If she doesn't recognize that here, I think she definitely recognizes it by "Chosen." Her cookie dough speech is not the speech of a girl still madly in love.
That's true. It goes to her experience and awareness that life is more than romantic grand gestures, and that she can't live day-to-day, exclusively by them. Now, I also think there are day-to-day things she did get from him (a lot of emotional support and a sounding board who recognized and shared many of her concerns) that she does miss out on. But rather be tied up in ideals of love, she did adjust, grow, move and live in the world.
I actually think they were more mature about their relationship than a surface reading gives credit for. Most of S3 is the process of them coming to terms with an inevitable break-up, and that can be very hard to do - particularly when standard romantic tropes say "True Love" is supposed overcome adversity, damn all else.
Buffy sometimes indulged herself but reluctantly accepted this doesn't hold given her larger set of values, so she's naturally not going to accept it coming from Spike later on.
None of which says they either could or could not sustain a different or more mature relationship in the future if they had circumstances that supported it. The mad love isn't there, but there were other things there too.
no subject
That's true. It goes to her experience and awareness that life is more than romantic grand gestures, and that she can't live day-to-day, exclusively by them. Now, I also think there are day-to-day things she did get from him (a lot of emotional support and a sounding board who recognized and shared many of her concerns) that she does miss out on. But rather be tied up in ideals of love, she did adjust, grow, move and live in the world.
I actually think they were more mature about their relationship than a surface reading gives credit for. Most of S3 is the process of them coming to terms with an inevitable break-up, and that can be very hard to do - particularly when standard romantic tropes say "True Love" is supposed overcome adversity, damn all else.
Buffy sometimes indulged herself but reluctantly accepted this doesn't hold given her larger set of values, so she's naturally not going to accept it coming from Spike later on.
None of which says they either could or could not sustain a different or more mature relationship in the future if they had circumstances that supported it. The mad love isn't there, but there were other things there too.