Hopper and Joyce: The show (at least in the later seasons) puts Hopper on a pedestal of paternal masculinity. The presumed viewer—male, white, straight, upper-middle-class, Gen X or younger, focused on early (NOT late) adolescence—is not supposed to find him relatable as a Vietnam vet or a cop or a father. Instead, he’s supposed to be held in awe. His sexuality is consequently not a site of anxiety, and it only meaningfully exists in the context of his feelings for Joyce. Being partnered with Joyce also isn’t threatening to his masculinity because she’s first and foremost A Mother (with her job and her problem-solving skills and her mental health issues and her sexual appeal to any other man and even the less cookie-cutter aspects of her life as a mother gradually being stripped away). It’s okay for them to be together.
Jonathan and Nancy: The show is evolved enough to characterize Nancy’s ambition as admirable, but not evolved enough to refrain from putting forward the idea that it’s humiliating for a man to be with such a woman. There must be something wrong with him to be okay with this state of affairs. And Jonathan’s already on thin ice because he’s relatable to the presumed viewer in some ways (white, male, apparently straight) but he deviates in others (poor, not apparently straight enough). If he were a more normative male character, his support of Nancy could be passed off as noblesse oblige, but as it is he has to be the one to give up Nancy, because it’s wrong for him to want a relationship with her.
Steve and various women: Steve is an unrealistically aspirational figure, and his mystique would be ruined if he was in a serious relationship with an actual female character.
Robin and Vickie: Relationships between women are just not important. You don’t even have to say they broke up. Who cares.
Mike and El: Mike is the self-insert character, which requires him to be simultaneously a credible heterosexual romantic hero and a perpetually just-barely-not-pre-sexual being. Mike is supposed to have the most serious love story in the show, but he can’t know about second base. El has to die/vanish so he doesn’t have to make any sexual decisions that might reveal anything about his character. El, similarly, can be objectified as a superhero in a tight outfit, but she can’t explore her sexuality in a normal teen girl way beyond kissing Mike (who, again, is not allowed to seriously contemplate touching a boob). She has to die/disappear so she doesn’t have to make any sexual decisions.
Lucas and Max: The presumed viewer does not identify with Lucas because he is black; therefore, it’s okay for him to be The Boyfriend. However, Max is additionally not given any threatening ambitions. She’s just able-bodied and pretty.
Dustin and Suzie: Dustin’s relationships are not worthy of serious attention or closure because he’s visibly disabled, but he’s likable/relatable enough that the presumed viewer wants him to have some kind of female attention (which is why the girls at graduation flirt with him).
Will and Epilogue Boyfriend: Sexual/romantic relationships between men are so intimidating that the show can barely contemplate them.
