So Klaine isn’t your thing. I understand that you have thoughts and feelings you wish to express, that you may not intend to infringe upon my enjoyment. So I thought I’d show you what I see in my ship, what I value and why it means something to me.
So sit down, have some tea with me?
To start this off. I love that first and foremost, Kurt and Blaine are friends. They are not perfect friends because there’s no such thing. Our friends are people just like us and the reality of people is that we will often mess up. We can often do terrible things to hurt each other. Think of the friends in life, movies, books, and TV that have moved you most. Then think of the bad times, the times when they failed. No one can hurt us like friends, because friends are people we’ve let close enough to do real harm. The strongest friendships are not built on people who never fail us, but people who never fail to want us. Part of that wanting is the want to see us well, to fix the wrongs, to be in our lives. The moment that wanting is gone, you no longer have a friend.
What we have with Kurt and Blaine is something good despite their less than perfect execution of friendship life love and romance (welcome to humanity). We have Kurt who has been through much (just as all of us go through much) who finds support in another human being. Someone who sees his pain and does not ignore it. Someone who intends to help (regardless of whether or not he has any idea of how to succeed at being of help) and doesn’t hesitate to offer it. Why Kurt, why so quickly with this stranger?
We don’t know much of his back story but we know this about Blaine. He knows what it’s like to feel alone, to have no one to turn to, to feel like running, and all because of his sexuality. This similarity in experience would be enough to make most people empathetic. It’s not phenomenal, it’s not out of the ordinary and it might not make for sensationally dramatic tv but it is the thing that will make a relationship between two people (be it romantic or platonic). It’s a connection, an opening. One heart saying to another ‘I’m not cold to you. Your pain is now my pain, your joy is now my joy’. You can’t have relationships without that connection.
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.”- C.S. Lewis
It’s not rocket science understanding why Kurt and Blaine could connect so quickly, and why Kurt would attach himself to Blaine. Blaine doesn’t resist this, on the contrary he invests just as much of himself into this new friendship as Kurt is offering, because he probably needs it just as much. Is he always in the right? Does he always make the right choices? Is he always selfless? Hell no. Is anyone? Are any of those friends in your life, your favorite books, your favorite movies? Are you as a friend?
The thing about Klaine, is some of us enjoy watching these two find each other. I enjoy watching them finding in each other similarities (in struggles, in interests, and in humor) and giving themselves free rein to enjoy these aspects of themselves when so often the world has tried to shut them down.
I don’t enjoy watching them make mistakes and hurt each other, any more than I enjoy watching my friends in real life hurt each other. I’m not so enamored of them as characters that I can’t acknowledge their imperfections and their more idiotic moments. Blaine going on dates with Rachel. Asshole move. Kurt caring more about his own feelings for Blaine than whatever confusion Blaine might be going through. Asshole move. Here’s the thing though, your friends might just slip up and be assholes at some point in your friendship, in fact more than a few times.
“True friends stab you from the front.”- Oscar Wilde.
The thing that makes a friend is the honesty, dealing in the open, whether they’re dead wrong or right. You may wonder how your friend can do what they do, think what they think, or feel how they feel at times, you may wonder if you truly have a friend at all. You’ll truly know you have one the moment when they see things a little differently, when they get how much they’ve hurt you. When they want to make it better. You’re a friend when you listen despite your own opinion, when you accept your blame where it’s due and you forgive them their errors.
“Love is when two people know everything about each other, and are still friends.”-Unknown.
I appreciate Kurt and Blaine’s flaws. I love watching them find their strengths. I was thrilled the day a boy took Kurt’s hand on a staircase all because his friends in New Directions told him “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you go see what the garglers are up to. You can wear all the sequins you wan’t. You’ll fit right in.” If you want an example of imperfect friendships look no further than the New Directions dynamic.
This look alone (god bless the acting of Chris Colfer) says EXACTLY why that moment changed Kurt Hummel’s life. When I think about Kurt and Blaine the song Changed For Good from Wicked comes to mind. This has nothing to do with romance, though it certainly helps me appreciate seeing them in a romance. Seeing that look, watching Kurt and Blaine in their first coffee scene, watching Blaine put himself on the line for a boy he barely knows. After Blaine and Kurt confront Karofsky (and that goes so spectacularly well) and Kurt sinks to the steps in defeat, something happened that for me solidified the Kurt and Blaine friendship (and made me hope that they would one day be more).
All of Blaine’s advice (bad advice, though well meant), all of his efforts to help Kurt have only seemed to make things worse. Kurt is clearly at a loss, dejected and greatly troubled by something. Blaine addresses this head on. “What’s the matter? Why are you so upset?” Talk to me. Let me help. This is so often Blaine’s response to Kurt. He’s 16. Maybe he’s the last person Kurt should be leaning on, he’s clearly got nothing put together for himself let alone Kurt but Blaine will grow and so will Kurt. They’ll learn life lessons and grow up and become strong individual people and the person who sees you struggling and responds like this, is the type of person you want to surround yourself with, be they friend or lover.
Kurt bares his soul yet again, and the wound he’s suffering from is something Blaine can’t fix. He presses his lips together, the silence stretches for a moment that must feel awkward and painful for them both. Then he sighs and says “Come on. I’ll take you out to lunch”. Some people got upset with this scene for Blaine not saying anything, for Blaine not kissing Kurt or doing a multitude of things. This moment pleased me. This moment says something and I think it’s summed up better by novelist Henri Nouwen.
“The friend who can be silent with us, in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing…not healing, not curing….that is a friend who cares.”
Blaine didn’t have the answers and he respected the gravity of Kurt’s emotional pain by not pretending like he did, or it could be easily fixed. He was simply there. He is a friend to Kurt as Kurt is a friend to him.
Yes I ship them romantically.
Why? The simplest reason. I believe friends make the best lovers. I’ve always wanted to fall in love with my best friend. Is that the only way to fall in love? Of course not. But it’s perfectly valid and just as fraught with tensions as any other love story. It’s love, therefore it’s as dangerous as it is beautiful.
“Love is friendship, friendship is love. If love fails, friendship should remain. For friendship is the foundation of love” - Unknown
Do I think they’re end game? I’m inclined to think so and open to whatever changes come. Will it break my heart if they break up? Of course. Will I begrudge either of them moving on and finding romantic love elsewhere? No, because I don’t love them because they’re boyfriends. I love them because they’re great friends, and I hope that would remain even after a break up. Hating the “new guy” would be counterproductive to my love for them as characters. :D
“To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.” - William M. Thackeray
I believe Kurt and Blaine have something good. It’s my cup of tea. Maybe it’s too sweet for you, or maybe you just don’t like tea. Fine, but all the talking in the world isn’t going to change it to coffee. Hating on something because you want to hate it doesn’t make what you’re saying true. It just makes it impossible for us to sit down and have a drink together and that’s a damn shame. So pour your drink of choice, feel free to tell me why you like it offer me a drink, I promise to try it. All I ask is that you extend me the same respect.
