hayden pike has this hetero-centric idealistic fantasy of finding jackie a friend that is also shane’s spouse. he wants to be a couple of couples. the ‘wives’ hang out and are best friend and the ‘husbands’ hang out.
when women don’t work out, and he’s forced to find shane a boyfriend, it’s still with this idea in his head that shane’s boyfriend will just be an extension of shane like jackie is for him. jackie and shane’s man will be friends. so that hayden doesn’t lose his Shane Time (tm). he’s trying to find shane a man who can be his Wife and jackie’s friend, thus completing their perfect heteronormative group of four. without disrupting existing dynamics.
he can’t fathom shane getting with a Man. a Bro, a Jock, a Man who is a guy who is plainly a guy, ya know. that’s why ilya messes with his head so much. ilya, in hayden’s mind (and in reality, but pike is going to get bitter in his own head), ilya rozanov is better than him in everything. and the crux of it is that ilya gets to have shane. ilya gets to infringe on what hayden thought only he had the special privilege of getting. in hayden’s mind, shane is a prize and ilya won. but also back to the point, ilya is very clearly a man and in a gay relationship with shane. a gay relationship that hayden can’t comfortably assign hetero roles to (he doesn’t—can’t—imagine shane ‘being the girl’ and rozanov messes with both this idea and the fantasy. if shane would just dump him and get with a yoga guy, or a personal trainer, or any number of more ‘acceptable’ gay men, then hayden can have his happy little life and his happy little wife and his happy little second wife(shane) who also has his own happy little wife.
ilya gets along with jackie great, and the kids, but he’s a man who would rather hang out with his boyfriend/husband and ‘the guys’ than sit and be jackie’s little friend who is married to shane. that’s what’s at the core of hayden’s continued dislike of ilya.
