Originally Posted by Highspeed0516

Authors intent:

Kishi masterfully creates a conflicted love trianlge here, but this moment is telling of Naruto's character. Its a well written example of the old addage that
"If you truely love someone, you are willing to le them go." This is what Naruto does.

But he also throws up a barrier. He still professses his attraction to Sakura in Shippuden by asking for or trying to win a date on technicalities. (Not to mention the peeping incident)

But now the deeper feelings are buried deep down, and throws up defensive walls, like when he cuts Sakura off from telling him it was really him she was worried about.

So what you end up with is a person who behaves like he has just a natural attraction that he doesn't take very seriously. But you have to look at the context of the story as to WHY he acts this way or you miss out.

Now, having said all this doesn't mean that a closer relationship with Hinata isn't going to happen. In fact, NaruHina fans shouldn't feel threatened by how Naruto feels about Sakura, (and I think many of you do, otherwise it wouldn't be such an issue) because in the end it has absolutley no factor on how Naruto could potentially feel about Hinata at this point.

This was a long post so I'll delve more into Hinata (ummm . . . so to speak!) next time.