Aw, Clevin. You’re so terribly insecure.

B-but senpai I made you pasta and tea 🙁

Yo, emotional labor is labor too. He did everything he could think of to help Alison, and that ended being little nice things to help easy her stress and help her concentrate on the big stuff. And he feels unappreciated because when it was the big time to say thank yous, it didn’t occur to Alison simply thank him.

He’s not even asking to be thanked, Alison wanted to know what was up with him so he shared his feelings. If Clevin is still coming off as needy or entilted to you, switch the gender roles abd see how that feels.

You guys calling Clevin entitled have never been in a relationship where you’ve been taken for granted.

I’m not saying Allison went quite that far, but having someone around to shoulder burdens they otherwise wouldn’t have had to handle had they been single makes a huge difference for stress levels. She also acknowledged other people for emotional support who were barely involved with doing such onscreen (her family).

By not giving Clevin at least a small nod, she made a dumb and relatively minor error that’s still correctable.

If you’ve got a supportive long-term partner (and not knowing the dates really does hurt here), you thank them at these things, period. Because they will have been dealing with all of your shit for quite a while. And what Clevin has been doing is invaluable. Because when you’re working hard enough you don’t have time to get up and make tea, someone bringing food to you is responsible for a good bit of your output.

But even partners notwithstanding…There is a reason, say, field teams have someone specifically responsible for food and campsite organization. It’s a job, a baseline job without which no work gets done, and if you know what’s good for you, you’d best be thankful to your logistics team. At conferences, you thank volunteers who were setting your tables and buying food while you were presenting and listening to others. There’s fewer than two dozen people involved, so no one who did work must be left out. It’s just etiquette.

I guess what doesn’t sit right with me is that Pintsize and Feral DO have greater ties to this than he does. They are superheroes, that she superhero’d with, being thanked at the opening of a non-profit run by superheroes. He has no connection to that world.

When I give a thank you speech, I can’t thank everyone who contributed or I would be there forever. I need to thank a limited list of people and a great way to whittle it down is to thank only the indispensable people and the people with direct ties to the thing I am speaking about. He is her boyfriend, but he is not indispensable to her success, at least not more than her friends. And he has no ties to the topic.

Remember guys – you need to open up emotionally, and not doing so is unhealthy. But the moment you do, everyone is going to mock you for being insecure and entitled, *just for having feelings*.

Fun stuff.

Is he being irrational? Yes, of course he is. Because emotions aren’t rational. If emotions were rational, they’d be reason. He’s being irrational in a completely human way, and is dealing with it in the best possible way of when you are feeling something irrational — you tell your partner that, yeah, I’m being irrational, and here’s what I’m being irrational about.

Source — have been in a committed relationship for twenty-three years, married for eighteen.

Lots of Wild Speculation:
Clevin has been made into a “tool” of some sort by outside forces. He was brainwashed, hypnotized, manipulated, or otherwise had some kind of mind whammy. He may not even be aware of it. This may be the first signs of the “programming” showing itself. A manifestation that could be passed off as something that humans are known to do and easily dismissed for the early warning sign that it is really meant to be. Depending on how things play out his “role” may be safe or there may be a sudden activation of any “failsafes” in place that may cause a rather dynamic situation to develop.

Histories blandest milquetoast gets shook because the girl he’s been dating for three months doesn’t thank him for his pasta at an event he contributed nothing too. I don’t think I’ve seen a weaker male lead.

I guarantee the next strip will be SFP bending over backwards to validate him

Oddly I’ve just been having a real world discussion about people feeling entitled to thanks and ‘helping’ as performance art intended to draw kudos from the audience. (Over people trying to ‘help’ us as wheelchair users, not asking permission or guidance and then getting all huffy when we try to tell them they’re getting in the way/hurting/damaging the chair/pushing in the opposite direction we want to go).

The difference between that and Clevin is he probably is willing to take direction and he wasn’t about to ask for praise, Alison just happened to be perceptive enough (character growth!) to notice and pin him down over what’s wrong, and Clevin’s upset not because he didn’t get praised, or wanted praise, but because he was left out of a list of people contributing at a similar level.

I love this scene, it’s totally in line with Clevin’s established character to date. At the party he feels sad about not getting credited for being supportive, and instead of acting uncomfortable, being an ass at the party, or even just passively being a wet mop he set those feelings aside and actively enjoyed the presence of those people who had just earned greater official recognition from his girlfriend then he did for doing similar things. He does this even as they totally dominate Alison’s attention.

Clevin having the maturity to do this was fairly wonderfully foreshadowed at the benefit concert he hosted. Clevin runs into Alison before it goes off and invites her to it and fairly shortly after leaves. At the benefit concert he is clearly happy that Alison shows, but does not lend her any kind of special attention until after the concert is over. Key to this situation is the fact that Clevin does not come off as desperate for Alisons attention at any point, does not hold a grudge for how Max treated him last time he tried to invite Alison out for a movie, and is able to set his own personal feelings aside until he is disengaged from the task at hand and can freely set aside time for himself. All of these actions show that Clevin is able to keep things in perspective and moderate his own feelings for the good of others, but also that he doesn’t go so far in doing so that he sacrifices himself for others.

Beyond that bit of appreciation for a well crafted internally consistent character, I’d like to show some appreciation for the fact that this role was given to a male character. I have rarely seen male characters given roles like this and portrayed as a strong characters simultaneously. The only real example I can think of is Marten from Questionable Content, a comic that by it’s very nature focuses on characters because they are fundamentally flawed in some way, and seems to move on when they become less flawed and grow up. Marten was a fairly weak character for most of the time in the comic when there was enough focus on his character to get lines like this, and now that he’s matured the focus has shifted.

Comments on this page were an interesting read… However, I feel the real point here is not Clevin’s whining, but rather the fact he felt offended in the first place. My first thought reading this was “D’oh. Why does he react like that? He should be proud of his girlfriend’s success.”
Okay, he’s insecure, lacks confidence, needs validation and inclusion, etc. So he feels threatened by Al’s superhero pals, feels useless, craves her attention… I get it.
Let’s look at page 7-6. Mr Clevin looks good, confident, he wears his suit like a boss.
Al gushes “you’re here!” He brings flowers. She’s delighted (her expressions are very well drawn). He makes compliments and jokes. Al is proud to introduce him to her pals… Then she introduces him to her parents. At this point her mom says “Is this Clevin?” and his dad reveals he knows Clevin is in a band. Clever way by the authors to imply that Al’s been cooing over him to her parents in excruciating detail. She’s really into him. The authors tell a lot with one strip here.
Also, him and Al wear matching clothes, which is another tell (ie, either they bought these together, or one wears the other’s gift). So we do have a rather serious (and cute) relationship here. Now, this man looks like a nice catch. How does he turn into a wimpering mess by page 17-7? Is it bad writing or subtle character development? Suspense… Well, there are signs…
Page 7-6 again, Hector says “If you break her heart, I’ll break-aaa your face!” By which he manages to:
1- Imply she needs his help to punch someone’s face, which considering her superpowers, is kinda insulting to her… I mean we could rephrase it as “I’m a male feminist! You girls will achieve nothing without my help!” (cue laff box)
2- If Clevin has any clue, he will correctly interpret both Hector blurting out some witty joke to get Al’s attention and his white-knighting as needy attitude. Most likely Hector’s desperate, he wants her sooooo bad, has been simmering in her friendzone for years, but she “doesn’t see him that way.” (Cant’ blame her for that. He kinda dug his own grave here. Sorry Hector.)
Al shuts Hector up with a mean frown then he shrinks back into his safe space, mumbling excuses. And then Brad says “Forgive my companion’s toxic masculinity,” thereby labelling himself as a clown.
Good-guy Clevin should now be totally relaxed, should now understand why Al had to reach outside of her group of friends for a date…
But the dark clouds gather… Poor insecure Clevin is actually thrown off balance by Hector’s bad joke. I mean, he could at least reply “Nice to meet you, dear father-in-law” or something equally dumb, with a good hug and a pat on the back. This defuses the mock-threat in a humorous manner (also implying he doesn’t give a single f-) while signalling to Hector that there’s no offense. And Al wouldn’t have had to deploy that killer frown.
But… surprise and thunderclaps, instead Clevin gasps, rolls his eyes, and Al has to come to the rescue.
The final piece in the puzzle falls into place: Clevin is acting the Damsel In Distress trope. Al rescues him. Clevin is, therefore, her girlfriend.
Sorry about the long digression. Now armed with this information, we can understand the current page better. Clevin is simply acting like a stereotypical miffed woman: he didn’t get the attention he needed (and felt he deserved), so he raises drama and uses passive-aggressive whining and nagging to get his validation fix.
Now, re-read the current page, and gender-swap the characters. Cast Clevinette as the soft, emotional cinnamon roll. Suddenly everything makes sense. We’ve all seen this scene before many times.
Clevinette looks away shyly “Nooo it’s nothing” while hoping Al’s gonna care enough to pry it out…
Al reassures, soothes, and does tease it out…
Clevinette spills the beans, and she’s been overthinking so much that she blurts out a half page worth of text bubbles. Note the passive aggressive tone is well written. First Clevinette blames herself to build up pity, then begs for validation. Clevinette is such a whiny bitch!
Now, had Clevin been a man, he whould have said “I’m so proud of you!” (kiss) “And thank you for giving me so much credit in your speech! That really moved me to tears.”
My money’s on Al dumping him for the handsome mysterious bad guy she talked about during the party. They’ll get together, and take over the world.