I’ve loved reading all the incredible think-pieces many other Polin fans have made, dissecting why the ship is arguably the most popular out of the whole show, that I just thought to share my own 2-cents.
I know that many of us romanticise an intense love sustained by the type of passion that’s the kind to sweep you off your feet. The kind where you meet someone and you just know — in one way or another — they’re going to change your life, inexplicably.
And that’s okay! We’re pessimistic beings, after all, so to meet someone who inspires THAT much emotion in us — what else can we possibly do but to love, and to love hard?
But here’s what I think; there is an understated (and, for me, substantially more powerful) beauty in a love that stems from individuals who know you — the REAL you, without all the bullshit farcical fronts that you put on.
Because imagine the strength of a romantic love you might receive from the same person who already knows what you look like when you cry, and you’re snot-faced and pink-spotted from all your tears.
Imagine how much more joyful it could be, to let go and be carefree, because that same person already knows how unattractive you look like when you’re doubled-over and trying to catch your breath, and your belly aches with from how hard you laugh.
Imagine how freeing it is, to be unafraid and vulnerable around someone whose trust they’ve already worked to build with you, simply by helping to shoulder your burdens, unasked. All because you matter to them.
And, thinking about this now, how many of us who had been friends-but-could-have-been-more wished we gathered the courage to step beyond the safety of friendship and, like Colin, ask?
How many of us spent years longing and yearning, like Penelope, trying our damnedest to cover up our true feelings, because we’d rather have them as a friend than to potentially ruin the relationship?
I think that for most of us who have been in the same boat as them, Polin represents the happy ending we wished we could’ve gotten (I could probably say the same for any ship in the friends-to-lovers trope, but I digress).
I also think that’s probably why Polin’s relationship is the most relatable out of all the tropes in the show — because we see ourselves in both Colin AND Penelope.
They are the culmination of everything that we wished would’ve happened for ourselves or what we wished we could’ve done.
Every aspect of our what-ifs is mirrored in each of them, and yes, I suppose it could be projection to a certain extent, but ultimately — if the characters are this deeply loved by so many people, across all different backgrounds, does it not just mean:
Their flaws, and their traits; they’re endearing to us BECAUSE they ARE us?










