For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for December 18, 2020

well, that was a good discussion between friends who happen to be a girl and a boy

If it was that easy, they would be eating pizza now with their friends instead of standing outside in the snow talking about how easy it is.

Teenagers. They are confusing love with lust. What they are feeling about Allyson and some other guy is just lust. Lust is painful when unrequited. Sometimes it is a hormonal response to a certain person due to scent, a specific thing unique to that person…sometimes it is hard to pin on. This person can be totally not your type but yet you “couldn’t stand it” in wanting that person and think it is love. That is why young people shouldn’t get married until they understand the difference between the two. Sometimes two people in lust for each other get to quench the flame and let it burn out. That’s when they realize they aren’t in love – that they only needed to run its course and move on to find someone to fall in love with. That is what Gordon needs to do with Allyson but it is one-sided – Allyson has no interest in Gordon or any lust for him. It will take Allyson’s inattention/dismissiveness of him to eventually quench the lust as they often do.

Eye-frikkin-roll

Oh well better luck next year

Pretty clever strip- it’s easy for us older readers to tell these two are being dim and immature about it- they think all their agony and obsession about these other people is true love when it’s just infatuation, while this “easy” conversation with a pal means nothing. Lynn is most certainly aware of the irony here- arguably, this is the purest FORM of irony- people saying completely incorrect things while being completely oblivious to reality!

This strip ended several years ago, so we’re watching reruns, people. If my memory serves me right, Gordon and Tracey end up married.

Well thought out and stated. I wish I had been able to articulate this in my teens. The best I could do was say “Lets just be friends”, which was code for lets never talk to each other again, apparently.

Will be interesting to see where this one goes. Two kids who really like each other, but don’t know it yet?

And there lies the cause of divorce

Gee, I wonder how they know what love is like?

capricorn9th I wish I had someone as wise as you when I was younger. I was proposed to at 18 and had no clue if I really loved that person. When they showed their true colors it was to late. I would have been better off seeing if another person was my true love. Fast forward some forty + years and even though I am happily married to some one who I love with all my heart and soul I deeply regret that mistake in late 1975.

Gordon looks like Mike in the first panel. I had to look twice.

Ideally, you SHOULD be best friends for a successful lifelong relationship. Sadly, that’s not the case most of the time…..

Given time to mature, they may come to realize what they have is much better than hormone soaked infatuation.

Too bad! They make a great couple!!

Years ago, in a filler at the bottom of a page in a magazine, I read something written by a priest.

The priest had finished shopping, and was going to his car. A woman came up to him and said “You saved my marriage.” The priest was puzzled, as he did not recall counseling or advising her. She explained that he had offered a Mass for children, and her son was there. The Gospel reading for that Mass was one where Jesus said “Love one another, as I have loved you.” At the homily, the priest asked the children “What did Jesus say?” one kid answered “We should be good.” The priest said, “Yes, Jesus wants us to be good. But, what did Jesus say in the Gospel I just read?” The priest said “Jesus said ‘Love one another’.” In pep rally style, the priest repeated the question a few times, with the kids responding.

The woman and her husband had decided to divorce. It was that evening they were planning on giving the bad news to their kids. The family was together, and the father said “Mommy and I don’t love each other anymore.” The boy stunned the parents when he responded “Jesus said ‘Love one another’.”

The parents realized if Jesus can command us to love one another, love can be a choice. They chose to find out why they felt they didn’t love one another. That enabled them to work things out.

It’s not exactly true what happens in real life.

It shouldn’t be difficult and full of angst every day about the feelings that are described as “love” in books, movies, TV shows, and songs, because that’s where both of them are getting their ideas about love…

If people copy patterns from fiction to their every day life, they are bound to be greatly and totally disappointed … For one thing, other people’s lives are never on the same page as yours is…

: – /

Yep!! Made that mistake with my first husband!! We were divorced in 1984, 7 years after we were married. I learned my lesson well and have not married again!!

Dont Gordon and Tracey end up together?

I guess they grew up and decided that “easy” was just fine.

My apologies for posting what was deemed a spoiler. I removed the offending post.