One of my hotter takes is that I do emotionally get Hayden being suspicious and hating on Ilya. Like isn’t this the “hate your best friends boyfriend” website?? We all get this you’re all pretending not to
from Hayden’s point of view the man he fucking idolizes more than anyone in the world (“Shane is like, off limits, dude”) comes out to you as gay and seems really inexperienced, maybe he’s never even really dated?? And Hayden’s like okay bud we’ll get you a WAG with a dick. Nothing else has to change. A nice guy you know like Hunter’s smoothie chick. Not a chick Hayden. You know what I mean Shane
And then Ilya who’s spent his whole career shit talking Shane in public and being very well known as a player shows to do domestic role play with your specialist baby boy best friend?? And he’s like. Touching him and kind of manhandling him and acting like he knows him BETTER THAN YOU when you were Shane’s first ever friend, excuse you Rozanov, Shane was my best man, okay, Shane is godfather to my kids. Who the fuck are you. Stop touching him. What are you doing here even is this some weird psychological power trip for you are you even gay. Stop touching him!!!
And then you find out oh no this isn’t a new thing (like Shane implied) this has been going on since the DRAFT. Since before the draft! And your brain is just like melting (you don’t have a lot to work with there anyway) and then you’re pissed all over again because what, Shane was getting jerked around by Rozanov all these years (Not how it was Hayds) or like Rozanov was taunting him (No) and wow is he just going to up and leave once he gets bored (Hayds…)
And also your best bud just never mentioned any of this. But you can’t be mad at your best specialist boy friend (look at him he’s so good at hockey) so you just get mad at Rozanov some more
Getting lied to by your supposed best friend feels really shitty even if it is for really good reasons! As a 18-ish year old I found out my best friend lied to me about having sex with a guy and I had what I now know was a panic attack about it, though neither of us knew what it was at the time. It was 100% over the feeling that I was growing apart from this really important person in my life.
A separate friend told me they were trans a few years later and I had the same panic attack. My thoughts were "Do you even like me if you didn't tell me this really important thing? Do you still want to be my friend? Are you anything like the person I've grown so close to underneath it all? How much of this was an act and how much was real?" I'm tearing up even now.
I can't help but have A LOT of sympathy for Hayden. He doesn't understand because Shane never explained! And his not explaining means that they were never really that close! Which is like a terrifying and unalterable realization for someone who includes this important relationship as a part of their identity. Even if Shane takes the time to explain now it means the nature of their relationship was always different than Hayden thought it was.
