2012-05-03
Explanation
This comic, titled "This is why I'''m not nostalgic for young romance," satirizes the intensity and fragility of teenage relationships. In the first panel, a young man professes his undying love to a woman with grandiose declarations: "I will love you as long as the sun bears light. I will be by your side as long as mankind treads earth. For you, I would crush mountains, drain oceans, travel lightyears..." This is the kind of overwrought, cosmic-scale romantic promise typical of young love.
In the very next panel, the woman cheerfully responds, "Cool! Hey, you wanna listen to my favorite band, the Funky Boys?" The third panel shows the man sitting alone in the dark, looking devastated. The final panel reveals the punchline: he tells friends, "I just don'''t believe we'''re soulmates." The joke is that despite pledging eternal devotion on an astronomical scale, the relationship falls apart over something as trivial as a difference in music taste.
The humor lies in the contrast between the absurd intensity of young romantic declarations and the petty reasons young couples actually break up. The votey panel extends the joke to "adult romance," where one partner says "I still have dreams" and the other responds "How immature" -- suggesting that adult relationships have swung to the opposite extreme, where any remaining idealism is treated as childish.