Post by SpringSummers on Feb 5, 2013 0:14:17 GMT -5
I definitely agree with Diane that Buffy basically had her heart "shut down" after being burned so badly with Angel (and also, in a way, Parker). So that pretty much precluded her letting anyone really close.
Though, beyond that, there was also a feeling that even "open-hearted," Buffy and Riley were not that great a match. They had such different ways about them, such different views of, and approaches to, life.
And yes, love the Riley speech. I liked Riley, though like all the others, he had some growing up to do. He seemed to have done pretty well for himself when we seem him again in S6.
You forget that Buffy was hurt long before this by her parents' divorce. Her father essentially wrote her out of his life by Season 3. Kids who are deserted by a parent often have severe trust issues. You follow that up with Angel's turning bad and the nasty business with Parker and the question isn't why she wouldn't let Riley in--it's how did she manage to let him in as far as he got.
And Riley--the psych post-grad--ought to have figured that out. Instead he went all whiney "poor pitiful me" when she didn't -- couldn't react the way he wanted her to.
Oh, definitely, I agree, the "dad desertion" was pivotal - I didn't forget it. But she did not close her heart off at that point.
She went looking for someone to fill the void - she still had a wide, wide open heart when she let Angel into it. Of course, her choice of someone who was sure to hurt her (and leave her) has everything to do with dad's abandonment.
And I think she was genuinely trying to "get back on the bike" with Parker, though it's no coincidence that she choose someone who hurt her yet again.
When she gets to Riley, she can only handle . . . I'll call it "fondness" rather than love. He's the enormous hall monitor, standing right outside the door of her heart. And he leaves her, too.
By the time she gets to Spike, when not only the men in her life, but her friends have betrayed her and hurt her, Buffy has a very, very hard shell around her heart.