"I didn't say it. You didn't have to."

Mike’s coming of age involves embracing his inner child.

In Season 2, Mike is told by Karen to give away his toys (often symbolic of children) as punishment for stealing from Nancy.

Mike is a writer, so I’d bet it’s not the toys he’s mourning, but what they represent - his childhood. Memories with El, and memories with his friends, which most definitely includes Will.

This scene coincides with Dustin and Lucas becoming interested in Max, which Mike doesn’t understand because this girl is not like El at all.

He’s upset about Max because another girl being around the party makes him miss El, but I also think Max is a wake-up call of sorts to Mike: girls are interesting now, grow up, the days of playing D&D are over. But Mike doesn’t get the appeal of crushing with his friends or why they would like her so much before they even talked to her.

Mike answers this wake-up call brought on by Max and dances with El at the Snow Ball at the end of Season 2. By season 3, El is the most important thing to Mike. He can’t be bothered to play D&D with his friends anymore.

At the end of season 3, though, the audience sees that deep down, Mike doesn’t want things to change. Since there are few accidents on Stranger Things according to Shawn Levy, focusing on Mike during lines in Hopper’s letter about change almost certainly reflects Mike’s point of view.

Season 4 for Mike is about stepping back into his role as leader of the party. He does this by reconnecting with Will. With Will, glimpses of Mike’s younger self come back.

Friendship is the most important thing to Mike Wheeler. He deserves to date his best friend.

Mike Wheeler is introduced as the boy who would jump off a cliff for his friends, literally. Mike cares so much about his friends’ feelings that he makes a point out of saying Will, Lucas and Dustin are all his best friends.

When Mike pull away from his friends in Season 3 because of El, the audience is supposed to see this as a bad thing. It’s against how he normally acts as a character.

That’s why it’s all the more sweeter when Mike focuses on his friends again in Season 5. 

The Party will likely split up when they leave Hawkins at the end (if they make it out alive), and I’m sure Mike will still want all his friends in his life. I can’t imagine Mike starting a new life all on his own being a happy ending for his character.

Mike is happiest when he’s being a NERD and he deserves to bond over nerdy things with his love interest!

Hellfire Mike at the beginning of Season 4 shows the audience that Mike is visibly happy when he’s talking about D&D. Something he pulls away from in his relationship with El.

D&D is Mike and Will’s love language, too. They bond over their love for it. It’s how they connect on a deep emotional level, how they understand each other, which is crucial for a sustainable relationship long-term.

Example: Mike uses D&D classes to talk to Will about how his powers work.

Mike needs to overcome insecurity to grow, and El IS the source of his insecurity for much of the series. Jane makes Mike feel like a random nerd who found the cool superhero girl by sheer luck.

Will sees Mike as the heart of the party, defining him by his actions and not what happened to happen to him. He empowers Mike.

Mike deserves someone who understands HIS trauma and what HE’s going through.

Mike has been through it more than most of the characters on Stranger Things, actually.

He hasn’t been to the Upside Down, but every time he gets close to Will and El, the two people that matter most to him, he loses them in some way. He’s developed disorganized attachment to them, anxious because he doesn’t know when they’ll be gone again and avoidant because if he pushes them away, it’ll hurt less when they’re gone.

Mike’s also been bullied and felt ostracized. When he tries to connect with Jane by opening up about this, she shuts him down. (Which El was in her right to do, because she was making a point that her experience is fundamentally different than Mike’s. That’s the point - they don’t and can’t understand each other).

When Will starts to open up to Mike at the junkyard, though, something clicks for Mike. They’re on the same wavelength, and maybe Will understands how he feels, how it’s scary to tell the truth to people you love.

Mike is always protecting his family and friends, so he deserves someone who protects him.

Jane has protected Mike since season 1, which could be part of the reason he was drawn to her.

When she starts to pull away from Mike and branch out on her own, this scares Mike. He can’t lose her, the one person he feels can protecting him from danger. If someone isn’t protect Mike from danger, then he can’t be the hero and protect other people. But by season 4, El isn’t Mike’s superhero anymore.

When Mike’s in danger, life-or-death danger, at the Mac-Z and El is on her own mission, who steps in? Will.

Mike wants to be loved just as much as Will does.

Specifically, Mike wants to feel valued for his good leadership qualities and his fierce loyalty to his friends. Nobody knows how valuable Mike Wheeler is like Will Byers does. I’ll point to the painting again as evidence of this.

Jane, on the other hand, doesn’t make Mike feel like a leader or a hero. He feels like Lois Lane in his relationship with her, a lover waiting on the sidelines while she fights.

This isn’t what Mike wants. Mike doesn’t actually want to be defined by Jane, he wants to be Mike The Brave. He wants to be the brave leader, and Will sees him as that brave leader.

To love himself, Mike needs to let go of forced conformity and see himself, all of himself, as worthy of love.

Mike spends the entire series of Stranger Things focusing on the wants of other people instead of what he wants. 

Even when he’s at his most selfish at the top of Season 3, Mike is spending so much alone time with El because she can’t leave Hopper’s cabin. Prioritizing her (perceived) happiness and desire to be with Mike over being with his own friends.

He spends most of the series helping out El and Will, wasting no breath on how he wants to spend his time.

By elevating El and Will in his life, Mike shrinks the significance of his own wants in his brain and puts his sense of self-worth in them.

In Season 2, Mike also starts to go along with what his friends do, and what Nancy does in romantic relationships (read: make out) instead of LEADING his friends, which is his strong suit.

The conservative household Mike was raised in, paired with his lack of self-worth and desire to explore his own feelings, makes him privy to forced conformity. 

Kiss a girl, go to the Snow Ball, date a girl because that’s what boys are supposed to do. That’s what growing up is. 

Mike isn’t concerned with chasing social status at all, he just hasn’t considered if the life he was raised to want is the life he actually wants. 

He doesn’t see his feelings, his true feelings, as something valuable enough to act on. What Mike wants doesn’t matter - just take care of everyone else and keep them happy. Don’t rock the boat. Middle child behavior, am I right?

To truly lead his band of outcasts, Mike needs to accept the fact that he may be different, too, in a way that challenges everything he thought was true about himself.

To come of age fully, and Stranger Things is a coming of age story, Mike needs to accept his desires - not El’s, not his parents’, not Nancy’s, not his friends’, not even Will’s - regardless of the risk.