[7/22/11] Scroll (!!!)

[IS_Wolf]

Hmm..

Here's one that'll never happen before the strip ends.

Helen showing up back in town.

But yeah, want to see more of the Charlotte/Duane pairing, so the whole Duane/Michele thing is leaving me kinda bleh.
It would be more akin to Sara/Lucy than it is, than a say K-A/Jack from my perspective.

[Lia S]

But it might've been nice, instead of yet another relationship story, to have a running plot in which, say, Duane wrestled with whether to be more open about his faith with his friends.

I would love it if the possible spin-off were about that!

Love and sex and relationships are not all that teenagers think about.

No, those are the things many adults think about when they think about teenagers.

[sgtrock]

But it might've been nice, instead of yet another relationship story, to have a running plot in which, say, Duane wrestled with whether to be more open about his faith with his friends.

I would love it if the possible spin-off were about that!

Love and sex and relationships are not all that teenagers think about.

No, those are the things many adults think about when they think about teenagers.

Having been a teenage male at one time in my mis-spent youth, I can guarantee you that 80-90% of us were thinking something along the lines of;

sex, beer, baseball, sex, hockey, sex, cars, sex, sex, beer, sex, fishing, sex, hunting, sex, sex, sex, cars again.... Love? relationships? WAY down the list for most of us. That's why girls end up having to teach us.

Honestly, we can't help it. Nature dumps so much testosterone into our systems at that age we're simply incapable of reacting any other way. I read a layman's article a while back that compared the relative amounts of testosterone between adolescent boys and girls as something like a quart to a teaspoon.

I've sometimes wondered if people who early on identify as gay, bisexual or otherwise deviating from the norm face additional challenges because of that differentiation. It's got to be incredibly lonely for most such people in high school just because finding others with a similar orientation can be so difficult.

[Lia S]

I've sometimes wondered if people who early on identify as gay, bisexual or otherwise deviating from the norm face additional challenges because of that differentiation. It's got to be incredibly lonely for most such people in high school just because finding others with a similar orientation can be so difficult.

There are usually enough people who are different in one way or another to form another clique or two. Of course being one of the "weirdos" or "losers" isn't great, especially not for dating.

[Hexr]

I've sometimes wondered if people who early on identify as gay, bisexual or otherwise deviating from the norm face additional challenges because of that differentiation. It's got to be incredibly lonely for most such people in high school just because finding others with a similar orientation can be so difficult.

There are usually enough people who are different in one way or another to form another clique or two. Of course being one of the "weirdos" or "losers" isn't great, especially not for dating.

I'm sorry for derailing this conversation, but I must. See, I was one of the 'weirdos' in the (Finnish rough equivalent of) junior high, and it actually was great. We used to attract all kinds of non-standard people, which led to us having more fun than the 'normies'. At one point the clique actually was so huge, we could have redefined 'cool' in our schoold if we'd bothered. We didn't.
And no, Lia S, I am not stalking you. Sorry.

[sgtrock]

I've sometimes wondered if people who early on identify as gay, bisexual or otherwise deviating from the norm face additional challenges because of that differentiation. It's got to be incredibly lonely for most such people in high school just because finding others with a similar orientation can be so difficult.

There are usually enough people who are different in one way or another to form another clique or two. Of course being one of the "weirdos" or "losers" isn't great, especially not for dating.

Heck, by sheer accident I ended up leading such a band of misfits that did redefine cool. Not on purpose, mind you. It just sort of happened.

I was such a geek that I was unanimously acclaimed President and Dictator for Life of the Chess Club. I was also one of the kids who hung out in the computer lab after school.

Parts of those two crowds overlapped with a bunch that called ourselves the Hit the Road gang because when we sometimes forgot ourselves and got too noisy while having fun in the library, the school librarian used to throw us out by telling us to, you guessed it, "Hit the Road." Most of that crew also used to do a lot of off road racing on the logging roads (basically, two ruts defined by the grass strip between them) that ran all over the place through the woods. When we weren't driving, we were working on cars, arguing about cars, etc. You could say the name fit twice.

I got a letter from a friend of mine while I was in boot camp the fall after I graduated. It seems that all of a sudden there were lots of kids we didn't know saying they were part of the Hit the Road gang too. Like I said, I guess we redefined cool without meaning too.

And yet, in a school of 1200 kids in 10th through 12th I can only recall two girls who came out as lesbian /after/ graduation. Actually, now that I think about it, one of them was a 9th grader the year I graduated so she wasn't officially in high school until the following year.

The one guy I suspected at the time was gay has been happily married for more than thirty years to the woman he met his freshman year in college. (Maybe he's like Alice and Tamar? Bisexual who happened to find his soulmate?)

Anyhow, I grew up in a time and place when coming out of the closet in high school was generally a really, really bad idea. I've got to think that back then, at least, virtually all of the kids who did self identify as differing from the norm sexually must have had to hide it until they could move some place with more tolerant attitudes. That's what I meant by lonely. I'm glad to hear that attitudes have softened that much.

[Lia S]

Try redefining cool when you're in a clique of ten or less (and that's students from multiple years).
Lonely? Not quite.
Dangerous? Not at the school I went to.
Fun? Eh, no.
Dating? With who?

Your mileage may and probably will vary.

[NobodySpecial]

I've sometimes wondered if people who early on identify as gay, bisexual or otherwise deviating from the norm face additional challenges because of that differentiation. It's got to be incredibly lonely for most such people in high school just because finding others with a similar orientation can be so difficult.

There are usually enough people who are different in one way or another to form another clique or two. Of course being one of the "weirdos" or "losers" isn't great, especially not for dating.

What is this 'dating' you speak of, and how may I obtain it?

[Fruitbat44]

This a very late post on this thread, but it's something I've only just remembered.

Years ago when Gis handed over the artwork to Jason I made a plea that when (or as it seemed possible at the time "if") Penny and Aggie did become lovers, I would really like Gis to come back and draw their "hot yet tasteful" love scene.

Well they did. (YAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!!!!) Gis hasn't. (Which is cool with me.) And Jason did draw it. (And it's hot, yet tasteful.)

Thanks Jason.