WILL YEARNING BE THE WORD FOR 2026?
I want to preface this newsletter by saying I’ve never been part of a fandom before—but if I’m going to join one, I’m glad it’s for two hot men falling in love.
Tuesday morning, I woke up from a chilling dream about a guy I was in a situationship with in my late twenties. In the dream, he handed me a letter he’d written, describing how much he had actually cared for me all those years ago. I wasn’t able to read the entire letter before I woke up. I lay in bed wishing I could fall back asleep to finish it, as if it might have contained the truth that would’ve eased the pain I felt at that time—but of course, I couldn’t.
I couldn’t shake the longing it had stirred up in me. So what did I do, determined to unearth more painful feelings? I pulled the container of old journals from beneath my bed and searched for the ones that mentioned him, chronicling our three-year rollercoaster.
Right away, I found the page where I had detailed one of my favorite nights with him. We were at a bar in Williamsburg, with his best friend and my friend, routinely sneaking outside to make out on the sidewalk as if our friends didn’t already know what was going on between us. At the end of the night, he and I shared a cab back to the East Village, where we spent the entire ride across the bridge making out some more. When I got home, he had texted me, “I miss kissing you already.” My heart nearly exploded.
If I hadn’t written it down, I would’ve probably thought that I imagined it. This was not typical behavior for him. He was deeply emotionally avoidant, but every so often, I’d receive these confessions—brief glimpses of who he was or what he was feeling when he wasn’t so guarded or covering up his feelings with humor. I clung to those tender moments, replaying them in my mind on loop, especially when I couldn’t face the truth that our relationship would never progress beyond a game of cat and mouse.
No one else has ever made me feel the way he did. The emotionally mature version of me says that’s a good thing. But back then, his attention felt like sunshine. The highs were so high, but the lows felt incredibly low. I was constantly anxious when I didn’t hear from him, like an addict just waiting for their next hit.
“That’s a sign of love addiction,” my new therapist reminded me in our session later that day as I was catching her up on my morning. I was already in tears when I had logged on from my living room with my journals beside me.
Even before the dream, though, he—and a few other former lovers—had been on my mind because of Heated Rivalry. I’ve been consumed by this queer love story over the past month (if you haven't seen on Instagram). The chemistry, the sexual tension, the tenderness, the emotional rollercoaster all felt achingly aspirational but sometimes hauntingly familiar. Was I captivated by this show because I recognized myself in Shane staring at Ilya with lovesick eyes after being ghosted for six months (my situationship also ghosted me more than once)? Like many others, it made me reflect on who had made me feel anything close to what these characters seemed to be feeling.
“Someone can have a part that likes you, but they can have a part that won’t let them get close to you. Those parts don’t soften, grow, and change without trauma work, self-reflection, a willingness to be courageous, and do the opposite of what their habit and tendency would be,” my therapist said in our session.
I already knew this, but in the moment, a younger version of me needed the reminder. For years, I told myself, “If [insert man] really liked me, he’d do this,” or “If he really liked me, he’d do that.” I became hypervigilant, scanning for every way a man might confirm that he didn’t see me as worthy of a committed relationship—and I treated that as a referendum on my own self-worth.
I was easily sucked into this show from episode one, though—the tension, Connor Storrie’s perfectly round ass in the shower. I’m always drawn to love stories, but there’s nothing hotter than the dynamic between two people who “shouldn’t” be together, but because they want each other so badly, they’re willing to risk it all, like Ilya and Shane. And perhaps I’m enchanted by the forbidden lovers trope because I never felt like anyone was really willing to risk it all for me, even if the risk was just being truly open and vulnerable.
Yes, the sex scenes are hot—but they’re also a language, one that tells you know exactly what’s happening in the relationship. Even when things start out casually, Ilya, who is the pursuer, shows an immediate level of care and tenderness toward Shane. That was something I picked up on instantly. It reminded me most of my recent ex and even the guy I lost my virginity to. Ilya isn’t just confident in his seduction skills and sexual prowess—he knows that being a good lover also means making sure that the other person feels safe and is enjoying themselves too. The ongoing check-ins and clear consent never feel like a chore—they make the scenes even hotter.
I think it’s impossible not to be affected by Heated Rivalry; the romantic journey feels deeply human. And if you date men, the story offers a level of vulnerability and emotional availability we rarely see from men—whether in movies and TV or in real life. Just as importantly, there’s no power imbalance baked into their dynamic. We watch this relationship unfold between true equals: two elite professional hockey players. They’re the epitome of masculine men, but we still watch them struggle with feelings and have to work them out either on their own or with each other. And at no point is either man’s worth or value called into question.
It felt like watching the potential of what a relationship with a healthy man could look like—in spite of all the baggage we carry, because that’s simply part of being alive. We can desire love and still be worthy of that love, even if we’re still holding onto pain from childhood trauma, parents who couldn’t model a healthy relationship, or insecurities from past partners. I think that’s part of the reason why it feels confronting to watch Ilya move beyond consistently pushing his feelings down to wanting to burst because he is so in love with Shane. That certainly never happened with any of the emotionally avoidant men I’ve come across.
We never see Ilya in therapy, reading self-help books, or even confiding in a friend about what he’s feeling. When I talked this through with my therapist, we discussed what conditions would actually make that kind of growth possible. Her view was that the only way it really works is if Ilya had experienced a healthy, loving relationship with his mother before her death. In that case, his early attachment would have been secure, and the capacity to love—and be loved—was already there. From that perspective, the avoidance we see isn’t inherent— it’s circumstantial. He’s Russian, being gay is not socially acceptable in his country, his father is abusive (as is his brother), and he has a lot to lose career-wise since there are no out gay players in hockey. So he frames the connection as casual to protect himself. Once those external blocks are removed, he’s finally able to open himself up.
What we witness is the ultimate wish-fulfillment fantasy (which I now understand is simply part of the romance genre). So, the playboy becomes a mushy loverboy. In real life, though, unavailable men who never had a secure attachment figure or never did the work in therapy are far more likely to have an underdeveloped capacity for love. My therapist also pointed out the potential danger in stories that only show men at their best. As much as we want to believe they can be—and it is genuinely compelling to imagine a healed, non-patriarchal world where men are emotionally literate and in therapy—that version of reality just isn’t the one most of us are navigating yet.
I think this show forced many of us to face the thing we don’t dare say out loud—sometimes not even to ourselves. We all want this kind of inconceivable love: for it to arrive unexpectedly, to knock the wind out of us. To meet someone who, on the surface, seems like the last thing we wanted, but turns out to be exactly what we need. The kind of love that transforms you so completely you barely recognize who you were before it found you. We want to be seen and accepted for all that we are. Or, at the very least, we want the freedom to pursue a crush unabashedly and revel in some truly passionate sex. Personally, I don’t think I’ll ever give up on that—I’m a yearner for life. Heated Rivalry dares us to stay open—to desire, to surprise, to all the possibilities we so often convince ourselves aren’t for us