Personally I don’t really like either. Eleven kind of needs to explore and even if she and Mike are endgame, they basically started dating before she even understood the world, before she could talk properly, before she went to school. I know they are the same age, but it was almost like she was a young child. In Season 1, Mike liked her, but she - having not even been around other kids for a long time - didn’t really understand what was happening. Even when Mike suggests living together and going to the Snowball, she thinks he means like siblings. She doesn’t understand and was kind of forced with Mike. Maybe she actually has those feelings, but she hasn’t had the chance to figure it out. By season 4, I think it’s totally fine for them to date. I just think that El should have more chance to explore options before committing to one person.
As for Byler, Will is so much better than Mike and deserves better. Will deserves a guy that will treat him right. Even if Mike likes Will, he’s not mature enough for Eleven or Will. I think there are so little queer characters that people are scraping together ships and want Will to be happy with the person he likes, but realistically he deserves better than Mike. It’s also kind of weird because their siblings (Nancy and Jonathan) are dating, and even if Nancy ends up with Steve, it’s still a little weird.
In conclusion, Eleven is a 15-year-old who spent 12 years in a lab and is therefore traumatised, sheltered and needs to explore her options and grow to understand the world before considering dating. Will is amazing and deserves a guy better than Mike. If they end up together he shouldn’t have to put up with Mike’s immaturity just because he doesn’t have another guy.
PSA, if the person you like and are dating is an idiot and disrespectful, you are better with no one than with them.
I still love Mike though, but he needs to go to therapy before dating. The only relationship he can compare his to is his parents and that’s… interesting…
I feel like people ship these because that’s the romances in the story and there aren’t really other alternative love interests. Whereas in real life, there are hundreds of fish in the sea. In Will’s case, there probably aren’t many openly gay people for him to date, and that sucks, but he shouldn’t resort to Mike.