pareto-romantic
Original: pareto-romantic on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
A man with red/orange hair (off-panel, only his face partly visible) speaks to a woman with dark hair and round glasses.
Man: Baby, I think you're Pareto optimal.
Panel 2:
The woman, smiling.
Man: I wouldn't change anything about you. If I did, it couldn't help but make something else worse.
Panel 3:
The red-haired man and the dark-haired woman with glasses face each other.
Man: Awww... I think you're perfect too.
Woman: Woah, who said anything about perfect?
Votey:
A close-up of the dark-haired woman with round glasses, looking unimpressed/deadpan.
Woman (in speech bubble): You're optimal, but still crap.
A man with red/orange hair (off-panel, only his face partly visible) speaks to a woman with dark hair and round glasses.
Man: Baby, I think you're Pareto optimal.
Panel 2:
The woman, smiling.
Man: I wouldn't change anything about you. If I did, it couldn't help but make something else worse.
Panel 3:
The red-haired man and the dark-haired woman with glasses face each other.
Man: Awww... I think you're perfect too.
Woman: Woah, who said anything about perfect?
Votey:
A close-up of the dark-haired woman with round glasses, looking unimpressed/deadpan.
Woman (in speech bubble): You're optimal, but still crap.
Alt text
A four-panel SMBC comic plus a votey. A red-haired man flirts with a dark-haired, bespectacled woman using economics jargon. Panel 1, the man: "Baby, I think you're Pareto optimal." Panel 2, he continues to the smiling woman: "I wouldn't change anything about you. If I did, it couldn't help but make something else worse." Panel 3, they face each other; the man, touched: "Awww... I think you're perfect too," and the woman snaps back: "Woah, who said anything about perfect?" The joke is that Pareto optimality means no improvement is possible without making something worse, not that something is good or perfect. Votey: a deadpan close-up of the woman delivering the punchline in a speech bubble: "You're optimal, but still crap."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.