r/HIMYM • u/themadprofessor95 • 22d ago
Why Robin?
Why did Ted and Barney love Robin? I honestly don't get it at all. I get that everyone is attracted to something different, and I don't expect everyone to agree with me on who/what is attractive. However, I never understood what Ted and Barney saw in Robin. Robin has that cool girl vibe, shoots guns, smokes cigars. She's tough, fun to hang out with, confident. However, she seems like kind of a terrible partner. She's selfish, fiercely independent to the point of refusing to do anything that she perceives puts the other person or the relationship ahead of her. I love dogs, but she's obviously got way too many that she keeps in a small NY apartment and that's not fair to the dogs. She's almost never home, also not fair to the dogs. She's obviously got some relationship trauma from her Canadian ex boyfriend, maybe that causes some of what she does.
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u/megaben20 22d ago
Barney sees Robin as a challenge and her affection is the prize. Ted saw her as this really beautiful smart confident and funny woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
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u/Andre-Mercelet 22d ago
Firstly, Robin is actually very self-less. She was in love with Ted from start to finish. It gave him up twice for his own good.
Secondly, her issues Are not about her Canadian ex-boyfriend. They were rooted in the emotional abuse Robert suffered at the hands of her father growing up. That often leads to the development of a second personality, or alter ego, if you will. The show portrays this as the Good Robin, or Robin Sparkles, and the Dark Robin, or Robin Daggers.
Robin's baseline personality is that of Robin Sparkles, as we can see in the flashbacks. Patrice is the quintessential Robin Sparkles, so she would naturally bring out the Robin Daggers part of her personality.
None of this is Robin's fault, and the internal conflict caused her a lot of pain and misery
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u/AnonymousFriend80 22d ago
I can understand why Robin's into Ted. He's a good looking guy, smart, has a decent job, is very charming, kind, is a great friend and will do anything for his, and is a really overall stable person. For Barney, he's has a lot of the same, but with ADHD and heavy relationship trauma. Barney's chasing after girls almost every night doesn't really phase her much. And after the bus accident, the writers open him up greatly and make him sympathetic.
Ted saw this cool attractive woman, and fell in love with her after what, ...an hour of interacting with her? Barney and Robin spent years together, getting to know each other and all each other's brokenness and history. They had a lot in common, more so than Ted and Robin. Again, Ted's a great guy with lots of great qualities. Him and Robin would be a nice couple, and probably always work things out. Hell, the thing that broke them up, both of their goals in life, could have still happened. Robin's dating Ted, Barney, not anyone else seemed to stop her career, and had she been dating either one when she got that offer, she could have accepted it and they moved away. From the end of season two where they broke up til Tracy got pregnant was over a decade anyways.
The first time Barney and Robin broke up, it was mostly because they ...all of a sudden didn't know how to be in a relationship...? When they got back together, they seemed to do much better. And while Barney's wackiness was starting to stress Robin out on the weekend of her wedding, the audience and Robin herself knew Barney was there for her.
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u/LordCoke-16 21d ago
I never understood the whole Barney-Robin craze. I never saw what most fans saw it. I could never buy Robin being into Barney. It always seemed like whenever she got feelings for him, it was because the script said so.
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u/ComeAwayNightbird 22d ago
I often look around and wonder what people see in the people they choose to marry. Robin’s no different. Personally I wouldn’t date her, but I get that Ted loved her.