I'm pretty sure this is the last we see of Jim. Which may seem weird. It was a little cruel to end him here.

If I'm remembering right, I pulled back on his character because I'd been told by enough people that, when alone together, "men don't talk like that" (referring to the other guys' reactions). By the time this arc came around and the same sentiments reanimated, I decided I should just stop writing my male characters alone together.

After talking to enough cis men about this, I'm of the flexible opinion that a) justifiably, I had no idea most men talk differently around other men than they do in front of women, and b) that "most men" is not "all men." I have male friends who - with some understandably nuanced alterations to what I wrote - talk to each other similarly, at least as far as topics go. 

I've sometimes wondered why I don't get called out similarly for the way I write women, because what I've shared with some of those male friends is that I've never personally fit into "the norm" for what's expected of me in single-gendered social interactions. But, while I've never fit, I've often been absorbed. So I've seen my fair share of "how women act together," awkwardly taking notes from my camouflaged sidelines. It feels a little like cheating.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind that I'm not going to get into this too deeply. This strip was, without a doubt, written at 8 pm the night it was due. GWS was written on the fly and everyone who read it essentially read me growing up, in a roundabout way. I'm just glad I wasn't writing autobio comics at the time; at least I could fling most of my flaws on whatever fictional character was close enough to act as an emotional coathanger! (Sorry, Hazel, always the closest coathanger.)

And here's the old post!