In a teen drama setting, maybe. Like, I can imagine this making sense in a high school setting where everything is driven by drama and gossip. But imagining adults behaving in such a way is a little more difficult. The thing is, teens in school are stuck in a very claustrophobic environment where they’re constantly around the same group of people, some of whom they may dislike or be indifferent to. Adults in a modern workplace aren’t really equivalent, because unlike on TV, most people do have their own semi-overlapping social circles, rather than conveniently restricting themselves to a “limited cast”.
Put another way: for those of us who have played BioWare games and got used to using them as a kind of template for romance arcs, haven’t you ever wondered why, even as the city’s fabled hero, Hawke is still restricted to the same 4.5 potential partners? Making the cast too involved in each other’s lives risks drawing attention to restrictive nature of the MC’s environment. You’re supposedly living in a city, or going to a huge high school, or part of a huge space agency, or whatever – but you’re still only interacting with the same four people.
This was one of the things that put me off dating sims, after playing them for a long while. That, and the lack of cast members who aren’t love interests.
I adore seeing this in stories. One of my pet peeves in any story is after choosing a RO’s route, the other RO’s just kinda fade into the background. No, just because one of the RO’s is particularly special to my MC does not mean i dont want to get to know and develop relationships(platonic) with the others.
Of course the degree to which the other characters comment on and interest with the MC’s and their chosen RO’s relationship should depend on the character themselves and their own relationship with the RO and/or MC. A specific example of would be in the Wayhaven series where the MC is the newcomer to a already established found family unit and as such the various characters have their own opinions on any blossoming relationships(positive and negative) and are close enough with one another to make those opinions known. A more general example would be if a character has a bad relationship with the MC but is very close to the RO then i would expect there to be some friction/tension and depending on said characters personality that tension being more subtle or obvious.
