A Gay Man's Take On Shane and Ilya's Attraction
Ilya and Shane each fulfill something in each other.
While Ilya lacks Shane's social graces, he is much more of an old soul and far more mature in many ways.
He’s had a much more complicated life—his mother died young, he had to navigate the corrupt Russian system, he was sleeping with his coach’s son when they were teenagers and thus had to come to grips very early with the fact that he liked boys too, which was a very bad thing in Russia. Then he left Russia to come to the US to play hockey as a teenager and had to learn the language, learn to fend for himself in an unfamiliar country. He’s also far more sexually experienced, with both men and women.
Shane, OTOH, is a sheltered, privileged upper middle class kid with helicopter parents who were always there to smooth the way. He’s never worried about money, never really been out of his element, and never had to fend for himself in the way Ilya has. He’s also never really come to grips with his sexuality and has very limited sexual experience.
Ilya is the bad boy who does what he wants and doesn’t give a fuck what other people think, while Shane very much cares what everyone—especially his parents—thinks. Meaning Ilya can sometimes come off like a jerk, while Shane is always “he’s such a nice young man.”
So the attraction is pretty simple: each of them represents something the other wants but feels he can’t quite have.
Shane looks at Ilya and sees freedom. Not just because Ilya is hot or reckless or sexually confident, but because he seems to move through the world on his own terms. Shane sees him in the pool with the kids and wishes he could be that free and fun. He sees Ilya’s embrace of his sexuality and wishes he could be that open and that okay with it.
Ilya is a masculine guy who also sleeps with women, and to Shane—who still sees being gay as somehow making him imperfect—there’s something almost awe-inspiring about how at ease Ilya seems with all of it. Shane doesn’t literally want to be Ilya so much as he wants the freedom Ilya seems to have.
And Ilya, meanwhile, cannot quite believe that someone as good and kind and safe as Shane sees value in him. Ilya sees himself as damaged goods. He acts like he doesn’t care what people think, but a lot of that is because he assumes they won’t think well of him anyway.
So he is amazed that someone as “boring” as Shane actually likes him and cares for him, because Ilya has always assumed he’d wind up alone and outside everything.
Shane doesn’t just represent niceness to him. He represents safety, stability, legitimacy, and unconditional belonging. Shane comes from a world where those things are just assumed to exist, because he’s always been so privileged that on some level he believes things will work out and that he can make them happen. And Ilya is a little in awe of that.
There is also a part of Ilya that wants to be boring, that wants to feel safe and cared for, that wants a normal life with people who love him and claim him openly. That’s why he is so thrilled when Shane’s parents accept him too.
So they’re not just opposites, exactly. It’s more that each of them embodies something the other has been denied. Shane doesn’t just want to be Ilya; he wants the freedom Ilya seems to have. And Ilya doesn’t just want to be Shane; he wants the safety, legitimacy, and unconditional belonging Shane seems to come from.
That’s why they fit so well. Shane sees in Ilya the freedom he secretly longs for, while Ilya sees in Shane the safety and acceptance he secretly longs for. They each fulfill the other’s fantasy of what life could be, which is what makes them feel like such a perfect match.