Obviously it’s not a romantic thing, but also related to the individual’s level of comfort with seeming insults, this is a recent situation that did not make sense to a coworker of mine.

My dad just cut his finger off (non dominant pointer, so either #4 or #5 most important, depending on how highly you rate pinkies) the other day after many, many decades of woodworking and general tinkering. He’s otherwise okay, but it hurt like a bitch and it couldn’t be reattached. He’s mostly regretful, with a touch of existential jolting.

My sisters and I got him a giant foam finger two days after it happened and he laughed his fucking head off. I got a pretty good chuckle on that very day from “hey, 9/10 ain’t bad,” but I’m pretty sure that was mostly the painkillers, because it’s not a good joke.

My coworker told us under no circumstances to get the foam finger and we should just be nice. I get the sentiment, but that would scare the shit out of my dad. For context, after shaving his wife’s head during the course of her chemo treatments, my dad looked at her in the mirror when she was feeling nearly her lowest and said that he’d always had a crush on uncle Fenster, but he’d never expected to get so lucky. She laughed uproariously.

I was raised by these people, so that’s the kind of thing that I say. A relationship with someone who was always earnest would not work for either of us.