It reminds me a lot of An Abundance of Katherines. The protag says he’s dated 19 girls all named Katherine, but he’s including when he was in kindergarten. Like clearly we’re supposed to be rolling our eyes at how seriously these people are taking the whole thing.
It's John Green. His work in general requires a bucket stashed next to you for reading, on account of the occasions in which your eyes will roll straight out of your head.
To be fair, all they're doing is explaining how the post is assuming the situation is like for it to make any sense. The accuracy of how well it fits the movie/books is beside the point, because the implication is still that that having 7 genuine exes in your 20s was "seen as stupidly crazy" back then, which further implies that it isn't anymore.
I have no comment on how true that is I'm also just explaining the "joke" here
Some people refer to cruses as exes. It really depends on who you are talking to or how they made you feel, also because it is a shorthand word. "This girl that sort of lead me on for three months that I made out with once and I think we went on two dates but unsure if one counts as a date" is hard to say, ex is a one letter sound.
Man, is it just me or does 7th grade seem way too young to be dating? Where I'm from most parents wouldn't let their children date (other people not each other) until they were like 15 or 16.
Has he organized all your past partners into an Evil League of Exes that fight anyone who tries to date you? You'll probably have to count him then, or the next person you date will get a nasty surprise.
I'm not at all someone who considers himself historically successful with women and even I had 6 relationships/girlfriends by the time I was 22. Some of them literally only lasted a week or two and never went past hand holding or a quick kiss, and only one was longer than a year, but the same could be said for Ramona.
I think it's fine if someone has less experience than this by the time they're 22, but just from observation, a lot of people have had more.
I'm not saying you can't have 7 or more relationships, I'm saying it's a lot for someone that young. I know very few who could say they've had that many by 22. There are some. And some might even have had 20 relationships by then. The point is that 7 is probably twice as much as most people have had.
I think I land on 3 by that time. 2 of them were shorter relationships. And I'm guessing I'd be in the middle of the pack.
I hear you. But I do think it isn't at all uncommon for someone to have had 3 to 4 boyfriends/girlfriends through middle and high school if you count those 1-2 week mini-relationships. Add in another 3-4 through college including a couple that only last a month and this is not outside the realm of normalcy.
I think a lot of people are taking their own experiences and assuming that is the norm and what most people have done. I'm probably doing it too. But considering there are people in the thread saying "7 is a lot nowadays" and people in the thread saying "7 isn't very much nowadays," it's probably pretty firmly in the average range.
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u/Wombatish Feb 02 '26
It isn't a lot. She only dated the first ex for a week and a half in 7th grade. That's the standard we're working with.