Spoiler alert: The following contains spoilers for Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 1.

Stranger Things has become a streaming series phenomenon. Its third season broke records with over 40 million households streaming the show in the first four days of release and the first part of the fourth season has already broken a Netflix viewership record.

Much of what makes Stranger Things so addictive is the way the characters pair up. The audience doesn’t just love to see the odd friendship develop (like that of Dustin and Steve) but romantic pairings as well. With much of the main cast as teenagers, there are quite a few relationships in the younger generation that have stakes just as high as a fight with a monster. Likewise, the adults of the series can find themselves with some serious relationship choices to make. Not every relationship in the series is created equal. Some of the couples are real relationship goals, while others could never last.

Updated on June 1st, 2022 by Amanda Bruce: With each new season of Stranger Things, more new relationship pairings are explored in the series. While most of those relationships lean toward team-ups to battle the monster of the season, some of them are more romantic than that. The more the audience gets to know the different characters, and the dynamics between them, the easier it is to see just which relationships might be built to last. Season 4 separates most of the show's long-term couples, allowing the audience to watch them grow.

The Best Relationships In Stranger Things

Mr. And Mrs. Sinclair

Stranger Things Sinclair Parents

The audience doesn’t even know the first names of these two characters yet. With Lucas as a main character and his little sister getting an expanded role, perhaps they’ll find out what they are eventually.

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Mr. And Mrs. Sinclair appear to be one of the most well-adjusted couples in the series. The audience doesn’t see much of them, but what they do see tells the audience that they pay attention to their kids and that they encourage them to do their best. Sure, they don’t know that Lucas has been regularly fighting monsters or that Erica spent some time in a secret Russian lab, but these two deserve to preserve some sense of normalcy.

Joyce And Bob

Bob and Joyce in the closet in Stranger Things

Considering Joyce’s past when she met Bob, trusting someone would be hard. In addition to not having a great relationship with her ex-husband, she’d also just got her son back after losing him to another dimension. That makes interpersonal relationships difficult, to say the least.

Bob didn’t let the strangeness in Joyce’s life keep them from getting close. He rolled with the weird and stayed supportive of both her sons. Once he had all the details about what Joyce and the boys went through, he didn’t hesitate to help. It’s too bad he sacrificed himself, but the audience is glad Joyce had a little happiness while their relationship lasted.

Nancy And Steve

Stranger Things Nancy And Steve

Nancy And Steve sounded great on paper. Nancy had a crush on a guy who could break her out of her shell. Steve liked a girl who wouldn’t put up with him treating people badly. If they’d gotten together in season three, maybe things would have worked out a little better for them.

RELATED: 5 Worst Things Steve Harrington Ever Did In Stranger Things (And 5 That Won Us Over)

As it stands, in season one, Steve wasn’t yet ready to be the good guy. In season two, Nancy was too wrapped up in her guilt for ignoring Barb. Though they shared the trauma of fighting the Demogorgon, they didn’t see eye to eye about moving on from it, and it made them ill-fitted to one another at the time. Despite all of that, the two work well together. They genuinely care for one another and help each other grow. Despite their breakup, they maintain a great friendship, and if the two ended up back together in the series, the audience would be rooting for them. 

Nancy And Jonathan

Stranger Things Jonathan And Nancy

It was clear in the first season that Nancy and Jonathan would end up at least being close friends. His photos of her aside, they obviously cared about one another. When other people made fun of them, they stood up for each other. They also helped one another with their missing loved ones.

Cut to season two, and they were the duo that did the most investigating of the weird circumstances in their town - and grew closer while they did. No matter how strange the information is that they found, they were always willing to help each other out. Even when not seeing eye-to-eye in season three, they found ways to compromise and apologized for not understanding where the other was coming from. Their shared traumas have brought them closer together instead of pushing them apart. They both see the parts of their partner that the rest of the world doesn't get to, and that makes them stronger together. They might not last in the long term as they both look forward to college, but they're truly great together.

Mike And Eleven

Stranger Things' Mike And Eleven lounging on a bed

Some fans might not love the Mike and El dynamic. After all, the two can be incredibly childish. It’s important to remember though, that they are children. Because of what she’s been through, Eleven is a little further behind in social skills compared to her friends, and wouldn’t treat a relationship the same way a thirteen-year-old today would.

Mike and El, despite their naive behaviors and not understanding one another’s emotional outbursts, are incredibly sweet with one another. Most of what the audience has seen of their relationship involved Mike teaching El about the world around her and the two obsessively staying in contact. With season three, as they’ve gotten older, they’ve realized they can go their separate ways and still care about one another. Season four sees their first real rough patch, but Mike immediately realizes his mistake and wants to fix it so that they can better understand one another again.

Max And Lucas

Max and Lucas sitting in front of each other, talking

Initially, Max and Lucas have some very bad ways of coping with differences of opinion. Max decided that every time she doesn’t agree with Lucas, or doesn't get her way, she’d just dump him. As a result, they’ve already broken up and gotten back together five times between seasons two and three. Lucas decided that every time he needed to get Max on his good side, he’d just buy her a present. With that attitude, the two don’t even seem to talk much at first.

Though they've broken up by the time the fourth season begins, it's clear that they still care about one another very much. Lucas demonstrates just how much he's grown in the year when he apologizes for not seeing just how badly she was hurting after the death of Billy, and for not being there for her. Max doesn't blame Lucas though, and the two are finally starting to grow and learn to really communicate.

Dustin And Suzie

Suzie And Dustin sing a duet over the radio

Suzie doesn’t live anywhere near the rest of the group, so it’s unlikely fans will see much of her as the show progresses, but she certainly made an impression in her two appearances. When Dustin came back from camp, his friends didn’t believe he found himself a girlfriend “hotter than Phoebe Cates.”

RELATED: 10 Most Romantic Stranger Things Moments, Ranked

Dustin and Suzie had a lot in common. Both had a love for math and science - and knowledge of ham radios to communicate across long distances. They both also clearly loved The Neverending Story, which made for one of the best sequences of season three. Dustin and Suzie might have a good chance of making things work despite only seeing one another once a year at camp. She is, after all, willing to break all of the family rules and hack into the school system to change a grade for him.

Joyce And Hopper

Joyce and Hopper looking surprised in Stranger Things

This might be the one couple fans wanted to see the most. Joyce and Hopper had a history. They grew up together, but both married other people, before ending up single again a few years later. There was clearly a connection between them in seasons one and two. Season three could have been their season.

If only Joyce’s grief over losing Bob, and her preoccupation with the strange happenings of Hawkins, hadn’t led to her standing Hopper up on their date, fans might have seen them finally become a couple. The duo made one of the best teams in the series. Despite their arguing with one another, they always supported each other’s goals. Joyce gave Hopper parenting advice while he helped her with her magnet problem. Joyce even finally agreed to a real date - right before Hopper sacrificed himself to close the gate between dimensions. Joyce spends the bulk of the fourth season trying to get Hopper back. Despite Hopper denying to anyone who will listen that Joyce is "his woman," he laments that he might not deserve her. The two are clearly perfect for one another. No one else is going to understand the lengths they go to for the people they love.

The Worst Relationships In Stranger Things

Ted And Karen

Ted and Karen Wheeler at the breakfast table in Stranger Things

Ted and Karen Wheeler, with their three kids and a pretty house in the suburbs, appear to be a perfect couple. According to Nancy though, it's hard to imagine that the two have ever truly been happy together, just comfortable.

That's certainly reflected in their interactions on screen. Season one saw Karen exasperated with Ted more often than even engaging in everyday conversation with him. In the third season, she almost had an affair with a high school student because she was so unhappy. These two don't even seem to talk outside of family breakfasts and dinners.

Lonnie And Cynthia

Lonnie talks to Jonathan in Stranger Things

Both Lonnie Byers and his girlfriend Cynthia only appeared briefly in the first season of the show. While they might have been perfectly happy together, the audience didn't get to see it since Lonnie pretty quickly left her to attempt to cash in on what he thought would be a lucrative lawsuit with his ex-wife's help.

For her part, Cynthia joked about leaving Lonnie for his teenage son. That just seems in poor taste since Jonathan had only come to see Lonnie to look for his missing brother.

Billy And Heather

heather talking to billy

It's difficult to say whether Billy and Heather were ever even truly a couple. The Mind Flayer already had its hooks in Billy when Billy started paying attention to her.

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Really, they were both victims of the Mind Flayer, controlled by it, and pretending to be a normal teen couple. It's not their fault that they were victims of circumstance. Even if Heather had given Billy a real chance, he was busy pursuing married women at the same time that he was working with her at the pool, so it likely wouldn't have worked out.

Billy And Karen

Stranger Things Billy And Karen Wheeler

By Billy and Karen, of course, what is really meant is Billy and Mrs. Wheeler. Like many of the local moms in season three of Stranger Things, Karen Wheeler enjoyed the view of Billy working as a lifeguard at the community pool. Unlike the other moms, Karen had the opportunity to do something about it.

Billy approached Karen about getting some private “swim instructions” from him at a local motel. Karen was tempted, but ultimately, didn’t meet up with him. That was probably the best decision she ever made. A mother of three, Karen’s oldest child is about Billy’s age. She really had no business entertaining the idea of a relationship with a teenager. It’s creepy.

Carol And Tommy H.

Stranger Things Tommy H And Carol

In season one, when Nancy got her introduction to the popular kids in school, Carol and Tommy H. were part of her friend group. They were two of the people that hung out with Steve, and they happened to be quite the couple.

Carol and Tommy weren’t necessarily bad for one another, but they were certainly bad for everyone around them. Gossipy and sneaky, Carol talked about everyone she knew behind their backs. Tommy spread rumors about Nancy. They both made fun of Steve for even dating Nancy and then teased him further when the two broke up. They were the kind of couple that could rule the high school but at everyone else’s expense. They brought out the worst in each other.

NEXT: 10 Times Stranger Things' Eleven And Hopper Gave Us All The Feels