screw the Nairers with one HAND and pet the Vuckers with another

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Given that the writers are idiots and Nate is actually a loyal and good guy who is good for Blair (whatever that means), I still think Chair trumps Nair fair and square. The biggest problem I have with Nair is that their relationship is based on love as a commodity. An emotion is not an object that we can push around. It is not a number. It is something that happens without a good reason that we can tell our parents. It is not something we can choose after rationally weighing the pros and cons, deficit and surplus.

I like Nair, but for what it is: a childish relationship that ends (and must end) once either of them outgrows it. Of course, Chuck and Blair are both incredibly childish -- but their relationship is not, oddly enough. Which is probably why their relationship is the only thing pulling them out of their most difficult moments, the one thing saving them.

Allow me to elaborate:

Nair's love is childish and problematic, because it is planned. It is planned by Blair from start to finish, and Nate is just going along with it, because he doesn't have plans. He is okay with just being a part of Blair's plans because it's not like he has anything better to do anyway. It's easy to have someone else plan things for you. And can you blame him? Hell, if someone who cares about me was willing to plan my life out for me, I'd totally let them.

A relationship like Nair exists in abundance in real life, and many people get married while in a relationship like this -- and then they wonder what went wrong as they sign the divorce papers. (We were so perfect before! It all added up and made perfect sense. So why are we so dissatisfied now?) In this way, Nair was a perfect fit, because their plan/non-plan matched up, kind of like a buyer of Red Hot Chili Peppers concert ticket for $50 and a seller of RHCP concert ticket for $50 matching up on Ebay. Or those dating websites that match people up based on your personality traits (Oh, you're friendly? I'm friendly too!)

Nair to me is about give and take. Blair gets to weave Nate (nice and ultra-pretty Van der Bilt prince) into her plans, and Nate gets to have someone love and support him and plan everything out for him.

And Nate soon realizes how problematic this is. He was realizing it in the pilot (which made him an interesting character to watch at least during that episode). He might be confused and lost, but he feels it in his guts that Nair is a bad idea, which is why he suddenly breaks up with Blair after all those years. He outgrew it. In this way, he matured more quickly than Chuck and Blair ever did. After drifting along with the whole thing, he woke up and saw that if he lets this relationship continue, he will be unbearably miserable one morning, because a relationship based on capitalizing on each other's respective value and resources is hallow and meaningless. He sees that this is a childish love, one that he cannot let continue. So he breaks up with Blair, and that's worth applauding.

Blair is distressed by this, because her plans are all messed up now. I don't think she ever used Nate -- because what is there to not love about Nate anyhow? She probably did love Nate, in the way I loved Heath Ledger. I really did love him and wanted him to succeed and I was incredibly sad when he died -- I loved him sincerely, because he was just so talented and pretty and awesome (and rich, too). One difference here was that Blair's Heath Ledger was actually and tangibly her boyfriend, and she was given the chance to actually worship the ground her boyfriend walked on.

But you can't plan to fall in love with someone. I can't find a Heath Ledger (who is my Prince Charming in all my fantasies), put my arms around him, and wait till I fall in love with him. Well, I could, but I would be waiting forever. I could say out loud over and over again that I am in love with him but that wouldn't mean that I am in love with him. Love doesn't work like that. Blair was young and she didn't know, so she found herself a Nate Archibald, who is not only lovable, but also looks really good in her arms -- then she forced love to blossom between them. This was a mistake that reminds us that she's just a teenager with lots to learn. And I love Blair because she is. I don't mean that at all to sound patronizing -- really affectionate is probably what I am going for.

So now let's examine the other couple at hand. Chair is, for all intents and purposes, the opposite of Nair in its inception. Chair is entirely unplanned. The idea of Chair was never conceptualized in Chuck or Blair's head, because they didn't have anything they wanted from each other. What would Blair want from a gross playboy that's shunned by everyone she wants to impress? What would Chuck want from the stuffy girlfriend of his best friend who would never ever ever touch him with an 8-feet pole?

They didn't even consciously care for each other's friendship either, but whatever -- they were friends. And this friendship was fated and inevitable (not the kiss in the limo -- that was a random accident), because they are both messed up people who only know how to express how much they care by deceiving and scheming -- so they never had the choice to not become friends of sorts. It's like if you and I were the only two people in class that loved Bob Dylan and believed that pot lets you "transcend your consciousness" -- we can't help but become friends. If we are both members of a band and share the same vision of what kind of music we want to make, there is no way we can avoid being friends of some kind. In this way, they are too alike to ignore each other completely.

And then that night at Victrola happened and they crossed the line between friends and more-than-friends, transforming in the matter of minutes from comrades in arms to the love of each others' lives. It wasn't something that they planned to do, because Blair was supposed to end up with Nate and Chuck was supposed to end up with a suite full of babes.

It wasn't supposed to happen! Ew! Blair hates that it happened, and Chuck dreads it. And this is so damn hard for them, because this is just so not in their respective blueprints for the future. Blair, after all that planning, can't just say "fuck it" and go with the scum of UES! Chuck, after building himself up as the playboy of the century, can't just discard it and go with this settling down with a gf crap!

But it happened. Blair fights it, but it's impossible. Chuck denies it, but it's also impossible. Their love is not at all commoditized, because it is not about them agreeing to it. It's not about shaking each other's hands in a deal that both are satisfied with. In appearance, they make many deals with each other, but only because that's how they function as lovers, not because their love is a deal. Their love, if they could help it, wouldn't even exist. And you can't get two people to agree to a deal when neither of them wants it -- but this is love, so that rule's out the window. It doesn't work like that in love. You can be in love with someone even if you really really don't want to be. It's because emotions are not goods that you can buy and sell and trade.

And they have nothing to buy from or sell to or trade with each other anyway! They have nothing to give or take. Their love is not about having something to offer each other -- rather, it's about being. And that's what real, mature love is like -- the kind of love Nate left Blair to find. Real love is not about trading of goods. It's not about giving and taking, having and losing, equal distribution of resources, or fair trade.

It's about smiling simply because the other exists in this world and loving the world a little more for it. It's about knowing that the other is there, and that alone making you feel like maybe you are not completely alone in this world, like you have someone on your side in a bloody battle. It's not something you can rationally explain.

It just is. Chuck and Blair is, and for no good reason that you can explain to your acquaintances. And that's why Chair is so amazing: It's because they are each other's comrade in arms, somehow on the same side holding the same flag. They didn't choose it like one chooses a detergent, after calculating in your head how much you need it, the product's quality, price versus value -- it just happened.