Who has the worse romantic judgment?

[tkts]

Whose romantic judgment is the worst?

Buffy?

Major relationships: Doomed on-again, off-again romance with a brooding vampire who can never experience true happiness without losing his soul; relationship that she torpedoed by being emotionally distant and unavailable; series of self-destructive one-night stands that left her feeling dirty and degraded.

Minor relationships: Guy obsessed with danger who she had to dump because otherwise he'd end up getting himself killed; guy who dumped her right before Homecoming and then told everyone she was a lesbian; manipulative womanizing cad who slept with her and never called; guy who turned out to be sharing a body with a "god from the bitch dimension" and eventually tried to kill her sister; rogue demon hunter who tried to kill one of her other quasi-boyfriends.

Or Xander?

Major relationships: Love-hate relationship with a shallow, sharp-tongued cheerleader who couldn't go three sentences without putting him down (although that eventually seemed to become more of a joke); illicit affair with his childhood best friend when they were both dating other people; relationship with a thousand-year-old ex-demon who none of his friends really seemed to like all that much and who he eventually left at the altar.

Minor relationships: Mrs. Robinsonesque substitute teacher who turned out to be a giant praying mantis who wanted to steal his virgin sperm and then eat him; exchange student from South America who turned out to be an undead mummy who wanted to suck the life out of him; rogue slayer who started to rape him before she decided to strangle him to death instead; demon who wanted to use him as a human sacrifice to open the hellmouth.

[Inappropriate Starches]

I would say Buffy, but not because she necessarily picks the 'wrong' guy, but she picks the guy she *knows* she can't have a future with. Xander I actually think sees the good in people. He finds people like Cordelia and Anya and is able to see past their blunt rudeness and to what they really are. Buffy also seems to have this talent, but she does it with vampires and those relationships just can't work. In fact the only relationship she has that could work (Riley) is the one she shows the least interest in. So yeah, definitely Buffy, but I think her conversation with Holden in Conversations With Dead People explains a lot of that.

[Skytteflickan88]

rogue demon hunter who tried to kill one of her other quasi-boyfriends.

Who? Riley?

[Scarygothgirl]

^Principal Wood tried to kill Spike.


I would say Buffy as well. Xander generally gets interested in these people, then discovers that they're a demon and gets put off (other than in the case of Anya, but she wasn't a demon when they dated). Whereas Buffy knows that the vampires she's with are creatures of the night.

[Skytteflickan88]

Oh, right, Wood. I see now that Riley was mentioned earlier in that post.

[midwesternwatcher]

Any relationship where Buffy is a part is sacred to me. That includes most of the non-canonical ships. The only pairings I've ever seen in fanfic that I didn't like were Buffy-Giles and Buffy-Dawn.

As for Xander, well, I wouldn't say he has any romantic judgment good or bad. He just takes what he can get (except Willow, well, even Willow). When he said he loved Anya, I never believed him. He should've married her, though. No way he'll ever find anything better.

[Skytteflickan88]

Oh, about who got the worse romantic judgement:

Anya's sweet, by Xander marrying a women who misses the day when she hurt or killed lots of people, not all deserving off it(I mean, cheating is evil, but not that evil) is ... well, it seems morally wrong. Specially since she was once ready to kill his best friend, and threatened to hurt all of them if she got her powers back (Dopplegangland).

But they were happy, so I guess his judgement was... good? And Cordelia turned out to be a great gal as well, even though his judgement seemed... off in the beginning when he got together with her, since she was just horrible.

So I guess it's Buffy that needs to make the better choices. Not that I blame her for Spike. She was suicidal when she started things with him.

-EDIT

Scratch that. Xander... Buffy... Xander... it's a tie. They should have arranged marriages.

[usagianddarien]

i say Xander i mean really look at his love life, giant bugs, a girl trying to sacrifice him, Cordelia, Willow, Anya all of is relationships ended with someone being hurt, well the demons were hurt by buffy lol. but poor willow loved him and he had to go mess with preppy cordelia, and anya well we all know what happened there, i wanted to see them get back together.

[matt114]

Buffy by a long shot. Especially in the case of Angel where she knows any romantic involvement could lead to the loss of his soul. And in season 8 she goes for Angel despite him being all villainous, seemingly just forgiving everything he's done for love. If Spike's 'loves bitch' then what the hell is Buffy...

[SOMNAMBULIST 2.0]

I chose Buffy.
And the "boinker of the dead" part, while very true, is hilarious.