Speaking as someone who's been involved in fandoms for... as long as I've been aware of what it is (and of course, being a former/current member of fandoms that have/had a bad reputation pertaining to shipping such as Voltron, Homestuck, and Undertale/Deltarune):
I only ever ship things if either a.) someone has actually managed to convince me why the ship is good, or b.) the thing i'm watching/reading/playing is slapping me in the face with why it's good (i.e. characters acting all romantic and shit). Just like how in real life, I'm completely blind to romance.
I think it's a lot like when someone you care about shows romantic interest in someone. You root for them, you want them together. Except since shipping in fiction is, well, fiction, you're more like a third party watching everything go down and being unable to affect what is going on. It's fascinating to watch happen, to think about what could happen, basically.
Don't really know why people have a problem with shipping, to be honest. Especially writers. It just means you have fans actually reading your stuff. They like your story so much they've decided to spend their time analyzing the plot and moments between the characters to convince themselves and possibly others that two characters are perfect for each other. And even then, most rational fans will still enjoy the story anyway. I've never seen anyone read anything solely for romance unless it's a romance-centric story (obviously).
Personally, I don't mind shipping in my stories - I'd even encourage it. Most of the time it's in good fun and it's usually just a bunch of teens (like me, haha) who are having fun drawing fanart, making fanfiction, and theorizing. Besides it's fun watching people analyze that shit and seeing what people do differently with the type of canon I've already put up.