Comic #807

Source Comic:



Redone Comic (click to enlarge):



Hey guys, remember this xkcd? Or this one? Yeah, those are totally invalidated now. Stop feeling good about love. STOP IT. Real love is about critical thinking! STOP BEING IRRATIONAL AND OVERLOOKING YOUR PARTNER'S FLAWS.

In all seriousness, I'm amused by Randall's example for "young love". Most people think of a couple naive twenty-somethings (wrongly) assuming blind optimism (and sex) will carry their relationship forever. Randall, however, evidently thinks of, like, a couple 8th-graders playing hookie or something. I mean, seriously, does anyone over the age of 13 really think that "we like the same song" is the same as "we are lifemates"?

You know, I just had a thought. Let's see how many of the past, like, 50 xkcds have been about bad relationships (in descending order):

807
800
796
784
770
769
767
765
761


Almost 1/5th of the comics have been about bad relationships. Okay, so the banner says xkcd is partially about romance. Fair enough. There are bad relationships; romance sours. That's pretty obvious. And you know, maybe just including the bad relationship comics is creating an inaccurate picture of xkcd. We should be fair and include the xkcds about good relationships too, huh?

...

Um, where are the good relationship comics? Surely there must be SOMETHING humorous about a good relationship, right? Let's keep looking.

...

Okay, there's 746, which was the creepy baby-with-shotgun one...there's 744, about having a bad one-night stand...oh, hey, look there's 734! They get together in the end! Wait, it's a romantic comedy, those don't count because they're fantasy (and as 807 proved, fantasies are BAD). Ok, there's a string of mostly math/technology jokes...then there's 717, which...we're just going to skip over 717. Should I bring up 713 and 712? Eh, probably not.

Oh, hey! 708! Almost 1/8th of xkcd later I find a GOOD RELATIONSHIP! Surely this must be the point where the series of good relationship comics ended, right? Yeah, see, there's 704, where he shacks up with "Mrs. Leinhart", I guess that one works. I can see why he switched it up, he must've been running out of happy relationship jokes for the time being.

...Wait.

701 is a breakup valentine. 698 is a messy breakup over a phone. 695 is...is that an analogy for an abusive relationship? Oh god. And 686, that's about being overly clingy after a relationship is over. And 685, the one right before that, that's about not being able to sexually please your partner (which might be why 686 happened...)

You know what, I'm going to stop here. I looked further, but honestly, making all those links is damn annoying. Let me just give you the quick and dirty - it doesn't get much prettier. Suffice it to say, about 15% of the comics from 685 onward are about bad relationships. Conversely, just over 1% are about good relationships (and just under 1% if you keep it to comics that were "unambiguously" about healthy relationships).

...Guys? Is it safe to say that Randall doesn't have a positive view of relationships, like, at all anymore? I mean, I know he used to; I linked two right there in the first paragraph. But I mean, like, is he the reverse Zach Weiner? Are his comics just going to continue to be sadder and sadder as his relationships continue to spiral downward? That can't be, right?

...Right?