my favorite pop culture pastime: shipping

I ship Oliver and Felicity, and Elizabeth and Philip. I ship Alicia Florrick with everyone, but especially Finn Polmar. I yell “make out!” at the TV so often, it’s become a constant refrain in my apartment.

In TV land I am ruthless. I want everyone to cheat on everyone, unless you’re a couple I think is in capital L Love, and if anything comes between them I will riot.

Sometimes I am rewarded in my lust for lust, like the amazing moment Nyssa and Sara ran into each other on Arrow, and instead of attacking each other like assassins (which they are), they kissed like lovers (which they also are). It reinforced my shipping dreams, and now I can keep shipping random strangers because I was justified that one glorious time.

You can’t have a good ship without good chemistry, but chemistry can be good in a million different ways. Lovers have chemistry, but so do friends, colleagues, families, and people who really hate each other–and sometimes one relationship can be all those things at once (looking at you, Empire).

Chemistry is like talent: When people have it–I mean really have it–you don’t see them work at it. You never think about the mechanics of it, or how awkward it is to shoot those sex scenes (ahem, 50 Shades of Gray). Sometimes you don’t notice chemistry it until it’s missing and two people are hugging you didn’t even realize were supposed to know each other. I measure chemistry on a scale of Bella and her child in Twilight: Breaking Dawn (zero–they share the least maternal hug I have ever seen) to Alicia and Will on the Good Wife (whose romantic and sexual chemistry caused me physical pain).

Will and Alicia level chemistry is hard to come by. Even other couples on the Good Wife can’t match it, but the Good Wife makes up for this injustice by allowing me to ship multiple ships. Alicia and Finn? Definitely. Alicia and Peter? Yes, but in a twisted power game way. Alicia and Kalinda? Oh, hell yes.

I make up the rules of shipping as I go along, and I change the game whenever I feel like it: This person is allowed to cheat on their spouse, but not with a waste of a ship. That couple should be together forever, except he hasn’t realized it yet so she should get it from somewhere else in the meantime. If that person strays, I will never forgive them.

I have found that I am the best shipper when I am my best self. Shipping is not for yearning for your past or for what your future could be–that’s torture. I come to shipping with my heart full and overflowing with love, and I want to cheer on others to find the same. My shipping is a tribute to my own relationships, and a prayer that others can find that connection and acceptance.

The connection that warms my heart also thrills me. Watching people be attracted is attractive. That click with someone is so rare in real life, and so precious, that when I see it I celebrate it any way I can.

Underneath the sexiness of chemistry is the humanness of it. By responding to another person’s energy with our own, we are recognizing their humanity. And longing for that recognition and connection with someone else is universal.

So I ship. I ship everyone, and I change the rules of the game to allow for more and more shipping because the more diverse and inclusive our shipping is, the more diverse and inclusive our connections IRL can be. I ship so that cheering for all relationships and celebrating the sexy sex of bodies of all shapes and sizes becomes something we do on the regular, because we saw it on TV.