Water Under the Bridge
I was having a conversation today about something completely unrelated, and it made me think about first time stories or new relationships vs. old relationships with a lot of baggage.
I like first time stories and stories where characters start a relationship. This is probably something that goes along with liking non-canon characters where you often start out with the idea that these characters could get together but aren't, so it's satisfying to see them realize that they agree with you. If the characters actually are together in canon you can imagine any place on the timeline--before they got together, just after, long into it, etc.
But in many ways I prefer relationships with a history. Definitely that's the way I feel in real life. I was flipping channels the other day and came upon an old ep of Friends where Monica was asking Chandler if he was worried, now that they were getting married, that he'd never start a relationship again. And Chandler was like...no. That's a plus. Starting a relationship, meeting a new woman he really liked, just filled him with anxiety. Comfort and familiarity was his fantasy. I always liked that scene. Maybe it's just that I'm not married so I have far more experience with the starting-out-with-a-person-I-don't-know part, but yeah, nothing about a long marriage seems boring to me.
I thought about this because I happened to be having a conversation that brought up the idea of water under the bridge kind of making a relationship not the one that's going to help the person. (Sorry if that's really vague--it seems too tedious to explain the storyline this was about since I'm not even that familiar with it myself and it's only a starting off point.) In plenty of cases, and certainly often in life, that's true. Too much stuff can happen for it be possible for a relationship to work anymore, or at least work the way it had.
But I guess the reason it becomes a pet peeve for me is it's become such a staple of continuing storylines wherever they are. It's like the way that whenever a couple gets together it's assumed that either the story has to end or they have to break up. Sure if it's a romance the place where they get together can be the natural end to the story. What sometimes bugs me even more is that this gets described as "realism," as if the idea of two people getting together and staying together is automatically fake.
But usually it's more like the idea that the only way couples are interesting is when they're getting together. Once they are together people act like there's nothing else that can happen so they break up and a few weeks later some new hot guest star arrives to start a new romance. Or in some cases it's more like...they want to tell a new first time story and the longterm relationship gets in the way. Then also sometimes people feel the new first time relationship is less special if there's this other relationship. So they make the first relationship unimportant so they can start fresh with no competition.
Of course in fanfic it's often linked to shipping, but it's not always shipping. Sometimes it's not even just first time vs. lots of baggage so much as that PLUS the feeling that the best relationships are exclusive-or at least hierarchical. Maybe it's just not wanting to deal with the network of relationships that most people have that are important in different ways. I was going to say it's part of just the general thing of placing romantic relationships above all others and needing the romantic relationship to pwn all other relationships in the person's life but maybe it's also tied to the desire for simpler relationship stories?
Like, I was talking to somebody about the Captain America movie. I don't know Cap well, but they said it sounded like they were going with the standard coming-of-age story, and that this was weird because the real story just wasn't that. But it's easier and it's simpler to just go with that template. You lose this individual, more unique person who's going to have idiocyncratic views of things because of his specific past, and replace him with the easily recognizable kid losing his innocence in war or whatever. I think we've gotten more and more used to those kinds of stock characters we almost forget there are other types. So when you get stories that include more unique, specific people audiences and critics sometimes almost don't know what to do with themselves.
I like first time stories and stories where characters start a relationship. This is probably something that goes along with liking non-canon characters where you often start out with the idea that these characters could get together but aren't, so it's satisfying to see them realize that they agree with you. If the characters actually are together in canon you can imagine any place on the timeline--before they got together, just after, long into it, etc.
But in many ways I prefer relationships with a history. Definitely that's the way I feel in real life. I was flipping channels the other day and came upon an old ep of Friends where Monica was asking Chandler if he was worried, now that they were getting married, that he'd never start a relationship again. And Chandler was like...no. That's a plus. Starting a relationship, meeting a new woman he really liked, just filled him with anxiety. Comfort and familiarity was his fantasy. I always liked that scene. Maybe it's just that I'm not married so I have far more experience with the starting-out-with-a-person-I-don't-know part, but yeah, nothing about a long marriage seems boring to me.
I thought about this because I happened to be having a conversation that brought up the idea of water under the bridge kind of making a relationship not the one that's going to help the person. (Sorry if that's really vague--it seems too tedious to explain the storyline this was about since I'm not even that familiar with it myself and it's only a starting off point.) In plenty of cases, and certainly often in life, that's true. Too much stuff can happen for it be possible for a relationship to work anymore, or at least work the way it had.
But I guess the reason it becomes a pet peeve for me is it's become such a staple of continuing storylines wherever they are. It's like the way that whenever a couple gets together it's assumed that either the story has to end or they have to break up. Sure if it's a romance the place where they get together can be the natural end to the story. What sometimes bugs me even more is that this gets described as "realism," as if the idea of two people getting together and staying together is automatically fake.
But usually it's more like the idea that the only way couples are interesting is when they're getting together. Once they are together people act like there's nothing else that can happen so they break up and a few weeks later some new hot guest star arrives to start a new romance. Or in some cases it's more like...they want to tell a new first time story and the longterm relationship gets in the way. Then also sometimes people feel the new first time relationship is less special if there's this other relationship. So they make the first relationship unimportant so they can start fresh with no competition.
Of course in fanfic it's often linked to shipping, but it's not always shipping. Sometimes it's not even just first time vs. lots of baggage so much as that PLUS the feeling that the best relationships are exclusive-or at least hierarchical. Maybe it's just not wanting to deal with the network of relationships that most people have that are important in different ways. I was going to say it's part of just the general thing of placing romantic relationships above all others and needing the romantic relationship to pwn all other relationships in the person's life but maybe it's also tied to the desire for simpler relationship stories?
Like, I was talking to somebody about the Captain America movie. I don't know Cap well, but they said it sounded like they were going with the standard coming-of-age story, and that this was weird because the real story just wasn't that. But it's easier and it's simpler to just go with that template. You lose this individual, more unique person who's going to have idiocyncratic views of things because of his specific past, and replace him with the easily recognizable kid losing his innocence in war or whatever. I think we've gotten more and more used to those kinds of stock characters we almost forget there are other types. So when you get stories that include more unique, specific people audiences and critics sometimes almost don't know what to do with themselves.