Like most people who are lazy, I’m re-watching Dawson’s Creek on Netflix and it is giving me feelings. Here are some.

“Don’t get all female on me, Joey.” This phrase, uttered by the angel-haired protagonist in the premiere episode of Dawson’s Creek, the prime time soap that defined my middle school years, is everything you need to know about Dawson fucking Leery. Every cringe-worthy word that comes out of his mouth makes me want to puke in mine, and the worst part is that I used to find this garbage endearing. I fear that I can now blame 99% of my teenage inability to navigate relationships on Dawson Leery and his neutering gaze. Don’t worry, James Van Der Beek, no one blames you. You’re doing what you can with what you have, a character scripted to be the human equivalent of a floppy sleeve.

He doesn’t even look like a teenager. He’s a giant baby-man in silken vests giggling to his father like a nine-year-old and monopolizing the time of babely, sarcastic Joey. And everyone keeps talking about how talented Dawson is. PROVE IT. WHAT ARE YOU BASING THIS ON, JEN? The fact that he admittedly jerks off to Katie Couric under a poster of Schindler’s List? He’s so intolerable that I almost had to stop watching.

However, there are certain mitigating factors that make this whole trip down memory lane doable. Dawson’s dad, for one, is hilarious and awesome as he builds his restaurant terrarium. MORE OF THAT! TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR TERRARIUM, MR. LEERY. If I was Joey I would bypass the cryfest that is Dawson’s pubescent blanket fort and start helping Mr. Leery affix tiny scuba gear to his tiny waitresses.

Dawson serves as a metaphor for Joey’s girlhood—she can retain her comforting relationship with him, but only if she denies her maturing attraction, an attraction that makes perfect sense (especially for someone with a dearth of positive relationship models). Lusting after Dawson allows her to couple new and frightening feelings with the comfort of childhood. But his every insensitivity is a reflection of the fact that these two things can’t co-exist. Peter Pan Syndrome comes up often in the first season, and Joey-as-Wendy must cast off Dawson’s childlike view of the world for something that will inspire her to grow, not shrink. Thinking about Dawson as a foil for Joey’s growth is just about the only way to make his whole personage tolerable.

At the end of the second episode, Dawson and Joey are leaving a high school dance where Dawson has made even more of a disastrous ass of himself than usual. They see Jen buying salt water taffy on the pier, because she’s from New York and these things seem charming to her. Dawson asks Joey if he can “bag” on her to make things up with Jen. “Good luck Dawson,” Joey says. “I hope you get your kiss.” The only reason I’m not totally bummed that these two hours of TV weren’t merely a drawn-out prelude to Joey packing in Capeside and heading off to a fancy boarding school on a scholarship to become a Lynn Barber-type heroine is that even playing a fifteen-year-old, Joshua Jackson is super dreamy, and upon revisit, his storyline with his teacher is romantic and lovely. Now let’s all fall asleep with the soft sound of him saying “Tamara” and try to permanently erase the memory of Dawson telling Jen, “I want to be your boy-adventure.”