her. And proceeding to model, changing between them in front of him. If he has room to deflect, he will. For whatever reason.
Using plain language is hard, but works best. A relationship with someone you can’t talk to is asking for problems.
milu
that was an oddly specific underwear story ?
Clif
It might be loosely based on a thing that might or might not have happened.
TemplarKnight
Wow. That took a turn.
thejeff
Being smart has little to do with being oblivious to someone’s interest in you. Smart people can have blind spots as easily as anyone.
zee
Yeahhh no, I’m not buying for a second that walkys aware of lucy’s crush. You can be very smart and super oblivious to people’s feelings. My boyfriend is very smart, he’s also as sense as Walky is here. Once (before we started dating) he literally had a girl grind on him at a party and he still didn’t realize she was into him. I spent days flirting with him so hard i did just about everything but flat out say i would sleep with him and he still didn’t realize I was into him until I said straight up I’d date him if he confessed to me.
Concolor44
This. All of this. I had a friend-girl in school who dropped a series of ASTONISHINGLY blatant (in retrospect) hints that went right by me. Had I been even slightly less oblivious, we’d probably be married now.
Seregiel
This is a thing that happens to grown adults too.. I know many who are all “no one is interested in me” as person #3 sits in their lap and flirts all night or a person magically appears who knows all the right things when you’ve had your worst day and is willing to do it for you. Either those aren’t the people you want, your self esteem is that low or you have zero clue what you’re looking at/what to do with it. Almost all of them had back luck/relationships in their youths and it apparently just sticks your life view in an odd way. It’s like they don’t know what affection looks like beyond a rom com script.
Demoted Oblivious
“It’s like they don’t know what affection looks like”.
Let me stop you right there. Because you are 100% correct. The “beyond a rom com” doesn’t even apply, because at this point those only leave me feeling confused and awkward.
I’ve been abused, insulted, perjured about, threatened and bankrupted. The obvious conclusion became obvious and I opted out before the 3rd one made me kill myself. Fool me once. etc.. The shame is on me, but ” third time’s a charm” would be my death sentence. I definitely grew up not knowing what affection looked like, mom made sure of that. Now I’m so messed up from two tremendously failed relationships that it’s painfully obvious the only people I find attractive and find me attractive always end up insulting and emotionally abusing me. And I let it happen. So until I can learn to show myself affection and let myself feel it, it’s not safe to be involved with others. And at the rate I’m going, I’ll be dead before I learn.
So… yes it sticks with you. But to be clear, at first you want to see affection, but you don’t know what it looks like. Later, after a few horrifying errors, you think you might have an idea of what it looks like, but now I don’t want to see it because it’s just way to f’ing dangerous to be wrong, again.
Seregiel
Not all of them had that experience, but I’m sorry you did.
It definitely some it applies to, but others they have put on glasses to the point relationships have to be perfect all the time or there are serious problems etc level. Its hard to think something feels right when it takes vastly more good signs to cancel out that one doubting bad one. which can be anything from perfectionism to depression.
I myself had a similar experience to you, but I was lucky to have friends that did have healthy relationships and I wanted it so much it hurt. I gave away so much of myself thinking thats what you do for people. Walky is definitely skewed from golden child syndrome and two frankly odd starts to relationship dynamics. But hes also just traumatized and emotionally drained in general.
Personally, I made so many judgement calls that caused me harm because I wanted that level of affection from other people, but I didn’t know what it looked like to give it to yourself. I could forgive others endlessly but not myself. Realizing I could have and needed my own boundaries to be able to be a functioning member of a relationship and that those weren’t bad things also helped. I wish you all the luck. It took me… too many years but the process was worth it. I have fewer relationships now but most are so much better than I ever thought possible.
Allandrel
I recently reconnected on social media with a woman who I went to college with. She said that she had harbored a huge crush on me in school.
Me: I had no idea. I wish you had said something.
Here: I flirted with you constantly.
Me: I was pretty oblivious, you probably would have had to crawl into my lap.
Here: I did that twice!
Needfuldoer
Realizing you missed the signs years after the fact hurts.
Julez
You gotta keep in mind that Lucy has also been following him around like a puppy for basically the last four months at this point. I am pretty sure he’s gathered she’s interested, he just isn’t.
Demoted Oblivious
Yeah, you really haven’t absorbed what people are saying about being oblivious in their own lived experiences. I’ll get your member card out to you straight away.
Insanenoodlyguy
I literraly had the same situation in high school. That is to say, a geeky black girl blatantly interested in me. I had no fucking idea, and that sure wasn’t her fault. Took me five years to be all “Oh shit wait” and kick myself over that one.
Reaver
not knowing how to politely do something has never stopped Walkerton before…
Demoted Oblivious
No that was me (not Night Guy, the other one). But I wasn’t very good at it.
Needfuldoer
It just wouldn’t be Valentine’s Day at Dumbing of Age without a little bittersweet heartbreak, now would it.
katosen27
Walky….BRUH.
C.T Phipps
Lucy sadly is in the Uncanny Valley between his other girlfriends.
milu
Your comment is in the Uncanny Valley between a thought-provoking point and a gratuitous insult 😀
Demoted Oblivious
Perfect gravitar!
+50 Internets
a/snow/mous/e
huh, the site clock seems to be off by about five minutes?
BarerMender
Don’t complain. Early is better.
Demoted Oblivious
Not really news. I periodically post the time so people can see the delta between a synced clock and DoA server’s time. Apparently the host company doesn’t keep the server clocks synchronized.
Time at this posting 10:00 est
a/snow/mous/e
oh ok i haven’t noticed those posts sorry
Demoted Oblivious
I’m sorry too. Re-reading i see my post was snarkier than intended. Sorry for tx’ing the harsh.
Risky
I thought he said limitless paper at first. Like when I used to be a security guard and they gave the keys to the stationary closet. Didn’t they know I comic?
Charles Spencer
I’m not sure why he’s bothering with paper at all. I’m no Damn You, Willis, but couldn’t he be roughing it out digitally?
Needfuldoer
He’d be stuck drawing with a mouse. (Have we ever seen him with a tablet? Even then, digital painting with your finger on a touchscreen tablet isn’t great either.)
Maybe he can go to the art building and sneak some time on a computer with a Wacom tablet.
FacelessDeviant
Limitless paper?
The kind one eats to become super smart?
Demoted Oblivious