Nancy Wheeler is Aromantic, You Cannot Change my Mind
Am I aware what the Duffers were actually trying to do with her characterization/arc? Yes. Do I care? No. This reading is way more fun for me because I love projecting lmao, so here we go.
The first two seasons of Stranger Things spent a lot of time telling us that Nancy was in the midst of an internal conflict. She's a teenager, she's figuring out who she is. Ostensibly, her choice is between conforming, dating the popular guy who makes her do things like, gasp, drink beer and go to parties, or not caring what other people think, dating the guy she has more in common with even though he's not "socially acceptable." People are constantly telling her that she isn't herself around Steve. That she's changing in order to be with him. She's lying to herself.
But that choice between popular guy and outcast loser goes out the window when Steve throws away everything to be with her. He ditches his friends, he gets replaced. He's now also the target of harassment by "popular kids." So what exactly is Nancy hiding from here. What is safer about choosing Steve.
She has to tell herself that she loves Steve, that she always did, because if she didn't then she gave up her virginity for shallow reasons. She slept with someone just because she liked how he looked. Like a slut.
She was always terrified of being seen this way, she was scared Steve would tell people they slept together, and despite how little interest she had in being around Steve after they had sex, she was scared to admit to herself that she'd already gotten everything she wanted from him. So she tried to make it work, and ultimately it hurt both of them.
(And can I just say, as an aromantic person, it is sometimes very difficult to conceptualize what romance is like for other people. I genuinely think Nancy had no idea how much Steve cared about her, and she wasn't thinking about how much she hurt him because it's just not something she understands. I speak from experience, breaking up with people who are way more invested in your relationship that you ever could be is...really difficult and weird.)
So, when her choice is no longer between being accepted in a high school popularity hierarchy or not, it becomes more about her conforming to societal standards or not. Does she choose the guy who wants to settle down and have kids and the whole white picket fence thing or...what. What exactly is different about Jonathan. He once said "screw that" to the idea of starting a nuclear family in some suburb?
I think what's different about Jonathan is that he's not constantly telling her he loves her. Steve seemed to say it...often. Just. Out of the blue. He liked to verbalize it, and he wanted her to do the same. Correct me if I'm wrong but Jonathan and Nancy have never once exchanged on-screen "I love you"s, as far as I can remember. Yeah they have their "that's why I love them" speeches in s4 but that's not the same. Loving someone isn't the same as wanting to be romantic with them. It's about expectations, and Jonathan's seem to be very different than Steve's were.
And while we're on the topic of expectations, I think the fact that her parents never loved each other really doesn't help when it comes to her difficulty figuring out what she wants and why. She explicitly said she doesn't want her life to be like that, she's seen it and she's come to expect unhappiness in a relationship with no romantic attachment.
So she tries her hardest to find something real. Something different. She likes spending time with Steve, she's attracted to Steve, and he definitely loves her, so maybe this is her opportunity to build a life better than her mother's. Except it just doesn't feel right. She likes kissing him but when he wants to date her, when he tries to communicate feelings, it makes her uncomfortable. And she feels shitty about it, it feels shitty when someone is being nice to you but you kind of hate it. But she already slept with him, so she feels obligated to make it work. Only that implodes, because of course it does.
Then she self-sabotages with Jonathan too. She ignores his feelings when she wants to chase a lead in s3. She basically forgets she has a boyfriend when she starts to notice that Steve's still hot in s4. And then she doesn't talk to Jonathan at the end of the season, about anything. There's no conversation about how distant they've been. I don't know exactly what direction this is going to go in s5 but the way I see it right now, she's realizing that despite being more comfortable with Jonathan she's just not built to be in a relationship like this.
She keeps choosing to be in relationships though. Choosing to date Steve when Jonathan was preoccupied taking care of Will at the end of s1. And again, choosing to toe the line with Steve in s4 when Jonathan's not around. And obviously there's societal pressure for a teenage girl to care about romance, she's been conditioned to think this shit should matter, but also. More importantly:
This was after her first real encounter with a demogorgon, it stands to reason that being hounded by this shit for years wouldn't make her less traumatized, especially since she's prone to bottling up her feelings.
In my personal opinion, Nancy is so intent on being in relationships in part because she has a hard time being by herself, especially at night. She couldn't wait a couple months for Jonathan to come talk to her about their relationship because that meant she was spending a couple months sleeping alone. We see in s3 that she sleeps over at Jonathan's, and the way the Joyce completely fails to act surprised by the lipstick on Jonathan's cheek—even though Nancy supposedly snuck in and out—kind of implies she does this often.
The long and the short of it is, I don't see her endless relationship drama as evidence that she's indecisive or flighty, I think she's aromantic and has no idea. She's trying to deal with her conflicting self-image. When we first meet her she has this idea of herself as some rule-following good girl, not the kind of girl who sleeps around, not the kind of girl who has impure thoughts and breaks people's hearts. She's not a slut, so she must love the guys she sleeps with. She's not her mother, so she must love the person she dates. She doesn't have any other frame of reference for love and relationships, so she keeps screwing up because she's trying to force herself into boxes she'll never fit.
shoutout to @thinger-strang ty for showing interest 😭💕💕 here's an essay lmao
