That is retarded. You can in fact have too much air/food/water/etc.

I have all sorts of reservations about my friends relationships. You’ll probably never see me lecturing my friends on the lack of wisdom apparent in marrying someone when you’ve known them for six months. Most of us understand that we’re not doing our friends any favors by saying these things, we’re just being dicks. I sincerely believe that were Jacob in the state Amber first met him in he would know that saying these things isn’t proper.

I do agree that people have been overly harsh on the guy, for a variety of reasons. Part of it though I think is also that it’s hard to actually approve of his actions, and it’s hard to make disapproval sound mellow.

I definitely agree with your point about Amber liking Mike not necessarily giving her the ability to assess this with a clear head. Love is blind. Love makes people do crazy things. Etc etc all that sappy stuff. Personally I’m actually quite sure that romantic love is a form of insanity. It blinds you to reason, obscures facts, alters your perceptions, and impairs your judgement. People who choose to pursue it pretty much have to accept this, since near as I can tell there’s no real way to avoid these side effects.

And thank you to you too. I’d be lying if I said your perspective hasn’t been enlightening. This has all been quite pleasant.

(Only replying to this one because I can’t reply to the other )

I’m not saying Mike is or isn’t “worthy” or “doesn’t change”. I was at first, but well crafted arguments have changed my opinion. I’m trying to give a third party assessment that might affect Jacob’s view.
Do I think they are right for each other – if you had asked me before talking with you and others I’d have said “NO he‘s dangerous“ now I‘m in a “who knows, they could make it work“ territory. Relationships can be incredibly complicated and are much more difficult to turn into right or wrong – doesn’t stop human nature from making people try to make it that way.

I’m saying Jacob isn’t wrong in thinking that he isn’t being that he has no reason for HIM to believe Mike is good for Amber. He seems to think highly of Amber (since he likes her and all) so that could be color his perception on Mike combined with the fact that Mike is blatantly rude and cruel to almost everyone.

There is a tiny flaw in what you said as well; just because Amber likes Mike doesn’t make him good for her. People can and do fall in love with people who can be downright hazardous to them or just plain bad for them.
In fact liking someone can block out the ability to rationally ask yourself if that person is good/right for you. (Not saying Mike is or isn’t, just pointing that out) As I agreed through right and wrong are difficult to assess.

On the other hand I do think Jacob is wrong in assuming that it’s all because of Amber’s self-esteem issues. She seems to have some awareness of what she wants for right or wrong.
It’s just I don’t think it right to be so harsh on the guy about his assumption as it does have grounds in reality and what HE knows about the situation.
It’s a very normal thing that everyone does and if we can’t sympathies with him at all; right or wrong, it would make us hypocrites…
It’s not like Jacob has been reading the comic with us, he only know what he knows.

Jacob’s possible PoV: Amber; a girl with known self esteem issues who he likes, is dating Mike; a guys who is known to beat people up and casually throws nasty insults at everyone. What is he supposed to think?
We have the ability to dissect the situation in a way he doesn’t and I try to keep that in mind as I read and apply sympathy.
Or at least before I complain about somebody. (I’m not sure if I sympathies with Jacob – I just try to see where he’s comin’ from. I also try to see where Amber is coming from – although I did start with a bias which I am thankful is now gone…)

On a side note: I actually found conversation to have been quite entertaining and enlightening; it made me think about things I hadn’t considered and I have been greatly educated by it. I wanted to say thank you for that!

Are there better men out there? Hells yeah. Are there other men who Amber wants? No.

And that seems to me to be perfectly legitimate. If someone says “You could do better” and you think “but he’s all I want”, then you’re in the right.

I mean Mike has faults. Serious large scale faults. Let’s ask some other questions though. Are they compatible together? Well yes. Don’t ask me how but they do somehow get along famously. Do they make eachother happy? To a fucking ridiculous degree. Yeah. Is this a two way street? Once again yes. For all Mike’s reticence he is constantly doing things to make Amber happy and to help her out. She expresses an interest in the moon and he reaches out and grabs it for her. I can’t think of what Amber’s done for Mike in that department but I’d have a hard time believing that Amber was the leech in this relationship. Either way it’s not Amber’s contributions to the relationship that are being criticized. Let us assume that both are consistently engaged in service to eachother.

For all that Mike’s the one who “Doesn’t grow” he has shown a willingness to put his issues aside when Amber requires it, as evidenced by his getting sauced for Amber’s mom when Amber was worrying about what kind of impression he was making. He’s done multiple things for her that he was blatantly uncomfortable with, but could suck it up just to make things work.

Further questions we could ask. Do they trust eachother? I don’t even feel I have to detail how much they trust eachother. You see them. Amber knows all Mike’s secrets and Mike knows all Amber’s shit. They’ve both quite literally entrusted eachother with the ability to destroy eachother. It doesn’t get much more trusting than that.

“She could do better” is a completely bullshit premise. Gauging worth is a completely backwards way of looking at things. Tear apart his faults. What’s that saying? I think it goes “We like people for their qualities, but we love them for their flaws” but I might have the wording wrong.

Either way, looking at a happy couple looking to get married and telling one of them they could do better is complete bunk. If he doesn’t know them well enough to know they’re a happy couple then he doesn’t know them well enough to make such a claim even if they weren’t at such a stage in their relationship. He’s not “Pointing out the obvious”. He’s using faulty reasoning and applying it to the barest surface appearance of the situation. They have all the elements of a working couple as near as you could dissect something like that.

I will of course reiterate that it’s not that big a deal. The guy is unwell. I’m sure he would never have done this if he were in a halfway decent headspace. This being said he’s still quite incorrect. Plus it would have been a dick move regardless of who he said this to or how correct it was short of it being a case of spousal abuse. None of what he’s said from the moment he announced his lovesickness to a woman in a committed relationship was at all proper. He is quite clearly not on his game right now. I mean he started the conversation by slamming the door on Amber’s foot and then awkwardly backing down and apologizing for his outburst. He is not at all together right now.

“But wouldn’t it be nice to spend the rest of your life with someone who ISN’T just a pile of issues?”

He never even said she should date someone with NO ISSUES, Amber takes it that way…

Normal people aren’t generally bogged down by their issues to the point where they act like assholes for the sake of acting like assholes.

Normal people’s issues tend to be (relatively) under control…

Of course normal is relative and everyone does have issues, but I think you get what I am getting at…

Normal = doesn’t let their issues be all they have to them.

However caring about someone and being good for that someone are different things…
You can care about someone and be awful for them…
Mike making a good husband regardless of his caring about Amber is questionable given his well – Mike-ness and my major complaint it peoples general hypocrisy and lack of sympathy towards Jacob based solely on shipping instead of logic.

From a third person perspective Mike is – well – MIKE! And some act like Jacob just slapped Amber and screamed “break up with Mike and be one with me for Mike is evil and I am GOOD” as if Mike is a knight in shining armor and Jacob is evil for suggesting that he thinks Amber is to good for him. They don’t even acknowledge Mike as the jerk we all know and love because that would justify Jacob’s concerns and of course in all situations there must be a RIGHT GOOD guy and a WRONG BAD guy…

Same thing with Drew really; they throw around the term ‘abusive’ and other such things – these are very serious terms which don‘t mesh with the character simply because they have taken his words to mean Drew hates Ethan‘s collecting instead of him generally being concerned about him.
These people also seem to only see Ethan as a toy collector with no other traits that could be negatively effected by his addiction; this would suggest they see Ethan as a fairly flat character who is only worth being cared about if he collects toys.

Of course they also act as if Drew is screaming “give up collecting you FREAK” instead of voicing his growing concern.

It’s really quite disgusting; disagreeing is one thing, but people take it personally and overblow it to the point where you’d think Drew was beating and manipulating Ethan constantly just to get him to stop collecting as opposed to him being worried about their relationship or that Jacob was trying to get Amber out of a ‘loving and stable’ relationship to break her so she would date him instead of being generally concerned about her…

Note to everyone: These people are not evil – they are not evil just because they questioned something that they may have legitimate reasons to be concerned about! In the case of Jacob you could make the argument he is being nosy, but he’s concerned and it is a legit concern given Mike’s established behavior.

Went to the transformers movie. Brought Drew with him to Botcon. Went out for drinks with Amber and Mike after during a moment of perspective after initially turning her down to buy more toys.

Maybe Drew would like it if Ethan could fit some time in the schedule to actually do things together. You know, like not toy things. Things that normal couples do just because they like to spend time together.

It could turn out he’s being a dick and Ethan’s been giving the guy what he needs and Drew just has a hangup about toys. It could just as easily turn out that Ethan’s obsession is currently eating up too much of his time and he needs to just mellow out a little bit and understand the the toys will still be there tomorrow once in a while.