Couplethinking

[David <dfrankiswork@netscape.net>]

Elkins wrote:

> David, who can dish out categorization but not take it, wrote:

Ah, a list member who *reads*...

I wrote:
> > There's also the tricky question of what you think is 'true' 
> > or will happen versus what you want to be true - not that I've 
> > come across anyone with beliefs that strongly contradict their 
> > preferences (e.g. "I think canon is firmly R/H but I feel Harry 
> > is the right person for Hermione").
> 
and Elkins asked (all subsequent quotes are from her too):
> Do you mean just when it comes to shipping, David?  Or to 
> speculations in general?  

I meant primarily shipping, and then other issues that seem to 
animate the fandom generally, such as redeemable Draco.  Sadly, 
whether Neville learns to repudiate the house system, or whether 
Stan Shunpike has really experienced equality of opportunity, don't 
seem to have made the fandom hot button issues list.

> Oh, I don't like that romantic paradigm.  No, sir.  I don't
> like it at all.
>
Good summary of Bad Things snipped

I can add:

It causes supermarkets to pre-wrap only even numbers of things;

It causes single people to postpone non-couple life goals;

It causes babies to be seen simultaneously as cute accessories and 
sleep-disturbing monsters;

It causes children to be regarded as an acceptable excuse not to 
invite their parents to things;

> It causes people to believe that they can *change* each other.

I am less sure about this and the next two (snipped) ill effects.  
My observation is that many people imagine that if they find the 
right partner they themselves will miraculously change into the 
person they want to be.  Perhaps it's a UK/US difference?

> In the end, it turns people who were once charming, intelligent, 
> interesting individuals into scary, inexplicable, boring, 
> brainwashed, Hollow Man *POD PEOPLE* with eyes as dead and 
> as empty as those of the Dementor Kiss'd.  And who then want 
> nothing more than for *you* to become a pod person too.  Just 
> like them.  Because oh, don't you see?  You'll be ever so much 
> *happier* that way!

I wonder if this should be laid at the door of coupledom.  I suspect 
that many people are looking to find a place in their life where 
they are effectively coasting, where they have 'made it' 
or 'arrived'.  Until then, they make an effort and are interesting 
etc.  Afterwards, the changes you describe apply.

Put it this way: many people are trying to get to the "They lived 
happily ever after" part of their story.  That part is boring 
because it is always omitted from the story, and so people living it 
are living a boring story for their fellows to read.  Many "Happy 
ever after" stories do imply that the way to get there is the 
partner you find, but it is not the only way.  I have seen similar 
behaviour with wealth, or religious peace.  So I'd say, blame "Happy 
ever after", not the romantic paradigm it parasitises, for this one.

> So.  Aren't you glad you asked?  ;-)

Yes.  Seriously, yes.

David, who would quite like to try being a Borg. (Seriously, IIRC it 
has been demonstrated that with a wire connected to the brain you 
can move a spot on a computer screen by thinking at it, and people 
with some types of blindness have been enabled to have a degree of 
vision similarly connected.  So the rest is just engineering.  
Barring environmental collapse, it will happen.)