About "Get Back Up"

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Read at your own discretion.

I am not good with relationships. The number of people who I lost in touch with should speak for itself.

The purpose of this comic was to capture the guilt and discomfort of losing a friendship. In this case, it was with my best friend (the duck) in high school. She was the first person in years to notice me as a whole person, and for the first time, I felt appreciative of who I was.

We bonded over our shared class schedule. It made the semester less of a chore to go through since we knew we had someone in each class to talk to. Eventually, we started chatting outside of school, sometimes meeting over at her place.

Being an awkward wallflower, this was all new territory. I had no idea what to do as a friend. The most I could do was try to match their speed and reciprocate actions when appropriate. It was a challenge. My first mistake was trying to change myself into someone who she might like more. This was out of habit; being a people-pleaser was what I've been doing for years prior.

My second mistake was giving in to peer pressure. I loved the friendship that we had. It was awesome to have someone to talk to; for silly, dumb fun or for more serious issues. (In fact, the text used in the comic came directly from a text conversation we had verbatim.) It felt good knowing that you weren't the only person in the room who you could look towards for support. It felt good to be a friend. Which is what made hearing people's thoughts about us the more strange.

Why do people assume that just because two people are in good terms, it must always lead to a romantic relationship? It frustrates me to no end how normalized this is. I'm not opposed to the idea of a romantic partner, but you can't assume that that's what people's goals are in any relationship. But that's what I thought I was supposed to do here, so I asked her out.

I wish I didn't listen to their advice. "Love doctor," "perfect couple," all that crap: it was all nonsense. I wish I didn't ask her when she herself was getting out of being rejected by someone else. I wish I didn't assume that she'd be angry with me afterwards, or that she didn't want to continue talking anymore.

That was my final mistake. Assuming the worst out of a situation when I haven't properly assessed it. In hindsight, there was a low chance of us ever breaking up as friends. If I had more emotional intelligence, I would've probably realized that right away. We could've even still have been friends today.

But I've let fear take control of my life. The last years of high school felt miserable, with me thinking lowly of myself and others. I didn't think I deserved all the achievements I'd earned, nor did I felt like I deserved the kindness of others. So I just... hid away to my own little corner, and settled on a worst state than before. I felt like I did the worst crime imaginable, as if no other person would've appreciated who I was. I felt ugly.

But that's not true. None of it. Just like other people, I should be entitled to the same resources as everyone else. I shouldn't have to keep hiding and expect relationships to be given only to those who "deserve" it. I'm more than enough; I just have to find the right people.

...if only I could follow my own advice in the outside world.

After high school, I thought I was making immense progress in college, making new friends and all. But shit happened, and now I'm more afraid than ever to step foot outside. You can see my attempts to incorporate this idea into earlier drafts of the comic (as little memory bubbles), but it got too cluttered, so instead I focued on one period of time instead.

Draft 1 | Draft 2 | Draft 3