Gordon makes the scene and Lawrence makes a scene.

[dreadedcandiru2]

As we know, this is the year in which Gordon Mayes first appears in the strip; what is interesting about his first appearance is that Lawrence's original reluctance to his presence cannot be understood without reminding ourselves of the Ted-Connie debacle. The first time he appeared, you see, Mike and Lawrence tried to give him the brush-off only to have Mike be more accepting of him; Gordon explained that even though he was a bit older, he was sort of an outcast and needed friends. Suffice to say, Lawrence did not take Mike's ready acceptance of the new kid at all well because he thought that Mike was trying to ditch him and presented him with a stupid ultimatum. Since Mike didn't react to emotional blackmail from a kid his age the way Lawrence had hoped, our future Sraight Gay Icon pouted about what a rat-face-fink that meanie Mike was for not knuckling under to passive-aggressive bitchery. This led to one of the first instances of Elly playing deus ex machina by telling Connie that her over-attention to Ted made Lawrence feel unwanted so it made sense that he'd be a bit oversensitive. Her response was to remind him that he wasn't after all being neglected; that being said, it would have been more in character to remind Lawrence that she was trying to get him a Daddy so he could be like all the other kids. Once she'd given him the reassurance he craved, he'd stopped questioning the third man in the trio. What we can take away from this, of course, is that Mike is as sensitive as he is smart; five bucks says that he still has no idea why Lawrence and Gordon got off to such a rocky start. That's because even though Lawrence told him to his face that he can't see why Connie needs to change something that works, Michael never understands that his pal feels like a fifth wheel by times. At least when he's reacting negatively to Phil's unwanted presence, he confronts the source of his discomfort directly instead of taking it out on targets of opportunity.