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Explanation
The Joke
A woman proposes to her boyfriend using the language of economics: "If I take a wholesale quantity of sex and companionship, can I get a discount on the total amount of effort I need to expend in acquisition?" The man, bewildered, starts to parse what she is saying -- "Are you saying... are you asking... NO! No, you are not using those terms to propo--" and she cuts him off with a straightforward "Will you marry me?" The caption reads: "Never date an economist."
The Humor
The joke reframes a marriage proposal as a bulk purchasing negotiation. In economic terms, the woman is essentially asking whether committing to a long-term exclusive contract (marriage) entitles her to economies of scale -- getting the same goods (sex, companionship) with less per-unit effort than she would spend on the dating market. The man's horrified reaction comes not from the proposal itself but from the deeply unromantic framing. The caption "Never date an economist" lands as the punchline because it suggests this is simply how economists think about relationships -- reducing love and commitment to supply, demand, and transaction costs. It is a classic SMBC move of taking a rational-analytical worldview and applying it to a context where it becomes hilariously inappropriate.