and BAM! Howard Wolowitz

[Louise]

And looking at it laid out like this, it has basically been a dry run for the S/A clusterfuck.  Same dynamics, same unpleasant, incoherent expectations and behaviours.

Yes. My point is, I don't believe this ship ever had potential. Why does she like him? Why does he like her? They don't *know* anything about each other.  


S3-S4 Bernadette might not be actively cruel or aggressive or shouty, but she seems to disapprove of pretty much every decision H. makes, which means they are not on the same page, and she does not respect his feelings or his perspective or where he's coming from. He's not *allowed* to have a point of view; the message is that he needs to just "get with the program" and do whatever she wants. He's not allowed to have doubts or questions or hesitations. This show specifically teaches people to distrust their own judgment and ignore their own gut instincts and operate on blind faith, which IMO is a hugely dangerous message. The show gaslights its own characters; the narrative says that their feelings are not legitimate. To have any doubts or questions is portrayed as selfish and immature. H. had no power in this situation, from the start. See also the absolutely god-awful "pre-nup" conversation.

And the timeline is bizarre. She wants to know about their future, three episodes after meeting him, but she finds his behavior over-eager. We're told he's moving too fast, then a few episodes later, the narrative is chastising him for being indecisive and commitment-phobic. 

This is why I take exception to people who think H/B is not as bad as the other ships, or statements like "Everything would be okay if B. went back to being sweet and nice."  No.  It's not, and it wouldn't.  This relationship is so *hollow.* And  I admit to having an intense gut-level dislike of MR*; I think she simply isn't a fit for the show, but if she'd been a minor character and not attached to any of the guys, that might've been tolerable. 

Even if the H/B relationship had remained the way it was in S3-S4, I'd probably still stop watching the show.  I'm not on board with anything that interferes with H&R as a duo--and yes, that's because I'm a shipper.

I'm not emotionally invested in Shenny, but I'd never presume to make light of that situation or treat it as unimportant. We each have different things that are important to us, here, and I think we do a really good job of being respectful to each other, on that. I'm sure there are some Nostalgics, and casual viewers, who had no strong objections to Bernadette until Season 7 or 8, but my point here is that I can see the seeds of the problems, from her very first appearance. To make a comparison, I personally have no strong feelings one way or another about Leonard, but I'm aware that some people find that pairing really disturbing, and so I don't go around saying "Well, if they just talked it out and were nicer to each other, everything would be peachy." I'm not cool with Shennies who are so exclusively focused on their ship that they think H/B is fixable or not a big deal.

And this reminds me of another good quote I heard recently: "Someone does not have to be a bad person, in order to be the wrong person for *you*" Just because someone's capable of being superficially "nice" doesn't mean you need to marry them. I think we're seeing sort of a female version of the "Nice Guy" concept, with A and B: S and H are supposed to be grateful that any woman would even deign to interact with them, and H is supposedly so repulsive that he ought to count himself "lucky" to find a woman who will show him *any* degree of affection.


*as an actor, not as a person, obviously.