I didn't came to be interested in Naruto due to shipping for example, me shipping NS was just a natural conclusion because the story I was reading was obviously leading up to such ending
Well I'm not going to say any more but i agree with this. As a kid, I was only interested to see naruto grow stronger as a ninja, so I never expected to see any pairings, shipping wars and some love story. But yeah naruto’s crush on sakura in part 1 always gave me the impression that they would eventually end up together at the end. Since it’s a shonen, we expect the main protagonist to win the girl he likes especially when it’s the heroine. At first naruto was resented by sakura, but there was no doubt in my mind that they’d form a strong relationship later on and maybe sakura reciprocating feelings for naruto. Since naruto is the main protagonist, portrayed as a loser in the beginning, we all were expecting that type of character would eventually win and have everything his way at the end; accomplish his dream, beat his rival and win the girl he always liked since the beginning. It sounds stereotypical, but that’s how it was meant to be. Unfortunately we didn’t get that
