Stop romanticising stalkers: Why Joe Goldberg from 'You', Shahid Kapoor in 'Kabir Singh' or Shah Rukh Khan in 'Darr' are not relationship goals

Dubai: Joe Goldberg had me at Victor Hugo — and then promptly lost me at body count number four.

But watching Season 5 of Netflix recent hit You unravel into a bizarre soap opera of selective morality and murder rave party made me think: this isn’t just a Netflix problem. This is part of a wider entertainment obsession — the toxic lover as fallen anti-hero, the stalker as romantic lead.

Think about it. Joe isn’t the first character to peer through windows and call it love. He isn't the first guy who killed 22 people by Season 5.

Bollywood walked so this guy could sprint through bookstores with a bloodied mallet. Shah Rukh Khan in Darr literally carved “K-k-k-Kiran”, his hapless victim's name, into his scarily gleaming hairless torso, and into our cultural memory — a terrifying stalker repackaged with dimples and charm. He was obsessive, violent, unstable — and yet somehow, we loved him for it.

Ditto Bollywood romantic blockbuster Kabir Singh. Shahid Kapoor’s character drinks, punches walls (and people), and bulldozes over consent — but he's broken and has severe anger-management troubles, so we’re supposed to go easy on him.

But it makes you wonder why do we keep turning emotionally volatile, dangerous men into romantic ideals? Is it because they appear more passionate? Because they suffer for love — even if they inflict suffering too? There’s something deeply unsettling about how often we allow these characters to be framed as misunderstood lovers rather than cautionary tales.

We give them poetic voiceovers, tragic childhoods, or artistic streaks — as if painting or quoting literature cancels out abuse.

What’s worse is how these men are rarely punished in meaningful ways. They either get the girl (Kabir Singh), or they get glorified in death (Darr), or, like Joe, they survive and thrive.

And the women? Often objectified, idealised, or conveniently killed off. It's storytelling that subtly conditions us to equate persistence with love, and toxicity with depth.

Even actors such as Penn Badgley and Shahid Kapoor have admitted their characters are not aspirational. But that hasn’t stopped audiences from putting them on pedestals. We hashtag them, we romanticise them, and we ignore the clear red flags — all in the name of “intensity.”

It’s time we retire this trope.

Love isn’t obsession. Passion isn’t possession. And quoting Victor Hugo while controlling someone’s life or hacking them to death doesn’t make you deep — it makes you dangerous. Let’s stop dressing up manipulation as romance and start calling it what it is: creepy, controlling, and definitely not relationship goals.