Janet, the go-between

The interesting thing about this week's arc is that it's obvious that Mike doesn't actually understand what Martha's friend Janet is actually doing or how made her do it. What he appears to believe is happening is that Martha is so upset that he wants to express himself his way, she's sent one of her friends to dictate terms to him. What is actually happening is that Janet seems to have taken it upon herself to fix the problem without Martha's awareness. For reasons that escape me, she seems to believe that she has to solve whatever problems Martha and Mike are having and she's doing so this week. She later on does so when Martha wants to make Mike fight for her hand for some sick and stupid reason by telling Mart to cut the monkey business and make things right with a boy that sees HER as being the hindrance to his happiness.

The reason Mike never quite manages to understand this is that he has the stupid, mistaken impression that the following words that do NOT apply to him do so: "victim" and "good guy". The words "bully" and "scoundrel" more accurately describe the boy but he doesn't want them to. It's like how he doesn't want to admit that he's a lousy son and a crappy big brother who really does need his attitude adjusted. Behaving as if having to consider how his words make someone feel is some sort of horrid defeat that he cannot be expected to stand for is why most people look at his flailing around with female contemporaries and wait for him to crash, burn and blame everyone but himself for his being terrible at dealing with human beings.