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On Reddit, one fan posted a compilation of moments of Phil making comments about Gloria or somehow showing he’s attracted to her and asked other fans if they thought it was disrespectful toward Claire — and the overwhelming majority of fans said that it was. One user, u/strawberrylipsticks, wrote, “Definitely disrespectful and weird, i love phil but it was my least favorite thing about his character.” And u/pnerd314, chimed in to call Phil’s behavior both cringe and creepy. Further, u/nihilism_ornot expressed their discontent: “I HATED that part of his character.” And plenty of fans brought up the fact that Claire is attractive as well, making the Gloria crush situation even worse — for example, u/lilpencilsharpener wrote, “Claire is gorgeous, I don’t see why he had to drool over Gloria so much.”
Many fans brought up an episode in which Phil lets an old friend think that Gloria is his wife when he and Gloria are at the mall together — only for the old friend to admit that he always thought Claire was a catch and that whoever married her is a lucky man. After that, Phil seemingly snapped out of it and spent the rest of the episode telling Claire how lucky he is. Referring to this episode, u/numberthirteenbb wrote, “Phil doesn’t see Claire as lustworthy until it’s shown to him through another man’s gaze.”
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However, many fans also brought up the fact that, after this episode, the inappropriateness seemed to be toned down. One user, u/SuperSkiiz, described it as such: “It started as creepy and inappropriate. It turned into more of a crush situation.”
