The Headcanon In Benedick's Much Ado About Nothing

I first got the idea for the headcanon in the first scene of the play, when Benedick explicitly states he has never been in love: “And I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly I love none.” (1.1) In the same scene, he implies that he doesn’t understand romantic attraction: “That I neither feel how [Hero] should be loved nor know how she should be worthy is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me.” (1.1)

In Beatrice’s first line after Benedick’s “hard heart” comment, she says “I thank God and my cold blood that I am of your humor for that,” meaning that she doesn’t want a romantic relationship either, and adds “I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.” (1.1) She says later that she is “upon [her] knees every morning and evening” praying that God will “send [her] no husband.” (2.1)
I needed to see how they ended up.

At the end of 2.1, Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio, and Hero all acted in basically the most amatonormative way possible by trying to set Beatrice and Benedick up with each other. They should be ashamed of themselves. I’ll have more to say on that later.

Benedick said about the possibility that he might fall in love, “I cannot tell; I think not” (2.3)—which is a common reason for labeling as gray-aro. In the same speech, he said, “[T]ill all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace,” which made me think he might specifically be