Is Irene Adler the only woman Sherlock will ever have romantic feelings for?

 (Sherlock meta by mollymatterrs)

Q:  [...] It is kind of obvious from season 2 that there may never be any romantic interest for Sherlock other than Irene Adler. In [ASiB] Sherlock ends the episode by saying ’ The Woman’ and then ‘THE Woman’ stressing on the ‘THE’ the second time. Do you think he is suggesting that she is the only woman he will ever have romantic feelings for?

A: Good question. [...] I think the end scene in ASiB can be interpreted in two ways. The first is that Sherlock has decided that he has experienced enough of love and relationships and has now filed the information away in his mind palace. (The brief reappearance of Irene in Sherlock’s mind palace during TSoT supports this theory.) The second however, is the interpretation I hold. When Sherlock refers to Irene as “The Woman”, I don’t believe he’s saying “this is the only woman I will ever have feelings for.” I actually think that’s his way of compartmentalizing her. Irene, with all of her feminine wiles and mystique and flirtatious nature, showed him that you can be clever and brilliant without sacrificing your capacity for either love or sexuality. I know he uses her tendency for sentiment to win one over on her in the end, but he did infiltrate a terrorist group to spare her from execution. What is that if not sentiment?

In my mind, Irene is “The Woman” in that she woke Sherlock up to the fact that you can indeed have the best of both worlds. (Which is a complete antithesis to Mycroft’s attitude which–as we were shown in series 3–he drove into Sherlock from a relatively young age.) Irene was, in essence, Sherlock’s first love. And you never forget your first love.

But that doesn’t mean they’ll always be your last too.