Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for May 12, 2016

funny indeed, Quill

Bernice and Pru, Luann’s best friends. She doesn’t need Q.

He can´t seem to stop talking about it though.

Some people just get along better when they’re not dating. Happens. It’s called maturity.

Ok, so much for avoidance.

I’m honestly hoping that what Quill says in the last frame will free Luann up to get on with discovering what career she might be interested in…

He returns to the crux, which is not being together. I think he wants to have her back.

They didn’t have a problem talking when she was video chatting with him in Australia, either.

Luann and Quill’s conversation Is shaping into how you’d feel, when the massage therapist with the hands of stone is on break- – No pressure, at all…

Oh yes, it ain’t over.

Prudence DeGroot. Nah.

“Easy For You To Say”“Talk Me A River”“Gin And Platonic”“The Chat On The Flat”“The Heat Is On Off” (♫)“Wrinkle-Free”“Break The Ice…Then Shred It…And Fold It Up…And Then Melt It, And Bury It, For Good Measure”“Ex, Lax”“Tongue De-pressure”“Comfort-able In A China Shop”“That Relationship Has Sailed”“No Sweat!”or“Turning Over A New Relief”

What are the odds that Saturday’s strip will find them kissing?

Now that she knows Pru is not a threat….

I think that for a good while, we’re going to be teased with the possibility of a Lu-Pru relationship. That’s already implicit. But the big question is just how far the Evanses will take this in the long run.

Had a girlfriend for about 10 years, lots of fussin’ & fightin’, then she dumped me. Now we get along great, and always turn to each other in a crisis.

Way it works, sometimes.

Freedom from expectation

He is working and she is working at being a gossip. Nice career path on her part.

Maybe they didn’t have enough to sustain a relationship, but they can sustain a friendship.

That is because you are experiencing “unconditional friendship!!!”

And not worrying about abstinence.

This is much better than the avoidance they talked about yesterday.When they were a couple, she became clingy, expecting more.

hmm, he was in a hurry two days ago, funny how he can “make” time for luann now that she’s broken up with him.I think the digs are ego… on a deeper level he can’t get over being dumped.

Sharing gossip is a normal human bonding skill. Acting on gossip is wrong.

Wait, WAIT, HOLD the Phone.

Lu? Are You Paying ATTENTION to what Q-Ball, Here Just Said? Well, Quit “YAPPING” for a Sec, and THINK.

Now YOU Spending Your Time with Bernie Spreading Half-Truths, False-Hoods, and Absolute LIES, We Can BUY.

But “HIM” Being So Gosh-Darn “Busy” Helping to Write Horrifically BAD, Mind-Numbingly CONFUSING "Operas, that He DOESN’T have the “Time” to Eat, Sleep, Take Frequent Trips to the Bathroom, and MOST Importantly “TEXT”????

PLEEEEEEEEEASE……..,

No pressure anymore. Maybe they’re better as “just friends”.

How long were these two dating in both luann time and real life time?

OK, I guess I’m the only one who still hopes they’ll get back together eventually. They did have a lot in common with their mutual love of theater and performance, and they always got along so well. Even as a teacher, she could still pursue that interest. Here’s to an eventual happy ending!

“Now that you know I have no interest in Pru, why don’t we get back together?”

The ability to communicate is often a lot easier with friends rather than lovers. With friends its easier to be yourself, to share mutual interests, and not have the emotional tension of a relationship. This is not to say friendship cannot be a lot deeper than relationships, or that having a relationship and being a friend is not possible, but they are different and to do both takes skill, time, patience, and maturity. I think its an open question of whether these two remain just friends, or start back up together, but if they do they need to do the friendship and relationship thing, culminating in commitment on both sides. Time, even in Luannverse, will tell. Remember the backdrop of this year, which is Brad and Toni, with secondary arcs of Gunther and TIffany, and I hope Rose coming back. Oh there are so many.

Of course it’s easier to communicate now. Quill is now allowed to talk about his career ambitions, whereas previously Luann would have cut him off to insist that they talk instead about his needing to spend more time with her.

someday Quill will meet a woman whose ambition and drive matches his own, and it sure ain’t Luann.

Yeah — well stupid male idea — you don’t have to talk if you want to be romantically involved. The divorce rate will just show how well that’s workin’…

7Interesting developments. I still fervently HOPE that Luann and Quill do not get back together as a couple. But, friends? Hell, that could be nice for both of them.I think it is especially revealing that BOTH of them can more “easily talk together” after breaking up than when a couple. In my opinion this is due to Luann not being obsessed about “the relationship” every moment she is with Quill. By not having every encounter the two of them have be “relationshipy” like it was… they *BOTH" can talk about other things…. and look…. magically they find that there are things interesting to talk about and discuss!!!!!

Quill is not that shallow, and he has demonstrated that multiple times. There are people here who are forgetting that the characters who have played large parts are usually written to be more three dimensional than some comments about either of these characters are acknowledging.

Say you miss her. and lets go for coffee sometime when we settle a lil better.

Yeah, let’s keep it that way, eh Quill? C-ya.

I just so want to slap that smug smile off that boy’s face

Reply function just crashed. I replied (or woukd have replied) to two comments with:Both characters are kids who are trying on different aspects of maturing. If they both continue to mature also in other ways they will be very rounded individuals.The poet, Jock McCrystal, had an interesting line on agape when he wrote the line,“Love, in our wide bed, do you lie lonely?”

I predict they will go on being friends in a platonic sense (no romance). And maybe later on (much later… I hope) they will recognize that straight friendship is a prerequisite for a more durable and lasting romantic relationship. After all, they really don’t know each other. But Luann does need to have more interests in life than just gossiping with Bernice. I know she does but she just doesn’t wear it on her sleeve the Quill does with his.

correction: the Three Dog Night song was titled “Easy to Be Hard”.

I like how Quill asked Luann how she is getting along with Prudence. He remembered her anxiety about his friendship with Prudence, and took an interest. He’s probably thinking that Luann and Prudence were free to develop a great relationship now that he and Luann have broken up too. Which is not the whole story, Prudence’s confession would have eased the tension a lot too if they were still dating. It’s still a question to me whether she told Quill she was a lesbian. I would guess she did because she is at ease with it and not shy, as shown by her confidence in telling Luann and Bernice. In which case, good for you Quill, for not spilling the beans to Luann. It is Prudence’s tale to tell or withhold, not yours.So in the end, if this is the end between Quill and Luann, Dez’s prediction that Prudence would be the factor that determined the outcome between Quill and Luann seems to be false. Certainly Prudence was involved, but it was the relationship stresses between Luann and Quill that broke them up prior to the New York trip. Whether the character quality of prudence was a factor, I can’t tell. Thoughts?

Free at last to give serious attention to their futures, if indeed, Luann has any idea what her future is. The responsibilities of romance will only interfere with their academic pursuits.

Quill remains essentially unchanged, still career path-focussed. So he is not ready (nor willing) to resume a relationship beyond friendship. Thus, for the moment at least Luann and he are doing the right thing, becoming “just friends.”

To finish answering the latest of thomas93’s string of questions for which he could just continue reading the archives to answer, Quill’s first appearance in real-world time was almost seven years ago, on June 22, 2009:.After way too much of Tiffany assuming on her part that Quill would become her boyfriend, he finally started making comments to Luann that showed he was interested in her, on August 21, same year:.The relationship itself finally evolved out of whatever that was they had before, after he moved back to Australia, on November 20, 2012:.So in the real world, it took about 3½ years from introduction to relationship.

Geesh, Quill, quit talking about the quiescence! Just follow the friendly fellowship.

Quill is now free to pursue his long-time dream, acting, without catching grief from Luann about it because it keeps him from making her his number one priority. Luann is now in a bit tougher spot than Quill, since her main objective in life so far has been just to have a boyfriend. She will now need to examine whether there is anything else that she feels is important to her. She has been saying how her week in NYC has “changed” her. (That’s hard to believe, and it’s pretty much what Gunther said about his months in Peru, and it wasn’t true in that case, either.) I suspect what might change Luann’s life is setting some goal for herself other than finding and keeping a boyfriend. That’s why I feel all these posts wanting her to get back with Quill or hook up with Gunther are missing the mark.

Oh, and you’re welcome on the summary. Maybe it will stop the questions for a while..(Oh, who am I kidding …)

Nothing wrong with just being friends.

Although the Fogarty class went through their junior year over and over – always the same junior year, as if the previous ones hadn’t happened – Quill went through three different senior years. First, there was the senior year he spent at Pitts while Luann was a junior. --Then he went back to Australia, and he repeated his senior year (that he hadn’t quite finished in Pitts) because the academic year in Australia is 6 months shifted from the US. The, just short of his HS graduation in Australia, he left to come to Pitts and go through his senior year again here, now with Luann as a senior also. So that was 3 different senior years, all distinct events in the timeline. I figure Quill must be at least 2 years older than Luann.

Having a three year difference in ages of graduates, sometimes a four year difference, was not unusual when i graduated. I was 17, but would have been 16 if a third grade skip the school wanted had been accepted by my parents. The two oldest in our class were 20. In the year before me two were 16, as was my cousin who began first grade at age four. So, a few years difference is not terribly unusual, anyway. When you add in his redos because of moving internationally twice, Quill could be any of a range of ages. He could easily enough be 21 compared to Luann’s 18, or 20, or… Where i grew up kids could go till 21, but where Steve grew up only to 19 but there was a votech there for older students. In my district there was a cost for non-local students to attend.

They’re the perfect couple, they NEED to get back together.

This strip is bumming me out. I’d like to see Luann in a happy, committed relationship. I thought it should have worked with Quill. It seems easier to have her unhappy than happy.

This guy needs to exit stage right.