Skip to main content

The Sally Forth Affair -- Writer's Poke #254

Whenever people talk about their favorite syndicated cartoons, they usually mention strips like The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, and Dilbert. Sally Forth is not one that generally comes up, but I think it's pretty good. In a lot of ways, I think it's just as smart as the cartoons referred to above, but maybe it's just not as flashy. I guess you could describe it as understated, and not a cartoon for kids, per se. Nevertheless, it's funny enough that it probably should be appreciated by old and young alike.

One of the ongoing story lines is Ted's office romance with Aria. Ted and Sally's marriage seems solid. They don't have any issues that might cause Ted to stray. And if you asked Ted what his relationship with Aria is all about, he would most likely look at you blankly. In Ted's mind, he and Aria are just friends. They share a lot of the same interests, and the chemistry between them is clearly there. But Ted isn't a dog, and the thought of having an affair with Aria would never cross his mind.

Likewise, Aria enjoys Ted's company at work, but she's not trying to destroy Ted's marriage. She's not trying to lead Ted on. But the underlying reality is: she's an unattached heterosexual woman, and Ted is a heterosexual man. If Ted weren't married, it wouldn't take much imagination to see him and Aria together. But since he is married, both of them enjoy each other's company in a strictly platonic way.

Other characters in the strip, such as Sally's friend Alice, as well as some of Ted's coworkers, believe that there is something funny, or at least inappropriate, about Ted and Aria's relationship. Alice describes Aria as Ted's "office wife," and eventually, based on the perceptions of others, as well as the low-level jealousy exhibited by his wife, Ted decides to confront Aria to clarify their relationship. He's never really able to do that, though, as he always ends up tripping over his own words, and/or because Aria cuts him off and makes fun of him.

If the relationship is completely innocent, then one question: When one of Ted's coworkers goes out on a date with Aria, why does that bother Ted so much?

Can men and women just be friends?

"Flirtation: attention without intention." -- Max O'Neil

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Jesus and the Inconvenience of His Word to American Christians

I'm not a preacher, but if you follow the teachings of Jesus, it was he who said: Do to others as you would have them do to you. That's from Luke 6:31 , and reading all of Luke 6 isn't a bad way to spend five minutes of your time.  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%206&version=NIV I guess a lot of Christians understand the Golden Rule and practice it in their daily lives. Others, however, especially political Christians (and specifically those promoting Christian Nationalism) seem to ignore the Golden Rule. They don't care about humanitarian issues. They claim they either don't exist, aren't the problem of the United States, or are the fault of the victims. They counter with distractions like, "Why do you care so much about THEM when you should be caring about the REAL people who matter?" Sorry, but I don't recall Jesus ever dividing people into those who matter more and those who matter less. Of course, Jesus also said not to j...

Microblogging? The Future of Writing with ADHD

Bill Bennett is a very common name. Right now, I'm reading a book by the Australian film maker Bill Bennett. He hiked the Camino in 2013 and then wrote a book (and made an Australian movie, not available in the U.S.) about it.  Seems he kept a blog about that hike, too. I went to look for his Camino blog, and found he started one years after the hike, but he didn't post regularly... His last post from 2022 announced his had Parkinson's and had kept the diagnosis secret for 4 years.  Now that almost three years have passed from that post, I wonder what's happened to him.  Blogs are weird. They just sit there. Anyone can stumble upon them, and read them. So I decided to keep looking for his Camino blog.  https://billbennett.blog/home/ *** And I found another Bill Bennett, this one from New Zealand, who keeps a microblog. It's current and updated. "What's a microblog?" My wife asked. Well, I said, it's a small blog. Just a sentence or two for a post. ...