Hevel to the rescue. No wonder he is everyone's favorite character

Hevel's got thick skin, who knew?

Wow Noah. Ice! Cold!

It seems like every conversation with Noah causes Gazz to age Ten years, He looks like hes in his late 30s in the second to last panel.

Noah isn't very good at speaking human is he?

Well, I'm with Noah on one thing... some of those people did get weird. Like that girl's green eye with a red pupil. What's up with that?

By constantly being a jerk, Noah makes sure that he only makes friends with people who tolerate jerks.

Alsooooo... NOAH DON'T SPERG OUT ON US JUST YET BUDDY YOU HAVE A WHOLE LIFE OF SPERGERY AHEAD OF YOU!

The only girls able to put up with Noah seem to be Mable and Maude. The first one apparently is the most persistent of all who tried to hit on him. The second one is simply more abrasive than Noah, and all other people and minerals in this universe.

I see that noah talking skills are around the same level as mine.

That girl with they special eye looks from the eye like one of Tobi's Ghoul "friends" =)

Also - she has special eyes and needs a special brand ...

You know, I'm really starting to get a good read on Noah. I like this kid. Imma go protect him now.

More liek Noah social skills, am i rite?

In Noah's defense, he is right. He and Mable barely know each other, they may be acquaintances, but friends, that is a bit of an stretch. For someone who might take friendhips seriously beign forced into one without building trust may be unpleasant.
Noah looks like that kind of person to me.

But yeah, I join the echo: Low social skills, too short with people. Given how he is in a situation completely out of his hands, it would be clever not to antagonize those potentially willing to stay close to him.

Noah is so very much my spirit animal.
Even though I've learned much better social skills in life, I tend to be as factual and accurate as I can, though in this instance I would try and use tact to gently put that our basic relationship is "colleague" at that point in time, and add that I would not mind getting to know the person.

Unless the person was very rude or rather nasty, in which case it's a low possibility of calling them out on that aspect of themselves, OR meekly agree so I don't aggravate the jerk and make my life there a living hell.

If you're asked if you're friends with a person who you've just met a few times, then you don't say a blunt "no". You can say something like "yeah but I just see them from time to time, I don't really know them".

Answering a blunt "no" implies that you do know them, and you dislike them.

I quite like characters like Noah, though it can be a fine balance to make the character type without making them a jerk (I think Noah is not nice without what I would consider being mean. )

I was trying to understand what was /so completely tactless/ about Noah saying No, and @someone put it well.

I would say 'we've met a couple times' but I wouldn't say 'yes' because friendship is earned with trust.

If you go to a shopping centre, stand at the top of a multi-level section, then you can see, maybe, a thousand people. If you get asked if they are your friends, then what do you answer?

No is not rude because of any implication. Friendship is a positive, its absence is neutral, and the implication is that you aren't willing to commit to them. It is rude because humans are inherently unfair. The idea that someone isn't innately inclined towards trust and camaraderie is seen as rude because it is beneath socially accepted standards, even though there are constantly people taking advantage of that and everyone knows it.

The "polite" thing to do is to lie. Noah here is being nice instead of polite. He is plainly stating he is unwilling to make any commitment to collaborate or share. Most people wouldn't be willing to make such a commitment at this point, but would imply otherwise in order to be polite.

It is rude, not because of implications, but because social standards require one to pretend to be nicer than they actually are. Because they are social standards, it is pretty much impossible to analyse them impartially, so, being incapable of perceiving anything wrong with expecting such, one must create random reasons why it might be somehow hostile. This whole thing is just an extension of "strange=bad".

The situation isn't comparable. You've got person A (Noah) and person B (Gaston) walking in a room. There person C (Mabel) says "hi" to person A.

When person B asks "friend of yours?", they don't ask "please inform friendship status", they mean "please introduce me to this person, who obviously knows you". Gaston doesn't expect a "yes" or "no" answer. Noah isn't being nice, he's being unable to read the situation. If he were a real person, he would do well to see a doctor to get a diagnostic about whether he suffers from a disorder on the autistic spectrum.

It's not at all similar to seeing a crowd where no one is interacting with you and being asked if all of them are your friends.

@Guest Saying that just because something's a social convention it's meaningless is kind of pointless. It's also a social convention not to strip naked and run through the mall, and there's no real logical reason for that either, but no one's talking about how that's not actually rude.

A lot of the time asking if someone's "friends" is just asking if you've met them before, in a non-professional capacity, and don't hate them. Saying "No" when it's obvious you know them does imply you don't like them.

If you were a computer it wouldn't be logical, just as all the subtleties and nuances of human communication wouldn't be logical if you were a computer, but we're not computers.

Heh, look at Jamal's little smirk there after Noah's "no". I'd never noticed it before.