Tert-butoxide Memes

Dating in the chemistry world is brutal. The woman (chloroethane, CH₃CH₂Cl) walks by the guy (tert-butoxide ion) who's clearly interested, but she's not having it. Then our man finds someone who understands his bulky structure issues - "steric hindrance" is chemistry-speak for "your molecular group is too damn big to react properly." It's basically the chemical version of "it's not you, it's your ridiculously large substituent groups blocking any chance of meaningful interaction." The struggle between functional groups is real.