Steve Harrington’s character has not been lucky in romantic love on Stranger Things. Although he fell hard and fast for Nancy Wheeler in the first season of the series, their romance imploded because the history they shared loomed too large. Instead, Nancy found a kindred spirit in outcast Jonathan Byers, who shared the heaviness of the Upside Down that she felt on her shoulders. After that, we see Steve casually, but not seriously, look for love interests (and often strike out) throughout Stranger Things 3 and 4. And while the ghost of Stancy (Steve/Nancy) seems to haunt us in Stranger Things 4 and 5, we think Stranger Things would do better to forgo giving Steve a romantic interest as Stranger Things comes to an end. Steve may not have been lucky in romantic love, but with Robin and Dustin, he found two additional parts of his whole. And that’s more than most people get to have. If Stranger Things was brave enough to honor the importance of these platonic but intimate relationships and conclude that they are more than enough, that would be a worthy ending for Steve Harrington.
Stranger Things 5, Volume 2’s trailer sees Steve and Dustin harken back to one of their most adorable (yet, truly most intense) friendship moments. In Stranger Things 3, Steve, Robin, Dustin, and Erica unearth a secret Russian plot taking place in Hawkins. They investigate, of course, and end up finding a crate of unknown substances. Steve, ever the Babysitter, insists that everyone else move away, just in case the whole thing explodes. But Dustin refuses to. “If you die, I die.” He says firmly. It’s a cute moment in situ, because obviously no one was really going to die in that elevator. But it’s also an incredible show of devotion. Dustin was so connected to Steve, the first person to really see him as not a sidekick or a nerd, but a really cool dude worth befriending and supporting, that he willingly put his life on the line to stand by him.
Flashforward to Stranger Things 5, Volume 2’s trailer, where we see Steve and Dustin, who appear to have reconciled after their rocky interactions in Volume 1, repeat the same words to one another. This time, it’s Steve who initiates. And this time, neither one of them are truly children anymore. “You die, I die.” Steve tells Dustin, deadly serious. And though we don’t know the circumstances, the threat of death seems much more real now than it did in Stranger Things 2. And, TRULY, what a sentiment to offer to another person. The underlying idea here is that Dustin and Steve simply love each other so much that cannot live without the other on Stranger Things. Not in a silly, joking way, but in a “my life is worth nothing without you” kind of way.
It’s quite literally a pledge to survive to live together or die, unable to face a world without the other. It’s a staggering vow to contend with. The person you share a promise like this with is the most important relationship in your life. And if there’s a person to share a promise like this with, then you have achieved a relationship that contains the deepest kind of love. And that’s the kind of love that Steve and Dustin share on Stranger Things.
Then there’s Robin. Robin and Steve might not be romantically involved, but in every way, she is his partner, whom he loves. Since Stranger Things 3, Robin and Steve have been inseparable: working together, fighting together, hanging out together. Although Robin has Vickie in Stranger Things 5, and that’s great, her “Platonic with a Capital P” bond with Steve is really still her strongest one, nascent romantic feelings or not.
For Steve, Robin represented an important shift in his perspective on life. By befriending Robin, who had been a weird kid and outcast in high school, Steve was finally able to let go of the immaterial popularity labels he still clung to a bit when Stranger Things 3 began. Robin became a person who had known Steve before, in his King Steve form, but was able to allow him the space to become someone new, someone better.
Conversely, for Robin, Steve became a person who saw all of her in Stranger Things, as so few were allowed to, and loved her and supported her without question. With the solidity of Steve to lean back on, we see Robin blossom, open up, and become a more fully realized version of herself as well. In ways, the pair kind of formed their adult selves around one another on Stranger Things. Each of them leaning into the relationship to become the person they were meant to be. Once again, Steve found a love so critical that it changed his entire self, the partnership he was seeking, just not in the form he’d imagined it would come.
So what would it accomplish to bring Steve and Nancy back together on Stranger Things? Or worse, throw an unknown character into the romance slot just because? Steve and Nancy have history, yes, but they have not shared their lives. By and large, they have not shared their stories on the series: not their growth, not their struggles, not their joys. Nancy might have given Steve a thump on the head with their breakup, but she then exited stage right from his entire narrative. Meanwhile, Robin and Dustin ARE Steve’s entire narrative. And that’s a beautiful story that needs no romance to gild it.
Both in the realm of fiction and in the society we live in, we often fail to recognize how non-romantic relationships can be just as intimate, just as intense, and just as critical as romantic ones—especially when it comes to characters who are men. So far, incredibly, Stranger Things has built a love-filled narrative for Steve Harrington that does exactly that. It’s a beautiful representation of how the most critical relationships in your life don’t have to automatically be romances. (And how, for many people, they actually aren’t)
And so we say. Dear Stranger Things, Steve Harrington does not need a love interest. He already found the great loves of his life.
Stranger Things 5, Volume 1 is now streaming on Netflix. Stranger Things 5, Volume 2 will release on Christmas, that’s December 25 at 5 PM PT/8 PM ET. This release will include episodes five through 7.