I like Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce together as much as the next person (who’s not an avowed anti-Swiftie, that is): After years’ worth of excellent yet depressing songs about her romantic travails, it’s kind of wonderful to see the pop star in what appears, to the untrained eye, to be a happy and healthy relationship.

That may be why it’s so frustrating to me every time the “Are Taylor and Travis endgame? Are they engaged???? Are they already married??????” discourse cycle starts up again, as it did this week via Page Six. (The outlet’s “evidence” that the couple may have already wed? A table assignment made out to “Taylor and Travis Kelce” at Chicago Bears player Cole Kmet’s wedding.)

Obviously, if all this turns out to be an actual thing, I’ll eat my words (and plenty of crow, too). But as of now, I have to wonder why we, as a society, are so invested in the idea of Swift and Kelce becoming a married couple. On the surface of it all, it might not seem that deep—people like beautiful pop stars and handsome athletes and like to see them spend their lives together!—but I can’t help reading something a tad darker into the full-blown obsession that started almost immediately after the two went public as a couple in 2023.

It’s now 2025, and we have ample evidence (some of it provided by Swift’s own lyrics!) that a woman is worth far more than the bling on her left-hand ring finger. Still, critical commentators and maritally minded Swifties alike appear determined to distill Swift’s narrative down to whether or not she’s settling down—or already settled down with—her boyfriend. But, please: They’re full-grown adults, and this isn’t a Jane Austen novel, so can we please move beyond the marriage plot?

There’s some substantial cultural precedent to romanticizing a fan-favorite “fairy-tale wedding,” but at the risk of sounding cynical, those don’t always end well. To wit: Over 750 million people watched Princess Diana float down the aisle to wed the then Prince Charles in 1981, and their actual union was, well, one of the original and defining marital hot messes. (“There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” remember?) All the nuptial pomp and circumstance in the world didn’t create an actual, lasting bond for Diana and Charles, so why would our fever pitch of parasocial expectations around Swift and Kelce’s potential marriage in any way set them up for success? If we love Swift as much as so many of us claim we do, shouldn’t we just…leave her and her man alone to find their own way to the altar (or not)?