Not everyone will agree. In the various LitRPG groups, some people don’t want the MC to have ANY close romantic personal relationships at all. Just monsters and fighting, thank you very much.
Not me, though. Having an MC that finds someone to get close to seems very human and realistic to me.
Why?
In the real world, if you think about the people who are commonly hailed as being the top examples of people to emulate, there is usually a girlfriend, boyfriend or spouse in that story that we don’t focus on as much. Very few of our world leaders are single and fewer have always been single. It’s relatively rare that someone considered the most influential in history did so alone or only with “teammates or business partners”.
What Could Go Wrong?
I’m not particularly talking about explicit romance. Just having a person in the story that helps the hero recover mentally from the ordeals they go through. The person who’s there waiting when they go home at night from a long day killing magical beasts.
I don’t particularly like it when every character the MC encounters falls head over heals for them. I guess you could have the MC try to maximize their charasma stat or invent some skill they have that causes people to lose their common sense when they talk to them. But generally, authors should avoid MCs that end up with admirers in every town they go.
I also don’t like it when the MC seems too oblivious to their attractiveness to the opposite sex. Like they have six girls pining over them, hinting at things. And they act all dumb when someone else asks them, “You have to tell me your secret to attracting all these girls?” And the MC has no idea what that person is talking about. Like you think Brad Pitt doesn’t know he’s Brad Pitt?
Good Examples
- In He Who Fights With Monsters, Jason has a brief courtship with Cassandra Mercer. He seemed to have gotten a lot of healing from that, being able to just hang out with her in a hammock for an afternoon.
- In Battle Mage Farmer, John and Ellie take it really slow, but eventually they get there.
- In Path of Ascension, the MC quickly partners with another fighter, and they decide they want to date, eventually.
In general, I think having something other than fighting and leveling in the book helps with character development and brings a more realistic story. Having a powerful person battling dozens of tough challenges over years, and never once consider becoming close to someone, is strange to me. They’re not monks.
