The Fantasy That Made Room

Discovering Dawson's Creek Series | Part 2

In the first few episodes of season one of Dawson's Creek, Pacey Witter develops a romantic relationship with his teacher that the show allowed to unfold as though the mutual feeling made it acceptable. I remember texting my friend about it, bothered in a way I couldn't immediately explain and her response was that it was the nineties, as if the decade were context enough. But it wasn't enough for me. I had my own high school memory of a teacher who had attempted something similar, and I resisted becasue I knew then that it wasn't okay. Watching it romanticized on screen, from the comfort of my bed over three decades later, felt invalidating because the show never fully confronted the abuse of power at the center of it. It acknowledged the wrongness just enough to keep moving, and then let the love story carry the weight as though the feelings justified the situation.

But I kept watching.

And somewhere past that storyline, I fell for Pacey anyway, in the way you fall for someone when they just keep showing you who they are and who they are keeps being exactly what you would have wanted. I found myself texting my friend at some point to tell her that if I could go back and be loved by someone like Pacey, I would have shouted it from the rooftops. She laughed and told me he was her favorite too. And I think we both understood he wasn't just a well written character. He was the fantasy a lot of us carried quietly into adulthood without ever having the words for it.

Pacey paid attention in a way that felt almost rare to witness. When Andy described how she wanted her first time to be, he listened to every detail and then he went and recreated it, because he had actually heard her and wanted her to feel that. And when she was nervous and not ready in spite of everything he had prepared, he didn't make it complicated. He was just patient, without resentment or pressure, and demonstrated a quiet willingness to wait until she was ready. He brought that same patience to Joey. He waited months to be intimate with her because she wasn't comfortable, and he did it without making her feel like she owed him anything for the waiting. When her mural was vandalized and she was devastated, he bought her a wall to paint on because he had been paying close enough attention to know what that loss meant to her. He just kept showing up like that, in ways that were specific and considered and deeply felt.

He could also talk about those deep feelings, whether they were positive or negative. When he was insecure he found the words to explain it. When he loved someone he said so and then he demonstrated it in ways that matched the words. That combination, the emotional intelligence, honesty and the follow through, is something I think a lot of people spend a long time hoping to find in another person.

But what struck me most, looking back across all six seasons, was something more specific than attentiveness or patience or grand gestures. Pacey's love consistently made room for people to be their complicated selves. When Andy was struggling with her mental health, his love for her didn't waver. He gave her the freedom to be in that season of her life without the fear of losing him. Even in that early teacher relationship that was uncomfortable for me to watch, when everything unraveled and her career was at risk, he stepped in and took the fall rather than let her lose everything. His love, even then, even in a situation that never should have happened, made room for her to be human without paying the ultimate price for it. And in the finale, when it became clear that Joey was torn between him and Dawson, he didn't make her choose. He told her she would always be the love of his life and that his love for her would not change regardless of what she decided. He freed her to be honest with herself without the fear of losing him.

That kind of love is rare, even in fiction. And it was consistent in him from the very beginning, which means something in the context of his upbringing. Pacey grew up in a home where his father tore him down regularly, where his worth was questioned far more than it was affirmed, and where the love he eventually gave so freely was not modeled for him in any meaningful way. He carried that quietly throughout the show, it lived underneath the charm and the humor and the big gestures, and most of the time you wouldn't have known it was there unless you were paying attention. But it was always there. And somewhere in absorbing all of that, he chose to become something different than what he had been shown, in a way that had to be intentional. Because that kind of choosing, the decision to love generously in spite of not having been loved that way, is not something you stumble into.

I have had bits and pieces of Pacey in different relationships over the years. Moments of real attentiveness, gestures that touched me, flashes of the kind of presence that made me feel genuinely seen. There was something meaningful about watching all of those qualities gathered together in one character. That is probably one of the most unexpected gifts of this series. Pacey Witter, in all his fictional perfection, gave me something concrete enough to reflect on. Watching him closely enough to name what I loved about him affirmed what I had already come to know about what I want in a relationship.

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