One of Tom's answers about Annie.

[todd]

I found this in the Gunnerkrigg Wiki in its Questions and Answers section on Annie:

"If an attractive and well-mannered young chap were, hypothetically, to ask Annie to the picture show (or whatever equivalent might be available for students of the Court) with genuine intentions, what would her reaction be?

She would probably agree to go. And also take Kat with her."

While I'm still not quite ready to wrap my mind around Annie on a date, I'd like to see this, particularly the "take Kat with her" part - just to see the look on the boy's face when he discovers that Annie brought along a friend and that he won't have the opportunity for a private outing after all.

[bookworm]

Haha, but what boy would that be? I would've thought maybe Jack, but i don't think annie's gonna want to go anywhere with him after the robot incident...
Would be very interesting though

[Refugee]

Just as a matter of first date etiquette:

It is one thing to go as a couple on a group outing of some kind, such as a picnic or school project or church function.

It is one thing to go on a double-date, so Annie bringing along Kat and Kat's date is fine.

It is one thing for a girl to say, "My friend Kat and I are going on this slightly dangerous adventure, and we thought it would be nice to have you along." (Implied: You big manly warrior, you.)

It is another thing entirely to take a girl out and have her bring along or meet up with a friend unexpectedly. This is plain bad manners.

While you are out on a date, even in a group (especially in a group), you are with your date. If you meet another friend in public, you may greet your friend, but if you spend more than 60 seconds on this greeting, expect your date to fidget, and to eventually start flirting with your friend.

*sigh*

I suppose these days it is necessary to allow for the case of, "My girlfriend Kat and I are going to this wedding, but I need a beard. " At least it's honest, to the boy, anyway.

[shouqi]

Annie is a cautious person when it comes to socialization. Let he who has never had trepidation towards an outing throw the first stone.

[todd]

Not to mention that Annie might not realize he means it as a date.

[Refugee]

Apr 13, 2010 0:08:24 GMT shouqi said:

Annie is a cautious person when it comes to socialization. Let he who has never had trepidation towards an outing throw the first stone.

*throw*

And darn tootin' I've had trepidation. Dating is a profound act of bravery for most teenagers.

That's why I provided options for group dates. The thing I'm objecting to here is the surprise factor.

[the bandit]

Apr 12, 2010 23:49:50 GMT Refugee said:

It is another thing entirely to take a girl out and have her bring along or meet up with a friend unexpectedly. This is plain bad manners.

While true, Tom's answer still makes sense. Annie would be too kind to turn the young man down, but would surprise him with Kat in order to keep the evening from becoming too intimate. Though her speech is overly polite, her actions aren't necessarily as so.

[Ulysses]

I thought it meant that Annie would assume the invitation would extend to Kat too. I think Annie would be surprised that the boy hadn't brought someone as well.

[Refugee]

Apr 13, 2010 18:17:30 GMT Ulysses said:

I thought it meant that Annie would assume the invitation would extend to Kat too. I think Annie would be surprised that the boy hadn't brought someone as well.

...?

I have never heard of the practice of bringing a friend along on a date as a matter of course.

Again, there is the practice of double-dating, where Kat brings along a boyfriend of her own. That's acceptable, even traditional, particularly for a first date. (Although the fact that it's a double should be made clear up front.)

There is one acceptable interpretation of Tom's statement here: "If you date one of us, you date both of us. That extends to the make-out." Boys would be lining up for that, you betcha. But it seems way out of character for both Annie and Kat.

A milder version of this is deeply insulting to Kat: Annie doesn't want to hurt Kat's feelings, and doesn't think Kat is capable of rustling up her own entertainment or her own boyfriend. Well-meant, but damn, girl! Have some faith in your best friend!

Annie is a brave, strong girl. She can handle herself. She's also a pretty good judge of character. If she, capable as she is, doesn't feel comfortable going out with a particular boy, she's certainly capable of simply, politely, turning him down.

I don't understand why people think she needs, or would want, a wingman on a date. I can't believe she would agree to a date with a boy she didn't trust.

I don't understand why folks can't see how horribly insulting and demeaning that would be for the boy.

I don't understand why folks aren't turning this around: a girl accepts a date, and the boy shows up unexpectedly with his friend. That strikes me as outright threatening.

I can see that going out on a date is somewhat out of character for Annie. Fine. She doesn't go out on dates until she's ready. Or she doubles, or goes to a group activity.

But bringing along Kat as a security blanket, a teddy bear, a chaperone?

No! The Annie I've come to know and love in this story is far too independent and self-sufficient for that.

[Riess]

Or she just doesn't know date etiquette. Or she misunderstands the original intent of the invitation from the way it happens to be worded. She doesn't have that much experience interacting with folks her age, remember?

[the bandit]

Apr 13, 2010 18:17:30 GMT Ulysses said:

I thought it meant that Annie would assume the invitation would extend to Kat too. I think Annie would be surprised that the boy hadn't brought someone as well.

I can read it that way, too.

I don't know what Refugee is going on about.*

*Actually, I do, but he's belaboring a point no one is disputing and thereby I am using this rhetorical trick to point it out.

[todd]

Apr 13, 2010 18:47:19 GMT Riess said:

Or she just doesn't know date etiquette. Or she misunderstands the original intent of the invitation from the way it happens to be worded. She doesn't have that much experience interacting with folks her age, remember?

Knowing Annie, that's the most likely explanation.

[optern]

Annie and Kat go everywhere together because they're best friends. We aren't talking "dating" like it applies to twenty-somethings anyway; these are younger people and they don't always act the same ways.

[Mr Pitchfork]

Refugee, Word of Tom disagrees with you. That's really the end-all.

[Refugee]

Apr 14, 2010 6:49:40 GMT Mr Pitchfork said:

Refugee, Word of Tom disagrees with you. That's really the end-all.

I'm not arguing that Annie wouldn't do such thing; I'm expressing my opinion of her (or anyone) doing so. As given, without knowing the exact circumstances, I'd regard it as a flaw.

The question then would be, is it a flaw in Annie's character, one of those things that arises naturally and reveals something previously hidden about who Annie is; or is it a flaw in characterization, something that the author tacks on because it meets plot needs or, even worse, because it's "cute".

I'm sorry if I was strident, but I read the response of many here, as that last, that it would cute if Annie behaved that way. (I'll note that Tom said nothing about why Annie would do it, so I can pass no judgment there.) I don't think it would be. I'd feel about it much the same way I did about Annie's response to Mort's gift. (And, indeed, as Annie herself regarded it, once she realized what she had done.)

[Per]

Apr 14, 2010 16:36:06 GMT Refugee said:

The question then would be, is it a flaw in Annie's character, one of those things that arises naturally and reveals something previously hidden about who Annie is; or is it a flaw in characterization, something that the author tacks on because it meets plot needs or, even worse, because it's "cute".

It's not "cute" or a "flaw". It's a) what young girls might do, b) not a matter of dating as the question was originally phrased and c) not something that has happened in the comic at all.

[Refugee]

Apr 14, 2010 16:51:58 GMT Per said:

It's not "cute" or a "flaw". It's a) what young girls might do,

I don't know any young girls who have done such thing, nor, way back in my dating days, had I ever heard of any doing such a thing.

b) not a matter of dating as the question was originally phrased

Asking "Annie to the picture show (or whatever equivalent might be available for students of the Court) with genuine intentions" sure sounds like a date to me.

and c) not something that has happened in the comic at all.

True, but several here expressed the opinion they'd like to see it happen. I wouldn't, and I've tried to explain (apparently unsuccessfully) why not.

[todd]

Sorry for inadvertently offending you, Refugee. I'm afraid I don't know that much about dating etiquette (having never gone out on a date myself) - though I assumed that Annie wouldn't know either, or wouldn't recognize it as a date (due to her not being that familiar with adolescent social life). If I'd been more familiar, I probably wouldn't have commented on Tom's answer the way I did.

[Mr Pitchfork]

Sure, it's a flaw, but I don't see why you wouldn't think that Annie would bring Kat not because she's a jerk but because she doesn't know anything about dates because she lived in a hospital up until just now and doesn't know anything about people.

Just a thought.

[Refugee]

Apr 16, 2010 18:32:09 GMT Mr Pitchfork said:

Sure, it's a flaw, but I don't see why you wouldn't think that Annie would bring Kat not because she's a jerk but because she doesn't know anything about dates because she lived in a hospital up until just now and doesn't know anything about people.

That's certainly a possibility, but I sorta think Kat does know something about people, and would explain to Annie what the deal is.

And I suspect Annie would catch on right away, and would either arrange a group date, go it one-on-one, or simply decline if she didn't feel comfortable around the particular guy involved.

That scene with Kat (and commentary by Reynard) I suspect Tom would handle very amusingly.

I again apologize if I was strident in my opening comments here, but something about this whole set up just struck me as wrong and bad on several levels. I simply can't make it fit with what I know about normal dating behavior, or with Annie's and Kat's personalities.

[coyotagoat]

I think it's just that she wouldn't consider not inviting Kat. Being somewhat of an asocial bent ( I'm on an Internet forum for Chrissake), I know te situation where you have one, close friend who you go everywhere with, unconditionally. And as we saw in the camping chapter, Kat kinda has to act as a "go-between" (for want of a better term) for Annie and the rest of the kids. Not arguing with anybody, just my two cents. Although, some of refugees comments make me think he is a little... Confused (?) about the age group. These are 12 to 13 year olds at most, and not quite to the point of developing all of this "dating etiquette". They're just figuring things out, in between mysterious adventures, of course. And also, friendly though she may be, I don't think Kat is quite the social expert that Annie (or some of us) think she is. *whew* ok, all done. How did I write all this, anyway? WTF, Brain?

[imaginaryfriend]

My two cents: When I was in late grade school through early middle school there was a group dating scene, but it was nothing about etiquette. It was about fear. We didn't really understand it at the time but that whole puberty thing had suddenly made talking to the opposite sex incredibly awkward and nobody really knew what the heck to do. Therefore, one or two unduly-advanced core couples would start inviting others with them to pair off select members with favored outsiders, often with random jerks tagging along, uneven boy/girl ratios or other built-in disasters waiting to happen.

Inviting four or five extra people without telling someone was commonplace though it was a bad sign for whoever got left out of the loop. That usually meant someone (usually the females) had decided to run interference and break up and/or switch off one of the couples. I'm not sure if Refugee meant it this way but the extra people in the group date did sort of act like beards. Not beards to hide gay people, but as cover for both the whole Parley/Smitty sort of "I can't let him/her know I like him/her until I'm sure he/she likes me first" dance and any Cupid/anti-Cupid maneuvering going on.

If, after weeks/months of a couple actually admitting they like each other (and then getting into pointless drama and fights over and over) then they might actually begin dating outside the group. At that age solo dating mostly meant talking on the phone endlessly at all hours of the day and night, hanging out at each other's homes under parental supervision, and vague promises of going to the junior prom someday.

Another thing: Most of the kids I was with at that age didn't know much about behaving in public, let alone date etiquette. Under the intense and unfamiliar social pressure things often got ugly, particularly with guys doing wacky stuff trying to impress the girls. Remembering some of the things I've seen people do on those group dates is painful... like the jerk next to me suddenly deciding to drop milkshake from upper levels of the mall onto innocent bystanders, or finding out how many french fries one can fit into one's nostril, or if it was really necessary to take ketchup from the packet before consuming it.

Believe it or not, the girls mostly condemned that stuff when it happened but secretly ate it up and often went out with the guys who were the worst perpetrators of dumb mayhem. I got a serious stigma by not being stupid along with them that didn't entirely fade until senior year. Thank a merciful God that my age cohort [mostly] grew out of that behavior when they left middle school.

Caveat: My personal experiences of group dating were in the mid 1980s. I'm told it's all computerized now, which probably makes things much easier in some ways, worse in others.

[the bandit]

Apr 25, 2010 6:26:46 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Believe it or not, the girls mostly condemned that stuff when it happened but secretly ate it up and often went out with the guys who were the worst perpetrators of dumb mayhem.

Oh, I believe it. I would've bet money on it if you had given me the chance.

[todd]

I sometimes wonder, for that matter, whether any of the boys at Gunnerkrigg would even dare ask Annie out. She might be too intimidating (if she slaps a powerful trickster-god for sticking his nose up her skirt, regular boys her age are going to *have* to conduct themselves like gentlemen around her!).