2011-09-23
Explanation
This comic is a relationship humor strip about the gap between romantic declarations and practical demonstrations of love. A man begins telling a woman the classic romantic line: "Baby, I would climb any mountain, cross any valley, just to be with you. I would swim any--" but the woman interrupts with a simple test: "Would you eat this brick?" The man is thrown off and sputters "What?" She presses: "Would you eat this brick? All of it."
He tries to recover with his romantic speech -- "I would climb any mountain and I--" but she cuts through the rhetoric. She points out that lots of guys would say those grand romantic things, but if she met someone special, someone who truly loves her so much that he would eat just this one brick, she would know it was real. The man protests that he does not think he can eat a brick, and she delivers the punchline: "Well, now whenever you think 'why doesn't she love me?' at least you'll know the answer."
The final panel shows the man at what appears to be a hardware store, apparently buying a brick, having been convinced by her absurd logic. The caption asks "How'd it go?" and someone answers "Right! It's easy to get rid of clingy guys!" -- revealing that the entire brick challenge was not a genuine test of love but a deliberate strategy the woman uses to drive away overly persistent suitors by setting an impossible and ridiculous condition.
The votey shows the man eating the brick and saying "I'm so alone," underscoring that he actually went through with eating the brick and still did not win her affection, making his situation even more pathetic.