17: What If

For other instances of this title, see What If (disambiguation).

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What If

Original title: Friday drawing!

Title text: I once made an anniversary card for my then-girlfriend with this layout. Original caption: One of my best friends just got engaged. I really, truly think they're going to be very happy together.

Explanation

This was the sixteenth comic originally posted to LiveJournal. The previous one was 16: Monty Python -- Enough, and the next one was 18: Snapple.

The comic features a man and a woman in a romantic setting, surrounded by a fractal combination of love and doubts; an arrangement based on the Apollonian gasket construction. Three circles are drawn tangent to each other, then additional circles are added that are tangent to three existing circles (without overlapping), ad infinitum. Randall hadn't standardized his character designs yet, so it's hard to say if the comic features Megan and Cueball or Hairy.

In the original caption, Randall reports that one of his best friends recently got engaged. The friends he's referring to are Scott and Sarah, as he confirms in the comment section for this comic.

Transcript

[A large black circle (drawn on grid paper) with white bubbles inside it, filled with hearts, question marks, and stick figure couples. The hearts are colored red.]

[Bottom left circle - stick figure couple with a heart]

[Top right circle - with couple:]

what if this isn't everything it should be?

[Two circles left of top-right:]

i'm not even sure how i feel

[One circle right of top-right:]

what if i'm making a mistake?

Trivia

• This is the first xkcd comic featuring Scott.
• Randall's later blog and books have the same name as this comic, what if?, but it's just a coincidence.

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Discussion

We can infer that it ultimately wasn't everything it should be? Firstly, then-girlfriend could also mean current wife (remember the title text is Randall speaking, not Cueball).

Also, I think that the Fractal nature of the card is to reflect that all these questions, and the actual attraction depicted pictorially, will always be a part of the relationship, staying the same at all "levels" - which, to me, IS the romance. 123.237.156.211 (talk) 12:09, 20 August 2012 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Randall wrote "then-girlfriend" in 2005-2006, and only got married in 2011. 128.211.198.17 21:14, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

How is it known that Sarah and Scott are the ones that got married? It's not on the LiveJournal post or in the comic/title text. For that matter, Sarah is only "mentioned" on two pages, this one in un-cited trivia, and another in one-off dialogue; how is it known she's even a friend of Randall's? Would love to either add this information to their pages if it's supported, or remove the clutter if it's unsubstantiated. - jerodast (talk) 13:06, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I've removed the line "The various subideas within seem to echo elements of the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics" from the explanation. I understand there are questions where different answers may result in the relationship ending or continuing (creating two branches of the many-worlds tree), but the topic of being unsure of a relationship crops up in a number of other comics, and I don't see that there is any link to quantum mechanics or the many world interpretation. Randall, having a very analytical mind, simply extends his analysis to his relationships where there are not necessarily concrete answers. (See 55: Useless, 523: Decline, 584: Unsatisfied, and others I can't be bothered to look up right now). If anyone disagrees, go ahead and reinstate the line, but please also include reasoning as to why it applies. --Pudder (talk) 08:27, 22 October 2014 (UTC)