In the doorway of a frigid winter, I am filled with a desire to reminisce and ruminate on the invigorating heat of my favorite summer watch. Along with 25 million other weekly viewers, I tuned in each Wednesday from mid-July through September to lap up the heartfelt yearning and romance The Summer I Turned Pretty would feed me. Full of teenage angst and embarrassing first love moments, the show became an international sensation, quickly surpassing the fame of the book series it was created after. There’s something special about seeing a childhood series favorite of yours come to life on your TV screen as an adult, rooting for the same characters you once devoured chapter after chapter as a middle school girl.
Beyond the on-the-nose Gracie Abrams and Taylor Swift song inserts (like a Wattpad fanfiction with a convenient soundtrack in the index), it’s not difficult for me to understand the immense magnitude of the draw this show has had to its predominantly young female audience. It features one of the most timeless character archetypes — the brooding male — which has drawn in readers and viewers across the centuries. The Summer I Turned Pretty has the perfect one at its helm.
The trope of the moody male character as a heroine’s love interest pervades Western culture. This fascination with the brooding male isn’t limited to contemporary stories; it’s a trope that’s been romanticized and reimagined since the days of classic literature. Lord Byron gave a name to this character type, the Byronic hero, to categorize this type of man found commonly enough in literature that it begged its own classification. Cynical and prideful, the Byronic hero has only continued to evolve in his vocabulary and the situations in which he finds himself an antihero, remaining defined by his melancholy nature. From Mr. Darcy and Heathcliff’s sullen natures to Jace Herondale and Edward Cullen’s piercing eyes and attitudes, the allure of the mysterious, emotionally complex love interest continues to captivate audiences. But what could possibly be so universal about this type of man we eternally pine for?
As we watch or read about male characters who slowly reveal their childhood trauma to us through tense conversations with the female protagonist, our empathy towards them deepens. Like some wounded puppy, they eventually stop baring their teeth and roll over to show us their soft underbelly, their tender flesh, and the secrets they hide. It usually begins with a small moment of weakness, a whispered confession in passing that they cover up with more hardness, then eventually, the cracks begin to deepen. We trust these characters, become deeply invested in unraveling their secrets over the course of an entire series, and fantasize about being the one tending to their battle wounds as they flinch away in pain. Our brooding man, unable to resist the generational beauty that is our protagonist, not only falls in love but also begins to become a good person.
As a child, my conception of love was shaped more by the Young Adult novels I read under the covers with a flashlight on school nights than anything else. My parents were just happy to know I was alright with getting dropped off early at the school library, but they were unaware that the books I’d spend hours gorging over were not nonfiction but the latest Mortal Instruments installment. I remember the way the characters’ chemistry became palpable to me as I read about the lengths to which these men would go to sacrifice for the protagonist, overriding their own self-preservationist nature, falling in love, and even dying for the girl they adored. Jace fights vampires, demons, angels, and a plethora of other inhuman threats to protect Clary. It wasn’t just the danger he put himself in for her; it was the transformation from being stone-cold to tender after meeting Clary that made his love for her so swoon-worthy: he became a completely different man just for her.
I’ve watched and rewatched The Vampire Diaries more times than I can count over the years. Most of the time, with age, fans of a show can look back on a questionable storyline and point out the moral or logical fallacies of the plot. It surprises me that, to this day, there are so many die-hard fans of the toxic vampire couple Damon and Elena. After seasons of Damon taking away Elena’s agency of choice, relentlessly pursuing her, and killing those close to her, Elena’s soft and compassionate nature gives in to the flashes of ‘selflessness’ that Damon shows her he’s capable of, in his attempts to woo her. She becomes convinced she can be the one to permanently change his nature and calm his unpredictable, volatile state, though everyone around her tells her Damon is a terrible person and not a good match for her. Yes, they end up together.
Female protagonists may differ in nature at times, some coarse and harsh like Clary, while others are more steadfast and calmer like Elena, but the common thread that runs between them is their infinite capacity for forgiveness. The shows and movies we watch teach us that we shouldn’t back down from breaking through the emotional walls a beautifully chiseled man has put up, for not far on the other side from this damaged creature could be the perfectly articulate and compellingly romantic partner we desire. This isn’t to say that these characters are created without any attractive draws to them. The Internet thrives on Reddit discussion forums, X threads, Buzzfeed articles, and TikTok comment sections debating the legitimacy of one potential endgame couple over another. It’s precisely the narrative promise that these enigmatic characters can change, that there’s enough evidence to argue for or against their appeal, that keeps us so hooked on the concept that love can soften even the most stoic personalities.
Maybe it’s the sense of challenge, or the thrill of unraveling someone’s hidden depths, that keeps us invested in these stories. More than anything else, the brooding male invites us to imagine ourselves as the exception — the one person who can truly comprehend and get through to him, turning emotional distance into intimacy. The enduring appeal lies in the hope that beneath the hardened exterior, there is vulnerability waiting to be unlocked by the right person. Yet the danger in the trope of the brooding male lies in the lessons it inadvertently teaches women and the way it shapes our perceptions of real love. Love becomes depicted as the cure for all evil that lies within people, and suffering or violence is a mere means to an end in the search for this great power. Of course, emotional turmoil and push and pull are exactly what made us so invested in Conrad and Belly’s love story.
Conrad Fisher is not an evil character or a selfish one by my standards, but the premise of the entire series of The Summer I Turned Pretty depends on Belly’s obsession with a boy who, for years, was emotionally closed off to her, unready to be a mature partner, and simply out of reach. Because we’ve read the books, stared into Chris Briney’s blue eyes as he gazes longingly at Lola Tung on screen, and are given an impossible insider view into his private thoughts through voiceover monologues, we find ourselves swept up in the fantasy that perhaps we, too, could be the one to unlock Conrad’s heart, to draw him from the tenderness that he so carefully hides.
It’s easy to sympathize with Belly’s lifelong emotional investment in a boy she truly adores. With other girls unable to tap into his potential and Belly the only one Conrad is supposedly capable of being with, it’s almost forgivable how Belly neglects her loyal best friend’s hardships for her own drama or fails to put her feelings aside to maintain composure and maturity at Susannah’s funeral. In reflecting on the way Belly is written and the love story that captivated us, I realized why I was no longer able to blindly root for a love interest that had completely engulfed our main character’s life, personality, and motives. Belly no longer had real hobbies, lost her sweetness, and struggled to figure out what she wanted for herself by the end of the show. But we’re expected to cheer for her as she finally gets the one thing she’s always wanted: Conrad.
At twelve years old, I spent much more time wistfully dreaming about love and wondering why it hadn’t found me yet than I should have. I dreamt about, wrote in my diary, and grew up with a secret desire so many girls share: to be the one who is special enough to change even the darkest antihero into a vulnerable man deeply in love. This all-consuming desire to be irreplaceable softened as I grew older, but lived in the back of my mind, especially during the situations I found myself in with men. I had no idea who I was, so I tailored my personality to whoever my love interest at the time was, morphing into someone unrecognizable. Only by becoming cognizant of my lack of self was I able to stop shedding my own skin each time I thought I fell in love. We’re taught to fear solitude, that being alone is something magnetic and irresistible that women never go through, and a toxic love story is better than no love story.
Unfortunately, the Conrad Fishers of the world are unlikely to suddenly become emotionally available to the girl they are destined to be with by some stroke of lightning. Yet we women relentlessly pursue the goodness we desperately believe lies within the men we love. We forgive even the cruelest or most thoughtless of actions, hanging on to the shred of hope that the wonderfulness they’ve revealed to us on a special occasion can become their norm.
What we are really seeking is the unhealthy version of validation that we are special, unique, and more important than other women, some silent competition where we win when we possess some unique power that will transform any brooding man. This validation can only lead to us making martyrs of ourselves for men who don’t deserve our grace, nor question the gender imbalance in emotional labor. To move beyond these tropes is to recognize the complexity of our desires and to seek relationships where vulnerability is not extracted but freely offered; where growth is mutual, and compassion is reciprocated. It means rewriting the narrative so that tenderness is not a reward for endurance but a fundamental building block of connection.
In refusing to chase the archetype of the brooding man manifested in real life, we allow space for a different kind of profound satisfaction to complete us, one that arises from simply being: free, supported, and whole. Only in this version of ourselves will we be able to recognize, appreciate, and uplift healthy romantic love when it appears. We deserve that as much as our female protagonists do.
