I'm aware that my views of romance are probably not the healthiest ever. I don't know that I've ever talked about my family much, but my father's basically an abusive, alcoholic con artist (his most recent shenanigan last year was trying to literally drink himself to death while calling me and my sister periodically to give us weepy, self-pitying progress reports on how his suicide was coming along). The happiest times in my childhood tended to be when he wasn't around. And, growing up, I got to watch my mother trying to be her mate's be-all and end-all, first with him and then with a series of other users and manipulators. Now my brother's married to an abuser and manipulator of his own, whose inability to rein in her spending forced him to join the Army to pay off her debts. (Long story. Long, frustrating, "gonna choke a bitch" story.) My maternal aunt's husband is in jail for DWI; my paternal aunt's husband is a religious fundamentalist and control freak who doesn't let her go anywhere without permission; and my grandfather physically abused his daughters before being institutionalized for insanity!
I seem to have bucked the trend by managing to become happily married myself, but to someone who's as independent and private and as much of a hermit as I am. We have separate bank accounts, take mostly-separate vacations, have our own sets of friends and tend to conveniently absent ourselves when the other spouse's family comes to visit. And we've been together for 13 years, so it must be working! I think actually, the longer I'm married, the easier it is for me to see romantic love as a positive thing rather than a destructive force, but it's awfully hard to fight off the "love destroys" meme that I picked up as a kid.
I'm not trying to whine here, just ... trying to explain, really. There are a lot of reasons why romance doesn't appeal to me and this is only part of it, but I can't help thinking it's most likely a big part, especially why I prefer romance that isn't played out as the grand love story of all time. I like romance that's understated and doesn't upset the existing relationships in a character's life, and I like unhappy romance that screws everything all to hell, especially in fanfic. This is not to say I can't be sold on something else, but ... it's harder. And, like I said, I've made a conscious effort to be more tolerant towards romance of all types, because it does make it easier to get by, in fandom and in life, when you're not feeling kicked in the gut every time two characters kiss.
But I think the way people are feeling towards Gero's statement is very much the way I feel when I read a slash fic that explicitly has John and Rodney realize that sexual attraction is why they spent so much time together and enjoy each other's company so much (yes, there is a line to that effect in ACaDL, and I'm the one who wrote it, and it felt like twisting a knife to do so), or read fan-squee that puts a slashy spin on statements and actions in canon that I read in a gen way. I don't get mad about it because, well, there's no point really; it's not like it'd change anything, and I'd be mad all the time. Besides, who am I to tell other people how to fan. I certainly don't want to stomp around harshing on other people's squee. But I often feel as if the majority of fandom is focused on a particular reading of canon that invalidates my own, and I am seeing a lot of my own gut-level emotional reaction to that in the way that people are reacting to this particular statement from Gero.
Comment got too long, oops! (edited)
I seem to have bucked the trend by managing to become happily married myself, but to someone who's as independent and private and as much of a hermit as I am. We have separate bank accounts, take mostly-separate vacations, have our own sets of friends and tend to conveniently absent ourselves when the other spouse's family comes to visit. And we've been together for 13 years, so it must be working! I think actually, the longer I'm married, the easier it is for me to see romantic love as a positive thing rather than a destructive force, but it's awfully hard to fight off the "love destroys" meme that I picked up as a kid.
I'm not trying to whine here, just ... trying to explain, really. There are a lot of reasons why romance doesn't appeal to me and this is only part of it, but I can't help thinking it's most likely a big part, especially why I prefer romance that isn't played out as the grand love story of all time. I like romance that's understated and doesn't upset the existing relationships in a character's life, and I like unhappy romance that screws everything all to hell, especially in fanfic. This is not to say I can't be sold on something else, but ... it's harder. And, like I said, I've made a conscious effort to be more tolerant towards romance of all types, because it does make it easier to get by, in fandom and in life, when you're not feeling kicked in the gut every time two characters kiss.
But I think the way people are feeling towards Gero's statement is very much the way I feel when I read a slash fic that explicitly has John and Rodney realize that sexual attraction is why they spent so much time together and enjoy each other's company so much (yes, there is a line to that effect in ACaDL, and I'm the one who wrote it, and it felt like twisting a knife to do so), or read fan-squee that puts a slashy spin on statements and actions in canon that I read in a gen way. I don't get mad about it because, well, there's no point really; it's not like it'd change anything, and I'd be mad all the time. Besides, who am I to tell other people how to fan. I certainly don't want to stomp around harshing on other people's squee. But I often feel as if the majority of fandom is focused on a particular reading of canon that invalidates my own, and I am seeing a lot of my own gut-level emotional reaction to that in the way that people are reacting to this particular statement from Gero.