He was probably fed up with being asked and went with the funniest answer he had. It's not like Brock has a very good track record with women. Certainly, his interest far outweighs his success.
What she just liked to string along young men? It at least makes sense why her lab was staffed by just young girls.
Less ‘string along’ and more ‘didn’t take his behavior seriously when she should have.’ My guess is that she figured his infatuation would die down after a short while and just paid it no mind until she eventually realized that no, it wasn’t going away, and she really ought to let him down gently before things got any more awkward than they already were.
Except this is Brock we’re talking about here. With how he overreacts to every woman who crosses his eye, the idea of him suffering genuine psychological trauma upon learning that the bombshell scientist he was in lust with wasn’t interested in men is not nearly as implausible as it should be.
That, or he walked in on Philena shagging one or more of her assistants, and considering how the interpersonal atmosphere at the lab reminded him of taking care of his younger siblings…yeah, I can definitely see that causing him some SAN loss.
Steak said:
He was probably fed up with being asked and went with the funniest answer he had. It's not like Brock has a very good track record with women. Certainly, his interest far outweighs his success.
This is also a possibility, yes. As for his track record…when has any other rejection actually traumatized him?
This is also a possibility, yes. As for his track record…when has any other rejection actually traumatized him?
Remaining with Professor Ivy appealed to him on numerous levels. The writers basically created a perfect scenario that would cause Brock to split from Ash. That is you got some nice ladies who do nothing but take care of Pokemon all day, neglecting their own health and household. A convincing case was made that they needed him there, along with the possible benefits for Brock himself. The main problem with Brock leaving is that he'd come to almost see it as his duty to remain, appealing to his sense of responsibility as a big brother and homemaker.
So you had him wanting to learn about helping Pokemon, wanting to fix their living arrangements, and a possible love interest. Of those three things, two of them he takes pretty seriously. The third, he gets excited at a glance, but usually calms pretty quick. I actually can't think of a scenario that would cause Brock *to leave*. Not while the two main reasons are in effect.
So what really happened? They wanted to bring Brock back to the show, couldn't think of a good reason, and introduced a running gag to distract from it.
