I've talked before about how much Lois soaks up the love and safety of the Kents, but I think we also need to talk about what Clark sees and learns from his entire relationship with Lois.
Outside of his family, Clark's relationships have consistently been struggles of boundaries and safety.
There's Lex: Clark sees so much good in him, they share so much and he wants so much to be able to trust him, but Lex simply cannot stop his fixation on Clark's "secret". As a result, it's a constant battle of boundaries and lies, leaving Clark with no true sense of safety there.
There's Chloe: Now, I adore Chloe, especially as the series progresses, but at the start her young, enthusiastic journalistic curiosity often resulted in massive violations of Clark's privacy. She finds out about his abilities not because he tells her, but through yet another huge violation of privacy by another person. She does a great job of working to change and becoming a safe place for Clark to be open, but once again he has a trusted relationship with constant pushes for him to be *more* vulnerable, to share *more* of himself, and people skirting around his boundaries for their own sake. Rough stuff.
Then we have Pete: the first person Clark *willingly* shares his full background with, only to have his abilities weaponized against him over and over again. Literally, Pete pulls out green and red kryptonite and uses it on Clark ALL THE DAMN TIME. He gets mad at Clark for NOT sharing his secret earlier, and then goes on to blame him when Pete's life is made more complicated and dangerous by the knowledge. No safety there, no real ability to just relax and be himself because Clark never really knows when Pete might once again throw his secret back in his face.
And then there's Lana: I want to be clear here, *I do not hate Lana*. I actually think very highly of her, especially when she's not dating Clark. And I mean that in both directions, neither Clark nor Lana feel truly safe or at ease with each other in their relationship. I'm just going to focus on Lana for a second here as it relates to my point about Clark and love. Lana wants Clark to be fully open and honest with her. But The Secret becomes The Thing that she just can't see around. Despite how well she knows Clark, she perpetually uses The Secret to assign the worst motives to his actions, and to assume that he has done terrible things despite having no evidence that The Secret has anything to do with the character of Clark that she already knows. (Again, I recognize Clark's nonsense in this relationship too, I'm just focusing on this one side for the moment). Clark never really feels safe with her as a result, because her fixation on KNOWING his secret becomes more important than knowing or understanding him, and again, boundaries are crossed and miscommunication abounds.
Enter Lois Lane. She is a lot of things, but one thing that Lois is for Clark from very early on is *safe*.
We see her repeatedly respect people's boundaries and choices. For all of her curiosity and her drive for truth and answers, she draws a very firm line around the personal lives of others. She waits to be invited rather than demanding vulnerability from Clark. Sure, she offers lots of advice that Clark didn't ask for, but she never tries to pry him open. She takes him as he is, with the belief that people should be allowed to share what they feel safe sharing.
That is mind blowing for Clark. Outside of his family, he's never experienced love like that, platonic or otherwise. There have always been strings, always been eyes looking closer than he wanted, always been people holding his privacy over his head like a weapon. We see Clark, time and again, truly *relax* with Lois in a way he can't with just about anyone else. Lois is safe, truly, in a world where Clark is consistently surrounded with emotional danger.
I saw a post recently that related Clark's secret to someone coming out (even though that's likely not what the writers were going for intentionally). It's so true. Clark always deserved the chance to share all of himself when and how HE wanted to, and over and over again that chance was taken from him or used against him. I think that's why I personally feel so strongly about all of the people in his life being SO insistent that Clark is deceitful, overly guarded, that he HAS to share his secret OR ELSE (or else they will dig it up anyway, or else they will leave him, or else he will tell them and they will use the knowledge against him, or else, or else....)
There's no or else with Lois. She's happy to accept Clark as Clark, and he needed that so much.
As always, Lois Lane is my hero.
