Shipping aside do you think Misty and Ash were ever meant to be love interests?

I know one of the writers or whatever said "no" but looking at Kanto.. I can sort of see it. Kanto was a weird time when Pokemon was a fad and they were unsure of what to do with the anime. Hell, it wasn't even meant to be long.

Watching early episodes I get the feeling that they were supposed to have a kiddie love-hate friendship, more on Misty's side though. It's exceeding common for protagonists of the opposite sex to end up together. But as the series continued they dropped the plot point.