Here's Why You're Frothing Over Heated Rivalry
Vibe Report: The Case for Productive Friction in Your Relationship
“Why is this happening to me?”
That’s what I found myself asking—snotted-up in front of the TV on some random Tuesday.
Despite centering on two gay male characters, the whirlwind success of Crave’s Heated Rivalry is now running loose through the broader female population like an emotional contagion.
Straight women everywhere are clutching their chests watching two hockey players circle each other like emotionally constipated wolves, and I suspect most of them couldn’t name a single NHL team.
So what’s the deal?
One answer is the “warm hug” interpretation.
The show is a masterclass in emotional repair. Vulnerability gets met with acceptance instead of punishment—whether that’s Ilya letting his walls down or Shane letting the world in.
For anyone whose nervous system has learned that openness equals danger, watching these moments land safely is like finally exhaling after holding your breath, and that’s valid.
But I think there’s something else going on that speaks directly to the unnamed longings of modern women. I think it has to do with a word we almost never use when describing heterosexual romance.
The Word Is “Respect”
Beneath all the antagonism—the “fuck yous,” the elaborate performances of hatred—Shane and Ilya respect and admire each other. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be rivals; they’d just be two guys who happen to play the same sport.
This makes their relationship about two equals sharpening each other, and their competition on the ice runs parallel to the growth they inspire in each other personally.
Each one becomes the other's blueprint for the parts of themselves they haven't yet built, and our tears offer evidence: This is the relationship model we're starving for because we've collectively outgrown the alternative.
When was the last time you heard a man describe his attraction to a woman using the word “admiration”? We get “she’s beautiful.” We get “she’s sweet” or “supportive” or, if we’re lucky, “smart.”
But admiration implies something different. It implies looking at someone and thinking: I want to be more like that. You have something I’m trying to develop in myself.
As Shane and Ilya grow closer, they steadily become more like each other—something Scott Hunter subtly-not-subtly points out. And in doing so, they become more whole in the process.
Shane starts as a self-contained, high-anxiety guy marinating in internalized shame. As the series progresses, he integrates Ilya’s mindset by taking more risks and letting go of control, culminating in his coming out to his parents.
Ilya goes from suppressing his emotions to being someone who, like Shane, is honest about his feelings, lets down his walls, and learns that he deserves love.
It’s imitation as the sincerest form of wanting to devour someone whole—and some potent self-development to boot.
The Comparability Problem
I think what women are responding to—perhaps without fully realizing—is the total absence of the comparability problem.
When Shane demonstrates strength, skill, ambition, or emotional intelligence, Ilya doesn’t experience it as a threat to his own identity. There’s no unconscious calculation happening where Shane’s success equals his diminishment.
Sure, he grumbles at Shane’s golden boy status.
But there’s no quiet resentment building because Shane’s supposed to be the soft one, and no ego requiring protection from his competence.
The whole plot is about two people who are allowed to be equally formidable. Which means Ilya’s response is not to drag Shane down but rather commit himself to becoming better.
As two men, this comparability is inevitable.
They’re both working with the same cultural scripts and frameworks for what masculine excellence looks like. They push each other and sometimes want to kill each other—but then they get over it and fuck.
Then, they get so far over it that they fall in love.
The female population’s response? “Oh. So it is possible.”
Stagnancy Isn’t an Option
Here’s the math: You need a partner who challenges you in a positive direction. This isn’t optional. Growth is as fundamental a human need as food and shelter.1 And if your relationship doesn’t have it, you’re not at peace—you’re on borrowed time.
Usually, one person gets too “comfortable” and the other starts to grow. The grower disrupts the status quo, and the comfortable one resents the disruption. You can probably map this onto every couple you know.
In the past, this wasn’t really a problem because women’s growth trajectories were nonexistent. We kept the house tidy while the men in our lives evolved or stagnated in whatever direction they pleased.
But now? Women’s growth trajectories are front and center.
We've done the therapy. Read the books. Cultivated ambition, opinions, emotional intelligence, professional skills, and psychological depth. We've developed ourselves in directions our grandmothers couldn't have imagined.
And then we've discovered—often painfully—that this development creates friction. Because we're still working against centuries of programming that says one person in a relationship should be the impressive one.
And it shouldn't be you.
The result is a kind of slow-motion collision. Growth generates comparison. Comparison generates discomfort. Discomfort generates resentment. Resentment generates distance.
Many women have already clocked this. Many men are still holding the old script, unable to see the alternative—the one this show is drawing in neon.
Because Shane and Ilya don’t have this problem. They’re rivals. Comparison is the whole point. And somehow, they’ve metabolized it into something that looks a lot like mutual worship.
But what does this mutual uplift look like in practice?
Rivalry as the Blueprint for Real Love
Shane and Ilya's rivalry isn't just a plot device. It's a framework for what transformative partnership actually looks like: productive friction. It’s two people triggering the shit out of each other until something finally breaks open.
In life, we transform because we keep slamming into the same painful wall until we either break through it or accept a diminished existence, and something keeps calling Shane and Ilya to choose the wall—again and again.
Pair this with a truth embedded in a lot of women's fantasy lives: We like the idea of transforming someone through love. It's Beauty and the Beast. It's every "I can fix him" joke that's only sort of a joke.
But the reality is that women must consistently walk away from these dynamics out of self-preservation because the wall never breaks.
Yet, between Shane and Ilya, we see a different outcome—right at the moment where Ilya breaks down in the hotel room.
Years of defended, controlled, emotionally armored existence give way, and Shane just sits in his lap and holds him through it.
The wall finally breaks, making women everywhere, again, say: "Oh. So it is possible."
Shane’s love transforms Ilya from someone who maintains rigid control over his emotional life, to someone who can weep in another person’s arms and believe he deserves to be held.
But crucially, Shane transforms too. He comes out to his parents. He lets go of control. He expands.
It’s not one person saving another. It’s two people using each other as mirrors, accelerating through their respective blocks, and becoming more whole in the process. It’s a version of transformation through love that is balanced, mutual, and actually works.
I don’t think it’s controversial to suggest that this is what’s brewing at the edge of the collective consciousness.
And it’s what modern women desperately want.
What Rivalry Actually Means
A rivalry is just teamwork in disguise.
A true rival isn’t an enemy. A rival is someone who makes you better by refusing to let you coast. They challenge you, expose your weaknesses, and force adaptation.
And if you’re both doing it, you’re both improving—locked in a dance of mutual elevation that looks like combat but functions like collaboration.
This is what many women want from partnership, I think.
Not stagnancy. Not comfort at the expense of growth. Not someone who needs us to stay the same so they can feel secure.
We want someone who can handle our full expression—including the parts that might be stronger than their equivalents—without it threatening the relationship. Someone who can be triggered by us and choose transformation instead of resentment. Someone who sees our development as an invitation rather than an insult.
The gender dynamics of the past make this difficult.
Men, broadly speaking, haven't been encouraged toward the same kind of growth work women have undertaken. And it's hard to have a rivalry when one person isn't playing.
But Shane and Ilya are both playing. They’re both developing and being transformed.
And maybe that’s the real fantasy. Not just love, but productive love. Partnership that moves. Friction that generates growth instead of erosion.
Two people making each other better, one trigger at a time, until they end up in a cottage somewhere—finally able to hold each other through the breaking.
Thanks for reading. If you've ever ugly-cried over fictional characters who have better relationships than you, welcome home. Subscribe to The Aussie Mystic for more on growth, relationships, and the quiet grief of wanting more than we've been told to expect.
Rogers, C. R. (1959). A theory of therapy, personality, and interpersonal relationships, as developed in the client-centered framework. In S. Koch (Ed.), Psychology: A study of a science (Vol. 3, pp. 184-256). McGraw-Hill.