Would you date your waifu/husbando?

[Naoki_Saten]

Yes, I would date my favorite character if they were real. Theoretically, the compatibility should be quite high.
The majority, though far from all, of my favorite characters are also people I assume I would get along with (the female ones mostly match my preferences) or at least be able to tolerate their negative quirks and enjoy the positive ones.

Theoretically. The problem with fictional characters is, the information we have on them is more limited than we think. Even a heroine from a 80+ hours VN is only portrayed in a limited number of situations. And most of them are different from our everyday lives.

Even though we may think we have a pretty good grasp on a character’s personality, imagining an everyday life with a certain character, even your favorite one is surprisingly difficult. I can imagine spending quality time with her just being in the same room and quietly reading stuff. It would be even more fun if we could read the same thing together, then spend hours discussing it. Aaaand the first problem is already there. I do know we both enjoy ‘reading’, but that’s a bit vague. Would I be able to get her to read LNs and VNs? I consider those to be a perfect fit for intellectuals, but that’s just my personal superstition. Those might not fit her tastes at all. Would I be able to enjoy poetry like she does? I’m by no means against it, but I’ve only ever dabbed into poetry when it was part of classes. Would I be able to return to classic literature, the likes of which I haven’t touched for a decade? I kinda “feel” like it would work out, but my brain is also giving me some warning signals. I’m slowly leaving the territory of what I “know” and moving closer to wishful thinking. I may only be projecting my misconceptions and personal desires onto her personality.

I imagine saying something, getting a sick burn from her, then trying to be witty, only to get back a retort twice as good as the first one. And then I’d be laughing, cause I enjoy good burns even if I’m on the receiving side. This part is easy, because I know she’s good at making retorts.
But what if we had a fight for some reason? First of all, I can’t even imagine ever intending to hurt her nor being able to say anything that would be beyond her to handle. I also can’t imagine too many things we would disagree on, since, again, I assume our compatibility to be quite high. But of course there’s stuff we wouldn’t see eye to eye on. She’s a whole different person. I simply don’t know what it is. How would we handle a fight? How, if at all, would we reconcile? I have no idea, because I’ve never seen her having a fight with anyone! I can try imagining said situation but I’m also aware that I’d be just back to filling the gaps in my knowledge with misconception and wishes or half-random guesses at best. This is moving into the direction of “why I hate fanfic and doujins”, so I’ll stop here, but I think you all get my point.

[Eivver]

Naoki_Saten makes a very good point. While I’d love to date my waifu as much as the next guy, imagining her in normal everyday situations gets real awkward real quick. I mean, your friends are gonna ask you why the hell your girlfriend has white hair… or why can she materialize wings out of thin air or something.

Jokes aside, it’s easy to think that, since she’s your waifu, you’ll be compatible in a lot of aspects. But as Naoki stated, most of the time we don’t have nearly enough information about them to fully imagine them as a real person. They’re usually portrayed with one stand-out characteristic, like liking books for example. But then, do they like video games? Music? What’s their opinion on anime? Would they be okay dating someone who spends most of their day on the Internet?

Most people usually fill these gaps with whatever is convenient for them, but at that point are they really still the same character? Are they not just a tailored, idealized shadows of their former self? If your waifu did materialize, and you find out she disagrees on something you strongly believe in then would you still date them? I imagine things are gonna get pretty awkward.

I might be delving a little too deep into this (blame the previous post for making me think of this, eheh), but I guess it’s food for thought.

[Takafumi]

I’ve got a couple comments to make on this weird thought train going on here.

First of all, the idea of changing the original character’s personality or filling in the gaps, that stuff happens anyway. A writer throws out their intended character and the reader sees something different. This is a person born of your imagination, not anyone else’s, so your interpretation of the character is the one that will be brought to reality. If there are gaps in information around the character then they’ll be filled naturally through life, like they would any person. That leads me to say…

Yes, this is ultimately a real person. You’re gonna disagree with them and fail to understand them, that’s how relationships work. It ain’t a focal point though. Those things happen, and even if you argue or don’t like them for a time, you’re still gonna be in love 'cause that’s how love works. I think worrying about interests, commonalities and disagreements is the wrong way to go when it comes to relationships, and imagining what situations may come is an incorrect way to approach this. Love is blinding and all that.
imo relationships are less about understanding and more about mostly-unconditional reliance and affection. Don’t look for someone who likes what you like, instead just look for someone you like. By heavily sharing interests you become reliant on those interests, and once the interests are stripped away you’ll begin to notice the gaps in your relationship. That sounds more like friendship than love. I think this is why many people would rather choose the friendship path than the romance path in relation to fictional characters.

[Pepe]

Taka raises a good point. A long-term relationship is a lot less about compatibility and a lot more about working out each other’s flaws. It’s one thing to “date” your admired fictional character, but it’s a whole different thing to know if you can work out a long-term relationship with them.

But hey, that’s what dating is all about! You meet up, do things, work with each other on a personal level, and that’s when you find out if you can work around each other’s flaws. Like, I personally think that as long as you’re interested in them as a prospective long-term partner, you should be willing to date them, and only then find out if you can make it work.

Of course dating has to be mutual, and so comes the bigger question of “would your husbando/waifu be willing to date you” but let’s not get into that

[NotKyon]

Philosophy aside, I chose Nayuki Minase in part because she seems to be the type of person who an everyday life with would fulfill any romantic needs without being an otherwise grating or high-maintenance relationship.

That said, what if Nayuki were someone I knew nothing about? Is your waifu someone you’d want to date even if you knew nothing about them? Let’s say you only had a brief conversation with this person, or a few encounters – however many it takes before you typically think to yourself that you’d like to date someone – is this someone who you’d be interested in actually pursuing?

image of nayuki here

Nayuki, for me, probably isn’t. She’s a nice person, and all, but I don’t hold the same interests she has, nor do I have the same hobbies as her. There’s basically no reasonable scenario in which we’d be likely to hold a meaningful enough conversation to gauge that possibility.

The world is filled with beautiful, amazing, people. In the case of Nayuki, for me, that’s not something I think I’d be able to realize about her unless we already knew each other. She’d effectively need to have already been a friend of mine for awhile.

Dating someone is time (and usually money) spent on a trial that can’t be uninstalled. At first glance, Nayuki wouldn’t appear to me to be someone worth putting the effort into. This very line of thought would likely be reason enough for her to feel the same about me.

Given that, the Key character I’d be most interested in dating knowing only the bare minimum about them – who they are on the surface – would probably be Akane Senri.

image of akane here

A single conversation with her would be enough. Presuming she gave me a chance, the relationship would not work out. We’d hate each other’s guts if we got close enough.

Thus, there is only one real choice.

image of kaiki here

Edit: Post has been edited to comply with the CoC. Currently trying to track down the original sources for these images.

[Ekalina]

Usually I choose character as my husbando because they seems reliable IRL (but I also can’t say they were 100% my husbando because usually I ship them with another girl from their own story)

1st is Kyousuke Natsume from LB
Reason : I think I don’t need to answer this haha
But rather than husbando…maybe I want him as my big brother…I bet I can’t get bored if I have him as my aniki-- Rin such a lucky girl

2nd is Ludger Will Kresnik Tales of Xillia 2
Reason : His kindness and the way he loves his family so much moved me (the way he love his wife and daughter even he do spoiler to protect them). Best papa and even he good at cooking, can do all house works, he can do everything that is why he can be husbando material

3rd is Haseo from .hack//G.U.
Reason: He trying his best to recover his bedrest friend (even it danger his own life). At first he’s a lone wolf and tsundere 100% like yoshino from Rewrite…but after he meet many people he seems changed into better and friendly person

Oh…and like usual I ship them with girl from their series
Kyousuke x Komari
Ludger Will Kresnik x Lara Mel Martha
Haseo x Atoli

[Likeaneko]

For me best girl will always be Kanade Tachibana from Angel Beats for me. She is what I would call my one true waifu. (aka number one female character I love and dump excessive money into)

Would I date her? I think I would get along with her for a date so yeah! Cook her up the only thing I really know how to cook… MAPO TOFU (I’m slowly learning to cook other things ^^")

While Kanade is the one true waifu, I do have other “waifus” for certain other large fandoms i.e. Kantai, Idols, Neptunia

For KanKore number one shipfu would be Umikaze. I really like the entire Shirayutsu family and it all seems to fit so nicely if Umikaze was the mother, Kawakaze the aunt and Yamakaze the Daughter.

For Idols I go to Maki Nishikino from Love Live. Rich, smart, best figure, best voice and best yuri ship. Would I date her? This one I’m a bit more iffy about. She’s literally I think one of the only tsunderes I like and I’m not sure we’d get a long down the long run. So I think no is my final answer on Maki.

Hyperdimension Neptunia I actually didn’t know was super huge until I went to AX and had a lot of fun talking to others who played the game. For this series best goddess is Blanc/White Heart. If you haven’t noticed I have a thing for the quite types with the exception being Maki. Playing the Neptunia Idol game was kinda being on a date with her at some times and I really liked the game so it’s a yes for her!

But in the end I have one quote besides the “One waifu or else it’ll destroy your laifu”

“Don’t wish your waifus were real. If they were real, they would probably think you’re weird. Instead, wish that you weren’t real.”

[KaiMiang]

This may come as surprising, but I do not have a waifu - I’m old enough to not think about having one really.

With that said, I can only think of one fictional character in any media that I would want to REALLY date knowing that they very incomplete “people”. You can relate to them, you can appreciate almost everything about them, but I don’t think there is enough there to want to work hard and enjoy the time working at it to make a true love relationship work, even if you are both keeping a lot of your independence and life goals.

If we are talking about just dating for fun and not for soul-based connections then there are plenty that could work I suppose. Still, I would probably rather know some of them as true and lifelong friends than as partners but that’s probably how my love works and is not useful advice for others.

I hope this makes some sort of sense.

[kesseki]

I don’t have waifus/hazubandos expect in a joking sense, and I like so many different characters that I couldn’t choose just one to occupy my heart. That said, I probably wouldn’t go for it. Many of my favorite characters and yandere, manipulative jerks, or just downright evil. I think fiction is a great way to explore interests in those darker character traits, but I sure wouldn’t want some weird guy with fabulous anime hair materializing in my apartment to try to shove me in a cage.

That and I’ve already succumbed and taken a 3D lover.

[Celeskastel]

I’ve joked for a long time Raiden from the MGS (Metal Gear Solid) series was/is my waifu, probably since MGS2 came out and still with the release of MGR. For no real reason other than I think he’s adorable. Of course, in real life I wouldn’t want to date him since he’s happily married and finding himself in complicated missions, it wouldn’t be practical at all haha

[Aspirety]

Yesssss you have excellent taste! Raiden is also my Metal Gear husbando.

[Naoki_Saten]

That said, I probably wouldn’t go for it. Many of my favorite characters and yandere, manipulative jerks, or just downright evil. I think fiction is a great way to explore interests in those darker character traits, but I sure wouldn’t want some weird guy with fabulous anime hair materializing in my apartment to try to shove me in a cage.

I fail to see the problem here. After all, are Yandere not the most dedicated lovers imaginable? Think about it. To them, love has the highest priority - it’s more important than morals, the world, or even sanity! Is it not the greatest happiness imaginable to be THAT important to someone?

[Takafumi]

Clarification - Yanderes are typically dedicated to love in the sense that they are to their own desires. These characters are less dedicated to a person and more dedicated to a twisted perception.

[Nav]

I agree. They care less about how the person feels than doing what they want to do.

[Odinbeard_McSparkles]

Interesting topic. I think I’d have to start first by figuring out whether they would work as a friend first, because right now I’d say I’m more interested in making new friends rather than holding hands and drinking milkshakes.

The hardest part for me would be the initial meeting of any would be potential friend/boyfriends/girlfriends. I have social anxiety, so I don’t chat up new people very often, and extended eye contact tends to really freak me out, especially with people I don’t know very well, but even my oldest friends of 10+ years have noticed it too. Obviously, it’s also kind of hard to say how this entire thing would work in the first place: Do I recognize them exactly from the game/anime or am I just somehow drawn to this person and interested in them naturally? If it’s the former, in my case, I think that would intimidate me all the more, and reduce my likelihood of initiating with them at all. That being said, all the close friends I have now are ones that initiated things with me, so I suppose it’s still possible, even if I did recognize them. If the latter, then maybe.

With that out of the way, I’ll consider my favorite female character at the moment and explore the possibility of an actual friendship, then as a potential girlfriend. I’ve always really adored Kurugaya since watching the LB! anime, and now after digging into the VN, she has definitely been solidified as one of my favorite characters in any anime or VN I’ve seen yet (female or male). I think the reason I’m drawn to her is because I feel like she’d fit right in with my circle of friends. We all mess with each constantly, make stupid and perverse jokes, ditch class, been in fights, and the like. In theory, assuming the circumstances were right and I didn’t make a total ass of myself, I’d like to think we could be decent friends.

As a romantic interest, the only girls I’ve been really close to have been mostly self-reliant. Ultimately, my ideal thought for a relationship with someone is that I’d like us to remain individuals, even if we are together. I get bored easily with the usual small talk crap that I have with acquaintances, coworkers, casual friends, or friends of friends, and I don’t want someone to constantly be calling or messaging me because they haven’t heard from me in a few hours or a day or two. Sometimes I like to just go off and take a walk in the woods and be alone for a bit, but sometimes I want someone with me. That’s a bit selfish, yes, but that’s the kind of relationship I have with my friends now; we all agree to it, understand it, and work around it. That’s the idea of what I’d want from a romantic relationship as well, (at least early on, and see how things go from there) and (again, in theory) based on what I know about her, I’d like to think Kurugaya might be able to roll with that, but that could just be me projecting here.

At the very least, I’d be down to give either a friendship or a relationship a shot. Despite my initial meeting issues, I wouldn’t be worried about any long-term relationships problems, since those will come up regardless of the context. I don’t dislike anyone who I’ve fallen out of love or touch with, and if things didn’t work out, then I’d just hope we had a good time while it lasted.

[IkaCZ]

This actually got me thinking real hard, as of reevaluate some of the things I always held dear in my life. Funny thinking about it since we are talking about fictional characters.

Many of you might know me as a person that jokes around but I actually take things seriously, sometimes maybe a bit too much and often not understand some completely blatant things. In that way, I guess I would be very similiar to Nagisa Furukawa.
And honestly, I always thought of having a tsundere or some w/e waifu… but would I be happy dating them? Hell no. Their attitude is really weird and hobbies completely off my range. Sure maybe body attracted and stuff, but actual relationship is something to be considered heavily. You are gonna date them, marry them and live with them, thats a hard choice to make. Especially in real life.
But that aside, I am mostly pure, I like simple things, smiling because there is someone just by my side etc. And the first one to come up in my mind would be Nagisa. Honestly, maybe she is TOO pure, but I wouldnt mind. Its something I am actually seeking in real life, that kind of a girl, without any jokes, I really do.

So to answer the question: Yes I would date my waifu, if it was Nagisa Furukawa.

(never thought I would ever say those words… but it makes sense to me)

[Pepe]

You make a good point Ika, although there is a flaw with that (CLANNAD spoilers) Nagisa is Tomoya’s and Tomoya’s alone!

[emilevnp]

Personally, I consider Rewrite’s Lucia Konohana my waifu. Not only is she attractive, but she is also pretty smart. She also has a strong sense of justice and is very eco-friendly. She has a sense of humor, as well, as demonstrated in the common route scene where she responded to Kotarou’s “I’m so hungry… my stomach is eating itself” with “I’m so tired… my legs are kicking themselves”. Freaking… LOVED that. And despite not wanting to touch plants or animals due to plot reasons, her room shows that she is clearly a lover of both. So my response to the question of whether or not I would date my waifu if she was real is a solid YES.

The problem, however, is whether or not SHE would want to go out with me. I mean… I’m not that bad, but I’m not that great, either. I’m not in the greatest shape, I’m prone to laziness, and I can be kind of annoying at times. I could list a bunch of other problems I see in myself, but if I did that, the list would be longer than the entirety of The Subspace Emissary’s Worlds Conquest fanfiction.

I’d more than likely ask her out, but I doubt that her response would be a positive one.

[Natsume]

Well, Ika-nii replied, so now I have to as well.

I’ve never been all that interested in the notion of waifus and the likes namely because they feel like a means of escapism for the most part. Leaving the real world’s logic behind in favour of a fantasy idealisation that wouldn’t be bound by societal norms and what must usually be done in order to land a proper partner while remaining a respectable one yourself (which can be considered a pain many don’t want to have to do, either due to personal trauma on the matter or simply viewing it as a loss of productive time if we exclude the natural assholes) and accept/go along with their natural human traits that can be quite finicky. It’s easier to decide on a “waifu” whose character can only go so many ways as a fictionally written work and is thus a lot more predictable than actual people who are subject to constant growth and change, some personalities taking an 180 turn from what they once were with either time or heavy incidents occurring suddenly.

So while I’ve never had much of an interest in these (nor in romance, overall, because I reason that people are duper duper scary to get involved with on that level ), for the sake of answering the question I’d say that if I were to fancy a waifu (or other term alike ) then it’d precisely be because they fit the norm of what I’d be looking for in an actual person…

I guess you could call it projection, instead? I’m not much of that “my type of person” nonsense but I do have character traits I prefer over others and if I were to be interested in a fictional depiction then it’d probably be for those exact traits I’d look for IRL.

From then on, would the relationship work out?

No one can tell that. It could. Or couldn’t And something like a death or another tragedy could change it up entirely. Relationships are heavily “make it as you go as long as you remain compatible for each other” oriented in the first place and predicting how a relationship will be lived out and potentially end is akin to trying to guess what weather there’ll be in two weeks without any meteorological assistance.

[tomatoe_15-15]

same