I will pick family/friendship love over romantic, every time, but the way SGA is playing now, the way Gero is writing it, Rodney wouldn't, and that gets to me.

Aha! And now things clear up for me. :) I go for a true romantic partner over family. Family gets distracted, has their own lives, things going on. They're there for you if you need them, yes (as well as they can be, and if they're not tangled up in something themselves). But they don't know you like your romantic partner does, and they can't be there for you like your partner can be. That's my experience and so I totally get what Gero was saying. Rodney was looking for someone for himself. (His sister has her family, for example.)

(I can see any member of the team becoming a romantic partner for Rodney within fanfic, and frankly canon has enough for me to see John as a romantic partner for him. But whomever became that romantic partner would raise above team for me.)

So a Rodney with just team strikes me as a lonely Rodney. Especially as his team finds their own loves and lives. (John is the wild card here, I'll admit.)

Of course... this gets complicated by the fact that a romantic partner becomes family...