“At what point will it get better?” I found myself asking two days ago as the subway carried me home. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was rattling me. My specific sad autumn playlist was working overtime. In an effort to better understand what was wrong, I forced myself to dissect every ounce of my life. Friendships? In check. Family? Going strong. And my career, while fluctuating between consistency and chaos, is growing. Nothing, not even my mental state, warranted tears.
I looked across the train car. Plastered on the wall was a subway ad written in Times New Roman with the phrase: “rejection is hot.” Something about the ad made me want to rip my own hair out, and simultaneously rip up the poster. Rejection, dear subway ad, is not hot. And no, this phrase does not make me want to use whatever dating platform it’s promoting. The glaring answer to my melodrama was, of course, my dating life.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationships, or lack thereof, lately. In late November, I began watching the gay hockey show Heated Rivalry, which I figured would be a superficial, sexual escape from the real world. It proved to be high quality television.
Starring newcomers Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams as Ilya Rosanov and Shane Hudson, Heated Rivalry centers around two national hockey stars on opposing NHL teams. The big twist—the pair have been hooking up in secret since their rookie season. Simultaneously, Scott Hunter, another big-time NHL player, is also gay and dating smoothie shop worker, Kip.
If you can look past the fictional world in which all NHL hockey players are seemingly gay, you too will become an absolute fanatic of Heated Rivalry. Having watched each episode at the strike of midnight for the past month, I consider myself a metropolitan Cinderella—having dashed away from bars, calls, and all former responsibilities to binge my yaoi.
With the conclusion of Season One on December 26th, I’m left reeling—not only because we have to wait an entire year for Season Two, but because my initial need to escape has led to a reckoning with my own dating life. What I’ve come to admire most about the dynamic between Shane and Ilya, especially in the finale, “The Cottage,” is their unabashed desire for partnership.
There’s a specific scene I’m left with, where Shane and Ilya—having finally confessed their love after a near decade-long situationship—are plotting their future. Shane, in his need to overthink, plans out a whole scenario where he and Ilya start their own charity, and Ilya is traded from the Boston Raiders to a Canadian hockey team so they can be closer together. The end goal is building a life together, which requires crafting a contingency plan in case neither of them come out until their hockey days are over.
It left me with a lump in my throat, not because their relationship exists in secret, but because both characters are willing to sacrifice and alter their own lives to make room for each other. I can’t say I’ve ever experienced this before. While I’ve dated, I sometimes think I’ll never meet someone who I’d be willing to do this for—it feels like a pipe dream that someone else would be willing to take on that role for a hypothetical “us.”
The world I do know, though, is the one in New York—where casual dating is more common than the phrase “how are you?” Contrary to Shane and Ilya, dating and love feel synonymous with nonchalance. How is it possible to share deep intimacy, intense dates, and the late night confessions all while remaining casual? This is a question I continue to find myself asking, and I have yet to answer it.
I’ve always attributed this to a fear of being hurt—detachment is armor. While it seems there’s no real way out of this cycle, it took watching Heated Rivalry to remind myself that if I’m sharing my body and heart without ever asking for more, then I’m still losing.
I want to experience what Shane and Ilya and Scott and Kip share. I want to visit the cottage and be chosen for who I am, as I am. I want to make sacrifices for the sake of something greater, and I wish for a future where the same token of adoration is extended to me. Certainly, there’s a future in which I’m able to share my body and mind without fears of being used and disregarded. There has to be.
I cannot say when “it” will get better, or whether or not choosing vulnerability will lead to partnership. It may lead to more rejection and a pinch of heartbreak. Here’s what I do know: we all deserve to be chosen, and to feel chosen. Instead of remaining overly casual or nonchalant, I choose to want it, and to want it openly. Hopefully, time will prove all of us cynics wrong.
