You may not know about The Summer I Turned Pretty, and I can’t blame you. It’s the epitome of a nostalgic teenage summer beach romance. Season one starts with Isabella “Belly” (yes, I know) Conklin, the main protagonist, who returns with her family to Cousins Beach — a fictional East Coast beach town with vibrant hydrangeas, drive-in theaters, oceanfront bonfires and parties in pristine beach houses — for another summer of living at their friends’ beach house. As is the case every summer, she’ll be reunited with the Fisher brothers: Conrad, the mysterious, brooding older brother, and Jeremiah, the pretty boy who’s the life of every party.
But the first summer highlighted in the books and series is different — Belly is finally all grown up, hence the title, and she’s ready for love. But spoiler alert: As with all the classic stories of angsty teenage and young adult love triangles, things do not go as planned.
The series, streaming on Amazon Prime, was adapted from the young adult book trilogy written by Jenny Han back in 2009 and spans the course of four years, detailing the relationship dynamics unfolding between Belly and Conrad, her first true love, and Belly and Jeremiah, the one she never expected to fall for. It’s currently on the third season, with the series finale premiering next week, and it seems that every woman I see on social media — Gen Z, Millennial, Gen X, you name it — has fallen in love with Conrad. Me included! (At this point he’s 23 years old in the show and 27 in real life.)
But here’s the thing that stands out the most: Regardless that this series technically should be catering to a majority audience of Gen Z teenagers and young adults, The New York Times reported that its main audience is actually 25 through 54-year-old women. The slew of TikToks appearing on my timeline support this.
In a Vogue article about millennial women’s infatuation with the show, writer Olivia Petter notes that Conrad is “a man so artfully crafted through the female lens that part of the addictive agony of watching TSITP is knowing that he does not exist, while hoping that he might.”
Geez, what a description. Are you a man who wants to hear women describe you like that? And what exactly is it about Conrad Fisher that’s likely making your girlfriend fall in love with him? Let’s debrief.
There’s Never Been a Better Time to Be a Dull Man
Gather ’round, men with nerdy hobbies and unstereotypical interests. Society’s “dull” is the new “incredibly attractive.”He’s a Handy Man
It’s true: Women love a handy man. Building a bookshelf or fixing a flat tire is an attractive task to be able to do, and if you’re taking it off your partner’s plate, that’s even better. In more ways than one, Conrad is quite a handy man. He participates in general household work like washing dishes, cooking meals and changing light bulbs. Every woman loves a man that cleans up after himself — the rolled-up sleeves and watch combo (he notably sports a vintage Omega) are just an added bonus.
He also takes on outdoor tasks like yard work and casually fixing the roof of his summer house on his own accord. No big deal.
At this point in the show, Belly and Conrad are no longer dating. She dated his brother Jeremiah for several years and they were even engaged, but in the most recent episode, they called off the wedding after Conrad expressed his secret undying love to Belly. It’s just as messy as it sounds, but in a way, it’s a lot like the historically famous scene in The Notebook, right before Allie Hamilton comes running back to Noah Calhoun in the house he refurbished for her.
He’s also a student at Stanford Medicine, and in season three, he’d spent the past several years living in an apartment in San Francisco. One that’s actually well-kept — and even well decorated.
A lot of young men have truly terrible interior design capabilities or lack any semblance of cleanliness: dirty clothes on the floor, not owning useful and necessary furniture or having a cursed pair of navy blue sheets. It doesn’t require a complete overhaul to add some unique personal touches to elevate a stereotypically male space, either. Conrad’s apartment is proof: clean kitchen, throw pillows, a guitar standing in the corner, books on the coffee table and decorative posters on the walls. Gotta love when a man pays attention to his space.
He also frequently cooks and restocks groceries, even making note of when Belly has last eaten throughout season three and prepping meals for her ahead of time.
He’s the Ultimate Yearner
It’s not just that Conrad Fisher loves Belly, it’s that he’s in love with Belly — quite shamelessly, given the circumstances — and there are infinite amounts of details where the audience can watch Conrad’s mannerisms or dialogue and realize just how down bad he is for this girl. He’s a textbook yearner.
The concept of yearning has made a huge resurgence this year. The phrase “bring back yearning” kind of became a trend, used frequently in videos online, citing character examples like Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, Robin Williams as Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting and Billy Crystal as Harry Burns in When Harry Met Sally. There’s nothing quite like seeing a man completely longingly ache for the woman they want in such a hopeless romantic way, and Conrad embodies classic yearner habits that have women of all ages swooning.
He’s always catching glimpses of her, finding ways to do something just to make her smile or expressing declarative one-liners or mini speeches about how deeply he feels for her. But it’s always incredibly charming and perfectly timed and catching her off guard in the best way.
It happens on a micro level.
“It hurts,” Conrad tells Jeremiah in season 2 (this happened before she started dating either of the brothers), “like, my chest physically hurts to not be able to tell her that I’m in love with her.” What a line!
Or the moments when he’s incredibly observant. “You still bite your nails,” he says to her after several years of not seeing or speaking to her. He learns how to bake her favorite muffins and surprises her with them on her birthday. He frequently sees her swimming in the beach house pool, even saying to her, “When you swim, I don’t think you’d notice if the house was on fire. It’s like you’re somewhere else.” It’s all about noticing those “little idiosyncrasies” in people we love, just like Williams said.
But it’s also noticeable on a macro level. One thing about Conrad Fisher is he’s incredibly loyal, so loyal that he actually never falls in love and hardly goes on dates with anyone other than Belly over the course of his whole life, which is maybe a little too loyal. But I suppose it’s romantic nonetheless. So even after years of being separated from her because of school, he still comes back to Cousins before the wedding, so earnestly in love with her. He really does do everything he can to push his feelings away and prioritize her happiness — to a point — which clearly shows how much he cares about her.
So much that he even helps her go shopping for her wedding when no one else can, even though he’s quite literally bursting at the seams with unrelenting love. But he’s content and helpful and never complains. He even goes to therapy to help him sort out his own baggage: rocky family dynamics, his communication skills, processing grief after his mom’s death in season two, revealing he recognizes that he needs to work on his mental health and take emotionally mature steps without making it a burden on anyone else.
Conflict after conflict start piling up ahead of Belly and Jeremiah’s wedding. Belly’s mom refuses to attend because of how young they are, Belly and Jeremiah are on an incredibly tight budget and she’s practically planning the entire event on her own while Jeremiah works in a different state. Belly is frequently stressed and depressed, to the point where she isn’t even eating. You can only guess who notices and steps in to help.
Not even Belly’s own fiancée is clued-in on how emotionally overwhelmed she is, lacking awareness of how frequently she starts skipping meals. But Conrad is on top of it — not in an overbearing way but in one that shows he’s paying attention even when she doesn’t realize it. He actively cooks her meals and leaves extra food in the house just for her. He even manages to convince her mom to attend the wedding after countless attempts from Belly and Jeremiah themselves. Mothers always know best, I guess.
So yes, Conrad is loudly in love with Belly, and it’s something many women want: A partner who’s unafraid to be so proudly and outspokenly devoted but also attentive and caring. It’s moments like these that also make Conrad an idyllic partner. He’s downright loyal, always putting her first and striving for her to have the best life she can — even when it breaks his heart to do so. And he dresses great while doing it.
The Female Gaze
When you hear the concept “man written by a woman,” it’s true that Conrad absolutely fits the archetype: The ideal version of how women wish to be treated by men. You should take note of him. It’s incredibly impressive that Han created a character who’s captivated the hearts of women, regardless of their age or marital status. He’s a well-rounded guy with healthy habits and knows how to be a good partner. Ultimately, you don’t need to be performative to be attractive to women, you just need to be more like Conrad Fisher.
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