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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.
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I agree that getting to being together, and the sexual tension and romance of that process, is what is sold to the imagination in a lot of popular media. The day-to-day living stuff seems so boring, or possibly tragic, and certainly not something to build a story on unless the characters are truly screwed up, in which case the pinnacle of being together never happens in a way that can be called success. It's as old as novellas and soap operas, where the characters can't stay together in peace, but must scheme against and betray each other, or be killed off.
I also think you are right that some people leave relationships to start new stories, or to relive past ones. This may be the genesis of the mid-life crisis for some. It makes me wonder what story they were living in in the first place.
I think in fanfic, especially, prevailing stories generate their own dynamics in certain ships, to the point you can almost always know what you'll be getting by the identity of the ship itself. With short to drabble-length fic, what you get is often quite simple. Simple is comfortable and familiar for many fanfic readers, it seems, who have limited time and real lives. I sometimes think I've seen it all in certain fandoms, however, and very little of it is truly complicated. Maybe it's because there are only so many ways the story can go unless the characters are completely not in character. Maybe it's all part of a continuing story in some fanfic readers' minds, where each repetitive story reinforces the larger relationship structure. Maybe it's just a function of time, and not something more sinister, like a plot to dumb us down and colonize our minds... ;D
I wrote a story where I got two dissatisfied-with-life characters together fairly quickly, without a lot of romance or even awareness on their parts, and then examined what happened when life threw them a series of challenges, most of which were generated by their pasts or personalities. The story contained a lot of examination of how their relationship impacted others. I wouldn't recommend the story because of my really odd writing style, but I felt the story of getting to couple status or to starting fresh was not enough, was not really honest and didn't do justice to the characters. The real story was making a relationship continue while growing as individuals.
I've been reading about the new Ben Stiller movie, Greenberg. While it seems to have complex and even unpleasant characters, it also seems to be a boy-meets-and gets with-girl story. I wonder if it ends with them breaking up or magically resolving all differences. The characters sound difficult enough, however, almost like the ones I wrote, that I'll probably see it just out of curiosity. But, knowing that Stiller is supposed to be a cruel control freak in the movie makes me want to stay away. Perhaps, like many, I prefer the entertainment I have to pay for to be escapist.
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I've been reading about Greenberg too. I remember one person saying that while Greenberg is interesting there's as usual the problem of exactly why this girl would be attracted to him. Like, it's clear why she's attractive, but it's just a given that she'd want to spend time with him and continue to stay with him.