Unless I’m remembering this wrong (rather possible), Dorothy broke up with Danny because it was best for both of them? She might have given this reason, but another reason was that Danny needed to stop being to emotionally dependent on her.
In that sense, Walky is no problem because he’s very independent in that sense.
Does someone remember the date of the strip they broke up? I gotta look back.
Thinking practically though, given that trying to do something does not guarantee success, it is not an unreasonable proposition to stay in a relationship with someone in case the endeavour to leave fails and they end up walking the same path (/able to walk the same path together) after all.
My long-term suspicion, held since that breakup (and strengthened somewhat by strips showing her struggling with studying), is that his hope is going to be paid off in that she’ll end up staying at that university anyway–and he’ll get absolutely nothing out of it except pain and unhappiness because she cut him out of her life for being able to contemplate that possibility.
Hmm… the reason he gives in this strip for her breaking up with him is not the reason she actually gave for breaking up with him (which is a reason not inconsistent with her enjoying herself with someone else in the meantime), but that reason she actually gave I view as a bad one.
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Separately, there is admittedly the ‘kindness’ undercurrent, which is only applicable under either the assumption that he can use the extra time to form a permanent relationship with someone who definitely won’t leave, or else that it would be best for him to not be in a relationship with anyone ever (which is questionable). This is assuming that any emotional relationship he forms, him being Danny, will be extremely strong on his end.
…Hmm, now I’m wondering whether her expression in this last panel represents guilt or pity. *curiosity!*
(Edit: ‘Service Temporarily Unavailable’… trying again. Apologies if this is posted multiple times somehow.)
I would say that a big reason that she left him was that he just didn’t understand how important getting an education was to her. She couldn’t respect him because he was so willing to give up his in order to stay with her, and because he thought it would be acceptable for her to decide to stay behind for him. I really find it inspiring that Dorothy didn’t want to settle for someone who had such different values. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who belittled my desire to better myself. And your argument that she should have stayed with him “in case [her] endeavor to leave fails” bothers me a bit, because even if she doesn’t get in one year, she can always try again, or try at a different school. Danny needs to become his own man, as well. He had no ambitions for the future other than to cling to Dorothy like she was some sort of weird trellis, and I find that a little… gross. He needs to strive for things on his own terms. IMHO, anyway.
Of course though she ended up getting together with Walky of all people, the same Walky where his greatest ambition is to have a bachelor pad made of legos. Or where all the stairs are slides. Or his pool is made of jello.
Okay scratch that, Walky’s got some big dreams.
But yeah, jokes aside, despite having this same exact thing happen to me(me being Danny), Dorothy is still my favorite character. She’s strong and independent and pretty straightforward with her feelings(despite needing Joyce once in a while). At the very least she cut him loose for his own good and not cause she started seeing that guy from work. Ho’.
I think, in the end, all the logical reasons Dorothy gave Danny were kind of an unintentional smoke screen for her simply not being attracted to him anymore. We don’t know under what circumstances they got together, but we do know that it was a long-term relationship, the kind that’s fueled as much by how well you know the person and how comfortable you are around them and how awkward the dating scene is as by actually WANTING to date them.
So I think it’s very human that Dorothy has ended up with someone who doesn’t actually fit any of what she thought she wanted — because she was wrong about her own reasoning.
(Sorry if you get a completely different comment in reply first, I mixed up the two people I was trying to respond to and the server is being pretty wacky right now.)
I think the thing with Walky though is it’s not serious (yet). It’s not developed enough that either of them will be heart-broken by her going somewhere else.
Walky may not have a lot of ambition, but he’s at least independent. He’s not likely to completely redefine himself to match someone else. Danny’s attachment to Dorothy was rather unhealthy, and probably is what lead to her not being attracted to him anymore (honestly, who’s attracted to someone like that? He needs to deal with those issues before getting back in to a relationship, so he can deal with it).
Note: this is in reply to Raine’s comment. It’s showing the comment box in the wrong place, and I’m not sure if it will post it in the right place.
I’m gonna go ahead and call it now: Walky and Dorothy are going to get kinda serious, Dorothy will get rejected from Harvard only to find out that Walky was accepted, but didn’t want to go, because it seemed like too much work. She’ll get upset and DRAMA!
Y’know Dotty, you probably would’ve saved yourself a lot of shit if you’d just told him “I’m breaking up with you because you’re a clingy pain in the ass,” or something of that like.
He’d have been super pissy about it for a while, but he probably would’ve gotten over it faster than he’ll get over this.
At the very least, honesty would give him some basis for self-improvement so he can avoid making the same relationship mistakes in the future. “Sparing somebody’s feelings” during a breakup doesn’t really do them a lot of favors in the long run.
To be fair, I think Dorothy really BELIEVED everything she said to Danny — but I think a big part of why she wanted to break up with him was really that she just wasn’t that into him. You know?
She came up with a bunch of logical reasons, but the real reason she stayed in the relationship so long was inertia and comfort. She enjoyed being with Danny okay, but she just wasn’t feeling _in love_ with him. When she was hit by actual attraction to Walky, suddenly all those logical reasons no longer seemed to apply — because they had always been a smoke screen.
But again, I don’t think Dorothy is consciously aware of any of this, and so right now she just feels incredibly guilty over her inconsistency and is at a loss to explain her own behavior.
Except she broke up with him because he was overly clingy and emotionally dependent, he shaped his entire life around following her, he was going to continue to do so at his own detriment, and he undervalued her goals and dreams. And she said most of that, he simply read into it incorrectly.
She listed multiple reasons for the breakup. It’s not reading too much into it to think that each of these reasons are simultaneously true.
One of these reasons was that she doesn’t have the time for a boyfriend at the moment. This one turned out to be false. She just didn’t have the time for Danny, largely due to the reasons you listed.
You know, I don’t particularly think Danny would have taken it any better, but I would have thought more of Dorothy if she was honest about her reasons for breaking up with him. Whether those reasons are “you are a good guy, but I’m not in the right time for a strong commitment,” “you are a good guy, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with you,” or “you are a really horrible boyfriend and I hope you die of herpes”.
Honestly, depending on how Dorothy handles things from here, this might be the best way that Dorothy and Danny’s relationship could go. If she WERE honest with Danny back then, he probably wouldn’t have listened. He was still too infatuated. I think Dorothy gave him the short end of the stick with the abrupt break-up and her just marching away in anger without giving the real, underlying reasons as to why they were breaking up, but I don’t think he would’ve been able to comprehend. And she may not have known them herself.
But now Danny’s had some time (well, days, anyway) away from Dorothy and has a good thing going with Amazi-girl AND Amber, despite his idiocy making me want to cave in that stupid head of his. He’s not acting *as* clingy with them as he was with Dorothy. He can probably be more open to what Dorothy has to say now without looking at her through his infatuated-colored glasses. Then he can improve himself based on that.
As people, I have faith that the two of them can work it out in the next few strips. However, as a STORYLINE, I’m sure a wrench will be thrown in there. Perhaps Amber is half-naked in Danny’s bed right now as we speak. Though, honestly, as long as Danny wasn’t fucking Dorothy’s best friend or a relative of her’s, she hasn’t much right to be angry or surprised about what Danny’s doing with other people because of the way she ended things.
A heartfelt “I’m sorry things happened this way and that I wasn’t totally honest with you before” might be the start of a good thing. And apologizing for trying to get HER EX-BOYFRIEND’S SHOES FOR HER NEW BOYFRIEND! THAT is just a bongo thing to do–I can’t defend that one.
I personally think this whole thing is actually for Walky’s benefit. Walky wouldn’t have known about this, and this might be a good way of showing him just the kind of person he’s dealing with.
Not that it will change anything, but the seeds of distrust have been sewn.
I’m starting to think that the Mike of this world isn’t an overt asshole, but a guy that doesn’t like when people bullshit. Oh, and he enjoys a prank or two.
Major props to Danny for making a successful stand against Mike, though. Those’re balls of his we haven’t seen before, unless I’ve purposefully missed something in the fanart.
Seriously, people, I don’t need to see Danny’s balls.
So what I think is interesting here is that yes, Mike is a douche, BUT it seems that ammunition he uses against others is almost exclusively their flaws (Walking being a slob etc) and mistakes (Dorothy lying to Danny).
He’s like a carnate bastardly version of your conscience, and he’s out to see you punished for your sins.
I guess I’m one of the few who likes Danny. Maybe it’s because I can relate to him (and Amber) more than any other character. Sometimes we all need a slap of honesty though, no matter how much it hurts.
Lets not forget that Dorothy gave Danny some crap for supposedly finding another girlfriend shortly after their breakup.
It wasn’t true mind you, and Danny took her to task for it.
But I consider it beyond cruel that she would try and pull some trick on Danny to get his shoes for her new boyfriend while knowing how much Danny cared for her in the past.
Thats cold and selfish.
I don’t know about cold, but selfish, yes. Self-oriented may be a better term though: Dotty seems to have a difficult time seeing things from any perspective but her own unless pushed. We saw this with the pajama jeans, with Amazi-girl, and now this.
Since the break-up in question was pretty much the first thing that happened in Dumbing, preventing us from seeing these two as a couple, and since Danny so far has no personality that I can perceive, I find myself not caring here.
One of Newtons laws state that for every action their is an equal or greater reaction in mike’s case he acts as the reaction to other peoples’ flaws and or mistakes.
Actually that wasn’t one of his laws. You might want to look that up or at least promise you’ll never become a physics major.
As for what really happens when Joyce wakes up is, she’s going to take a machete into Briscoe, and randomly slash open a few abdomens, cart away the bodies into the shower, and make Walky some human leather shoes.
She will think she was still in the same dream, and re-wake up. Ultimately, she hooks up with Gilberto Valle, and they start a fast food restaurant, because Hostess is gone – and the brand “Ho Ho’s” is available for their new deep fried treat – OvaryBites.
Forgive me I was mistaken. Newtons third law actually states “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. And. While I shall admit my folly on this part my logic for mike still holds ground.
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Dorothy won’t do a lot of things to you anymore, Dan.
If I read Dan’s line, “she wouldn’t do that … to me” as the “nothing really matters to me” from Bohemian Rhapsody everything in the world gets better.
Dumbing of Age the Musical!
id watch that
You’d have to be at least 21 to buy it.
See: David after Divorce.
Is this gonna last forever?
No! I… uh, Yes. Yes it probably will.
And now I can go to bed with a blanket of sorrow to tuck in my thoughts.
Yeah…. Danny’s like the Ken of Dumbing isn’t he?
So Joyce is the Barbie of Dumbing then?
Does that make Joe GI Joe?
He’s got a real Kung-fu grip :if ya know what I mean:
While Joyce is the Barbie of Dumbing.
I hope these problems with your web hosts are fixed up soon.
Did you get amnesia 😉
He’s just enjoying both possible timelines.
No, I thought that my first post failed to post and only saw that it indeed post after a couple of hours.
Unless I’m remembering this wrong (rather possible), Dorothy broke up with Danny because it was best for both of them? She might have given this reason, but another reason was that Danny needed to stop being to emotionally dependent on her.
In that sense, Walky is no problem because he’s very independent in that sense.
Does someone remember the date of the strip they broke up? I gotta look back.
These two, particularly the second backing up your impression (specifically his apparent willingness to drop out of university to stay with her):
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/through/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/kindness/
Thinking practically though, given that trying to do something does not guarantee success, it is not an unreasonable proposition to stay in a relationship with someone in case the endeavour to leave fails and they end up walking the same path (/able to walk the same path together) after all.
My long-term suspicion, held since that breakup (and strengthened somewhat by strips showing her struggling with studying), is that his hope is going to be paid off in that she’ll end up staying at that university anyway–and he’ll get absolutely nothing out of it except pain and unhappiness because she cut him out of her life for being able to contemplate that possibility.
Hmm… the reason he gives in this strip for her breaking up with him is not the reason she actually gave for breaking up with him (which is a reason not inconsistent with her enjoying herself with someone else in the meantime), but that reason she actually gave I view as a bad one.
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Separately, there is admittedly the ‘kindness’ undercurrent, which is only applicable under either the assumption that he can use the extra time to form a permanent relationship with someone who definitely won’t leave, or else that it would be best for him to not be in a relationship with anyone ever (which is questionable). This is assuming that any emotional relationship he forms, him being Danny, will be extremely strong on his end.
…Hmm, now I’m wondering whether her expression in this last panel represents guilt or pity. *curiosity!*
(Edit: ‘Service Temporarily Unavailable’… trying again. Apologies if this is posted multiple times somehow.)
I would say that a big reason that she left him was that he just didn’t understand how important getting an education was to her. She couldn’t respect him because he was so willing to give up his in order to stay with her, and because he thought it would be acceptable for her to decide to stay behind for him. I really find it inspiring that Dorothy didn’t want to settle for someone who had such different values. I wouldn’t want to be with someone who belittled my desire to better myself. And your argument that she should have stayed with him “in case [her] endeavor to leave fails” bothers me a bit, because even if she doesn’t get in one year, she can always try again, or try at a different school. Danny needs to become his own man, as well. He had no ambitions for the future other than to cling to Dorothy like she was some sort of weird trellis, and I find that a little… gross. He needs to strive for things on his own terms. IMHO, anyway.
Of course though she ended up getting together with Walky of all people, the same Walky where his greatest ambition is to have a bachelor pad made of legos. Or where all the stairs are slides. Or his pool is made of jello.
Okay scratch that, Walky’s got some big dreams.
But yeah, jokes aside, despite having this same exact thing happen to me(me being Danny), Dorothy is still my favorite character. She’s strong and independent and pretty straightforward with her feelings(despite needing Joyce once in a while). At the very least she cut him loose for his own good and not cause she started seeing that guy from work. Ho’.
I think, in the end, all the logical reasons Dorothy gave Danny were kind of an unintentional smoke screen for her simply not being attracted to him anymore. We don’t know under what circumstances they got together, but we do know that it was a long-term relationship, the kind that’s fueled as much by how well you know the person and how comfortable you are around them and how awkward the dating scene is as by actually WANTING to date them.
So I think it’s very human that Dorothy has ended up with someone who doesn’t actually fit any of what she thought she wanted — because she was wrong about her own reasoning.
(Sorry if you get a completely different comment in reply first, I mixed up the two people I was trying to respond to and the server is being pretty wacky right now.)
I think the thing with Walky though is it’s not serious (yet). It’s not developed enough that either of them will be heart-broken by her going somewhere else.
Walky may not have a lot of ambition, but he’s at least independent. He’s not likely to completely redefine himself to match someone else. Danny’s attachment to Dorothy was rather unhealthy, and probably is what lead to her not being attracted to him anymore (honestly, who’s attracted to someone like that? He needs to deal with those issues before getting back in to a relationship, so he can deal with it).
Note: this is in reply to Raine’s comment. It’s showing the comment box in the wrong place, and I’m not sure if it will post it in the right place.
Oh, nevermind; for some reason, I didn’t notice the nesting, so it is in the right place.
I’m gonna go ahead and call it now: Walky and Dorothy are going to get kinda serious, Dorothy will get rejected from Harvard only to find out that Walky was accepted, but didn’t want to go, because it seemed like too much work. She’ll get upset and DRAMA!
I was just going to predict that Mike has Walky’s shoes, but that’s alright, too.
But who pulled the drama tag then?
I actually can’t wait to see what dorothy has to say for herself, whatever it is, I don’t see it going well for danny. I cry for him.
Mike is sexy in boxers, just thought I’d throw that out there.
It;s not just the boxers–the high socks somehow contribute. It’s like the angry sociopathic dude version of Zettai Ryouiki or something. Mmmmmm 🙂
Are men also this creepy when discussing the perfect thigh to sock ratio?
If the TV Tropes page for Zettai Ryouiki is any indication, even more so, in a disturbing, clinical way.
……….
FFFFffffffff……
now I have to go check that out.
Goodbye, rest of the day.
Y’know Dotty, you probably would’ve saved yourself a lot of shit if you’d just told him “I’m breaking up with you because you’re a clingy pain in the ass,” or something of that like.
He’d have been super pissy about it for a while, but he probably would’ve gotten over it faster than he’ll get over this.
Kinda hits close to home right now. I just broke up with my now-ex for pretty much this reason.
At the very least, honesty would give him some basis for self-improvement so he can avoid making the same relationship mistakes in the future. “Sparing somebody’s feelings” during a breakup doesn’t really do them a lot of favors in the long run.
Oh, these avatars are so fun!
To be fair, I think Dorothy really BELIEVED everything she said to Danny — but I think a big part of why she wanted to break up with him was really that she just wasn’t that into him. You know?
She came up with a bunch of logical reasons, but the real reason she stayed in the relationship so long was inertia and comfort. She enjoyed being with Danny okay, but she just wasn’t feeling _in love_ with him. When she was hit by actual attraction to Walky, suddenly all those logical reasons no longer seemed to apply — because they had always been a smoke screen.
But again, I don’t think Dorothy is consciously aware of any of this, and so right now she just feels incredibly guilty over her inconsistency and is at a loss to explain her own behavior.
Well…if this escalates in the manner I hope it will someone won’t get shoes and others will be late for class.
Dang, that one hit me right here… I’m pointing at my heart.
damn, mike, that’s a harsh burn
I love that, no matter what universe we are in, Mike is still the ultimate douche.
Aha-haha-ha…
Surprise?
Ouch. and now Dotty gets to explain that she’s not dating the badass, but the creepy dude asking for shoes. So much awkward it hurts.
That’s right Danny. Dorothy (your ex) owes it to you to shape her love life around your feelings.
He’s just re-iterating to Mike what Dorothy told him. She doesn’t have to, but she at least owed the truth to him and that’s not what she did.
Whether she owed him the truth or not he certainly trusted that she gave it to him, and she certainly did betray that trust.
Except she broke up with him because he was overly clingy and emotionally dependent, he shaped his entire life around following her, he was going to continue to do so at his own detriment, and he undervalued her goals and dreams. And she said most of that, he simply read into it incorrectly.
She listed multiple reasons for the breakup. It’s not reading too much into it to think that each of these reasons are simultaneously true.
One of these reasons was that she doesn’t have the time for a boyfriend at the moment. This one turned out to be false. She just didn’t have the time for Danny, largely due to the reasons you listed.
She listed multiple reasons for the breakup. It’s not reading too much into it to think that each of these reasons are simultaneously true.
Oh now I understand what Mike is up to.
You know, I don’t particularly think Danny would have taken it any better, but I would have thought more of Dorothy if she was honest about her reasons for breaking up with him. Whether those reasons are “you are a good guy, but I’m not in the right time for a strong commitment,” “you are a good guy, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with you,” or “you are a really horrible boyfriend and I hope you die of herpes”.
Preferably the last one.
((In unrelated news I see my Gravatar is still intact and not devoured by internet dust puppies.))
Honestly, depending on how Dorothy handles things from here, this might be the best way that Dorothy and Danny’s relationship could go. If she WERE honest with Danny back then, he probably wouldn’t have listened. He was still too infatuated. I think Dorothy gave him the short end of the stick with the abrupt break-up and her just marching away in anger without giving the real, underlying reasons as to why they were breaking up, but I don’t think he would’ve been able to comprehend. And she may not have known them herself.
But now Danny’s had some time (well, days, anyway) away from Dorothy and has a good thing going with Amazi-girl AND Amber, despite his idiocy making me want to cave in that stupid head of his. He’s not acting *as* clingy with them as he was with Dorothy. He can probably be more open to what Dorothy has to say now without looking at her through his infatuated-colored glasses. Then he can improve himself based on that.
As people, I have faith that the two of them can work it out in the next few strips. However, as a STORYLINE, I’m sure a wrench will be thrown in there. Perhaps Amber is half-naked in Danny’s bed right now as we speak. Though, honestly, as long as Danny wasn’t fucking Dorothy’s best friend or a relative of her’s, she hasn’t much right to be angry or surprised about what Danny’s doing with other people because of the way she ended things.
A heartfelt “I’m sorry things happened this way and that I wasn’t totally honest with you before” might be the start of a good thing. And apologizing for trying to get HER EX-BOYFRIEND’S SHOES FOR HER NEW BOYFRIEND! THAT is just a bongo thing to do–I can’t defend that one.
Oh Mike, you brilliant bastard. Evil as you may be, you are one hell of a strategist…
I personally think this whole thing is actually for Walky’s benefit. Walky wouldn’t have known about this, and this might be a good way of showing him just the kind of person he’s dealing with.
Not that it will change anything, but the seeds of distrust have been sewn.
Oh Mike, you brilliant bastard. You may be the ultimate force of evil, but you are also one hell of a strategist…
I’m starting to think that the Mike of this world isn’t an overt asshole, but a guy that doesn’t like when people bullshit. Oh, and he enjoys a prank or two.
The moral of the story is that Dorothy is a terrible person, who uses other people for her own convenience without regard for their feelings.
Major props to Danny for making a successful stand against Mike, though. Those’re balls of his we haven’t seen before, unless I’ve purposefully missed something in the fanart.
Seriously, people, I don’t need to see Danny’s balls.
Everyone’s talking relationships and stuff but we are all forgetting the important part!
How is Walky ever going to get his shoes back?! Think of the children!
So what I think is interesting here is that yes, Mike is a douche, BUT it seems that ammunition he uses against others is almost exclusively their flaws (Walking being a slob etc) and mistakes (Dorothy lying to Danny).
He’s like a carnate bastardly version of your conscience, and he’s out to see you punished for your sins.
Man, Danny’s the kind of character who’s really easy to love in fiction and really easy to be annoyed by in real life.
He needs to find a clingy girl to hook up with so they can be needy together.
I guess I’m one of the few who likes Danny. Maybe it’s because I can relate to him (and Amber) more than any other character. Sometimes we all need a slap of honesty though, no matter how much it hurts.
Lets not forget that Dorothy gave Danny some crap for supposedly finding another girlfriend shortly after their breakup.
It wasn’t true mind you, and Danny took her to task for it.
But I consider it beyond cruel that she would try and pull some trick on Danny to get his shoes for her new boyfriend while knowing how much Danny cared for her in the past.
Thats cold and selfish.
I don’t know about cold, but selfish, yes. Self-oriented may be a better term though: Dotty seems to have a difficult time seeing things from any perspective but her own unless pushed. We saw this with the pajama jeans, with Amazi-girl, and now this.
…aaaand in comes Dorothy for the kill.
I’d honestly forgotten that “no new boyfriends” was what she said to Danny. Sucks to be him.
Since the break-up in question was pretty much the first thing that happened in Dumbing, preventing us from seeing these two as a couple, and since Danny so far has no personality that I can perceive, I find myself not caring here.
One of Newtons laws state that for every action their is an equal or greater reaction in mike’s case he acts as the reaction to other peoples’ flaws and or mistakes.
Actually that wasn’t one of his laws. You might want to look that up or at least promise you’ll never become a physics major.
As for what really happens when Joyce wakes up is, she’s going to take a machete into Briscoe, and randomly slash open a few abdomens, cart away the bodies into the shower, and make Walky some human leather shoes.
She will think she was still in the same dream, and re-wake up. Ultimately, she hooks up with Gilberto Valle, and they start a fast food restaurant, because Hostess is gone – and the brand “Ho Ho’s” is available for their new deep fried treat – OvaryBites.
Forgive me I was mistaken. Newtons third law actually states “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”. And. While I shall admit my folly on this part my logic for mike still holds ground.
Danny has AmaziGirl, what does he care?
Open wounds can remain open, even if you’re beginning a new romance.
Damn it Danny, you co-dependent idiot, her life does not revolve around you.
Mike Warner is easily the best at what he does.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
To say goodbye dorothy…You’re waving to say goodbye…
Digging the old school ish (90s version) Jonny Quest look!
Masterful mike in this scene. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
On an unrelated note, he looks AWESOME in panel one.
Oh Mike…