actually i'm still worked up over "Shane hates other gay people." when peoples only evidence of this is Shane meeting Fabian, and it's literally evidence to the contrary.
"He was, like, really blatantly not straight in a way that Shane wasn’t used to. The kind of man who, when Shane had been younger and still figuring himself out, he would look at and think “I’m not gay because I’m not like him.” It wasn’t a good way to think about anything, but even as a gay man who was in love with another man who he had gay sex with, Shane couldn’t help the knee-jerk reaction of uneasiness in Fabian’s presence.
Which just proved that Shane needed to spend more time around other queer people. Particularly, queer people who didn’t play hockey."
Yes shane was uncomfortable around fabian but
Shane INSTANTLY realizes it's wrong to feel this way
wants to remedy the situation by being around other queer people
and he's confident getting used to being around people who are visibly queer is the solution
He has a good time with Fabian and Ryan in a queer venue
He's not particularly worried about being seen around queer people. only that his and Ilyas relationship is visible.
I also just hate how the internalized homophobia shane does exhibit here is treated as a static trait. Even though he's actively working through it. And has worked past some issues with it. People often depict him with more internalized homophobia at the end of the long game than he does at the beginning of the book. I also don't like how people interpret shanes actions as the product of internalized homophobia when many of them are actually the product of institutional homophobia