#logical fallacy

Like this person would definitely fail any part of a course on logical reasoning.

To quote C. S. Lewis, "Dear me, what do they teach them in these schools."

Is this a common trope in non-BL Asian dramas? Maybe I’m missing some cultural aspect but it makes me feel a bit weird… I’m fine when they both meet as children but when one’s a child and one’s an adult it feels off to me!

We Met As Kids, Therefore I Love You

Yes, it's a super common trope in ALL Asian romances.

There's a human cross-cultural claim-to-care around having met someone "first" giving one person priority to another's affection and in their life.

For example, think about how many fans (of say a Kpop group or band or actor) will claim to be "better" or morally superior to other fans of that same talent, because they have have liked that group/person "since the beginning" or "before they were famous." How about those who claim superiority because they read the book before the TV series became popular?

To have loved something FIRST is often allied with being better at loving it, there is a value judgement to longevity of association. (This is also true around disliking someone/something first.)

There isn't a name for this logical fallacy, although there should be. I would say something like appeal to tradition argumentum ad antiquitatem (which is a red herring fallacy). So appeal to time, argumentum ad tempus?

(The 8th Sense is doing some VERY interesting things to philosophically battle this concept right NOW, actually.)

Narratively speaking, if you have only a short amount of time to unfold the story (for example We Best Love) this trope gives writers a quick way to justify pining and affection (usually from the seme character). So backstory can be cribbed for character development. That character is already in love, so we don't have to show him falling in love, only one character is in play for that.

In longer narratives (like Word of Honor, Lovely Writer) this is a secret that gets to be slowly uncovered and explored as a plot point. If you have them meet as children, or when one is a child then it justifies one character not remembering the other (because peoples appearances change from childhood to adulthood).

I think the popularity in Asian dramas in particular has to do with collectivist cultures and family obligation/intimacy priority. To have known (or met) someone as a kid adds a level of intimate connection that justifies any affection that much more than meeting later in life.

There's a very funny scene in Kdrama (noona romance) Thumping Spike (recommended) that directly mocks this trope. Near the end the main couple openly together and they are in the car with the (former) love triangle dude. He lost, even though he's the one with the childhood crush. He directly combats this concept by saying (basically): If longevity guaranteed romance, I should be married to the grandma who runs my local convenience store.

Another well known Kdrama that combats this trope is Strong Woman Do Bong Soon (recommended) which goes out of its way to have the love triangle character who would normally lose the girl, actual win her this time. (So the one who loses is the moot crush from childhood.)

In BL, I tracked this one for a while:

Also here are a few BLs that DO NOT use this trope:

not to be a reddit debate nerd, but this is a really common informal fallacy that can be refuted pretty easily.

it's known as "begging the question", or "assuming the conclusion". it occurs when an argument's premises assume that the conclusion is true.

the argument extrapolates thus: "men cannot become women, therefore, trans women are not women, therefore, trans women are men".

or, to phrase the argument another way, "trans women are men, because men cannot become women, therefore trans women are not women, trans women are men."

notice that nothing in the argument supports the conclusion that trans women are men, but the premise that men cannot become women, which is supported by the premise that trans women are men.

we can debate whether men can "become" women (is "man" a permanent, immutable state? are trans women ever really "men"?) but those arguments are not even worth having in this context, because the conclusion being arrived at is faulty and argued in bad faith.

it is on the speaker to define precisely what a "man" or "woman" is, and then to derive from those definitions the impossibility of a "man becoming a woman".

when a person argues in bad faith, as in this case, you are not required to argue against it. in fact, you will tie yourself in knots trying to argue against it, because the well has already been poisoned before you even engage with it.

if you want to be polite about it, point out that the argument makes no sense and ask them to come up with a better one. if you don't, and you probably shouldn't, you can just tell them to fuck off.