John wants to ask Liz for a stroll in the park, which he does ask. Liz replies very casually she would. So far so good. An expression of joy. But then what makes John ask the next question, Can I come along ?What was he thinking when he asked the question in the first place.
I am sure, most of us would have come across simillar situations. It may not be between a guy asking a girl out, it may not be of you being a third-person watching the conversation like Garfield. Rather I believe all of us would have met people who would come repetitively to you and ask you the same question again and again by simply re-phrasing it. Or so it may seem.
I have particular interest in this strip, because I can relate to it to an extend and I could make out in very probable terms what was going in John's mind.
We all would have prepared ourselves in our lifetime for a goal which would have come to us in a manner easier than expected. I believe John would have half expected Liz to turn down the offer. And with a very casual answer and utter of joy, John's mind would have questioned, can this be right, is this possible. No, there has got to be a misunderstanding. Probably the only weaklink he would have found and confirmed it whether he was part of the subject which they were discussing. Something which we all do, when we book tickets of our journey, or when we deposit cash into bank accounts, or when we fill any general but important forms. We all try to be dead sure, to leave no room for misunderstandings. To confirm things in the way we understood it to be. Many of us rely on things to be understood implicitly which are not important, but things which are important, we try to double check.
For some this instance may not be that important, that you need to double check. But when you are waiting for something to happen for quite long, and then when it happens, you feel like double checking. I have done it. Other people may term it insecurity of the person. I am not sure whether it is appropriate to say if it is insecurity, because I don't exactly understand the meaning of the term insecurity. Insecure of what, that you may fail, I thought it was called pessimism. But rather the script has described beautifully the few things which we all deal in our life, which are different for each person, no matter how close you are with them. There priorities and their expectations. It also briefly touches the concept of pessimism and of observers in a conversation, who try to draw conclusions without understanding the emotions and the needs of the two people involved in the conversation.
We all admit that each person has his own priorities in life, his own expectations of life, his own goals in life. But almost all of us fail to understand that each person has his right to choose the way he lives his own life. The freedom to choose choices which others may not think of at all. The freedom to make decisions. And with this freedom, you might want to double check things which others may think of as naive and unlogical.
