Why Shipping Real Life People is Weird
So I have this wife. She’s really cool and funny. This morning I was walking to the bedroom from the bathroom singing “All the Single Ladies” and by the time I got there she was doing this absolutely spectacular bed-based version of Beyonce’s classic “ring” dance.
I love her lots and I am not particularly troubled when people say “OTP” or “#RelationshipGoals” after I share something about my relationship with Katherine. I think that we all need examples to enjoy and identify with and emulate in our relationships and our general existence. But there is a thing hidden in there that I find a little bit weird and I think I’ve uncovered a new reason why it bugs me.
Now, of course, there’s also the old reason why shipping real people bugs me, which is that real people are real people. It requires a certain amount of objectification to get to a place where you (someone who does not know them) are getting up in their junk about the decisions you think they should make in their personal lives. But, on the other hand, the objectification of famous people is nothing new or unusual, and on the order of problems with society I don’t rank it very highly.
But here’s my new thought:
When two people have a relationship, they are two people. They do not become one person, and they will always and forever have to work to maintain that relationship. That relationship is a fluid and changing thing that can stop existing or get complicated or unpleasant. Becoming a fan of a person and looking up to them and enjoying them is one thing, but being a fan of a relationship is a little bit of an incorrect idea. Relationships do not exist in the way that people do. People are real things while relationships are abstract and fluid ideas.
So when one is a fan of a person, or two people who are in or may be in a relationship, that is an admiration that can be useful and beneficial to both you and the person they like. But being a fan of the relationship I don’t think is good for anyone because the relationship is an abstract thing that almost definitionally (because it is private) is very VERY different in the heads of the observer than in reality.
This is why it is often so deeply shocking when a YouTuber couple breaks up. Creators don’t broadcast their problems, even less when people are more fans of the relationship than the individual people. Some creators, knowing that the relationship is where a great deal of the interest is, will lie to themselves and to the audience to try and keep this abstract idea that people love alive. And yes, people really have done this, and I always find it intensely sad.
So it’s bad for the creator, but I also think it’s bad for the shipper. The idea of my relationship with Katherine will never be anything like our actual relationship because you don’t want to see us arguing about who needs to take out the trash. No one is interested in the day-to-day work of two partners trying to make sure that the partnership remains strong even in the face of every-day challenges and even the occasional monumental pile of BS. So we don’t share that stuff, and so it looks effortless. There is no way to show the world that healthy relationships are hard work and have it be entertaining, so as an observer it appears that healthy relationships are easy.
They are not. They, like everything else worthwhile in your life, will be difficult sometimes. Love is not a ride down an infinite water slide of bubbles. Love is work.
That doesn’t mean that I’m, like, angry with people who ship real people (or that you should be.) Lots of people have simplified understandings of lots of things (especially when they have not experienced many things.) But it’s part of our responsibility as humans to make our understanding of stuff more accurate as we continue living in the world, and so I thought this was worth talking about.
Of course, Katherine and I have been together so long (15 years?!) that no one has ever bothered to ship us (thank goodness because “Kank” is an awful ship name.)
