2013-01-21
Explanation
This comic satirizes the experience of unrequited romantic attention. A red-haired man approaches a woman and announces "bad news" -- he has chosen to interpret her lack of interest in him as a "clever ruse" to lure him into a relationship. The woman'''s horrified reaction ("Oh God no") makes her disinterest abundantly clear, but the man barrels forward, framing the unwanted relationship as an inevitable inconvenience they both must endure.
The humor escalates as the man lists all the burdens of the relationship he is unilaterally imposing: being off the dating market for years, the time and money of daily messages, holiday cards, uncomfortably romantic gifts, and possibly having to relocate for her. He frames all of these sacrifices as evidence of what a big deal this is for him, completely oblivious to the fact that the woman never agreed to any of it. In a twist, the woman reluctantly sighs and asks "where do we start," seemingly worn down into acceptance of this absurd situation -- treating it like a "minor natural disaster" to ride out.
The final panel delivers the punchline as a separate scene: a man offers a woman a vial of his blood for Valentine'''s Day. She says she already has a boyfriend, and he responds that he made the boyfriend one too. The votey continues the joke with the woman noting Valentine'''s is six months away, and the man replying "not if it'''s every day!" -- pushing the creepy persistence to its most absurd extreme. The comic works by taking the trope of the persistent suitor and exaggerating it into something so unreasonable it becomes comedic.