Also re. The last post. I admit I feel a little weird and extra keen on explaining myself mostly bc I see the aromantic hcs usually applied to Spock and while I totally see where those are coming from, I personally read spock as kind of a hopeless romantic with a repression issue, even without factoring spones in.
Like. With Jim, he has dozens of failed romances and he's always sad but we never get much in the way of explanation besides "oh he has a greater love for the Enterprise" meanwhile with spock he keeps falling in love with Humans and enjoying the feeling but he can only let himself experience those feelings when under influences of drug flowers or weird time travel rules; a repeated facet of his character, and indeed of vulcans, is that their emotions are very much still there and as potent as any human's, but their physical strength is so much greater that they need to temper their emotional responses and, debatably, their very connection to their emotions. Add in Spock being half human and his inescapable racialization amongst both humans and vulcans, especially being half human while raised and taught on Vulcan, and you have a rather prime recipe for shame and repression, and to me that is where Spock's baggage is.
And the appeal of Spones becomes, then, how damn obsessed Bones seems to be with making spock emote. A lot of ppl read the dynamic as antagonistic, and I get where that comes from, but frankly I think a lot of the time Bones is the only one pushing back against the harmful mindset spock has locked himself into; imo, while Bones will paint with a broad brush and call vulcans unemotional, I don't think he fully believes that, if for no other reason than because he lives on a starship with one.
He's challenging spock on the latter's own assertions that Vulcans don't experience feelings, an assertion we know and are shown time and time again is bullshit. Frankly, to be able to sustainably temper your emotions with logic to the extent we see most other vulcans do it would likely require a pretty strong base connection with them. Not to get all CBT in here but as someone who benefitted greatly from DBT in terms of emotional response and behavior, you need to know and accept how you feel if you want to properly manage your response, and to me that's what it seems is probably what most vulcans actually do.
Spock does as well to some extent, but his experience as a half-human undoubtedly meant isolation from his peers, and a feeling of being uniquely indisposed to Vulcan culture, and overcorrecting from mindfulness into frequent repression.
And I think Bones picks up on that, bc he's friends with Jim who also tries to make himself experience what he just doesn't, in opposition to Spock who tries to stop experiencing what he just naturally feels. And while with Jim, it'd take him realizing for himself what he actually needs, something Bones can't really help with, when it comes to Spock they both know he's having these emotions. And like I think that's where spones ppl come at it differently than others, bc as we see it Bones isn't just bullying Spock bc he's a dick or paternalistic or racist or what have you; Bones is pushing back specifically against Spock's self destructive methods of emotional repression. He knows Spock isn't engaging in mindfulness so much as he is flat out refusing to acknowledge his emotions and emotional needs, and is trying to tough love him into acknowledging that. Whether you think he goes too far in it is up to personal interpretation, but it's my hc that Spock deciding to pursue Kholinar at the end of their 5 year mission was their breaking point pre movie-era make-up for a reason.
All that to say, for me personally, Spock having romantic attraction is an important part of his character when it comes time to dissect him, bc it is one of the most obvious narrative devices to highlight the conflict his character was built to embody between passion and the ideals of reason and detached rationality.
