I'm Never Going To Have A Man Like Conrad Fisher

Bring back the men who yearn

When the wise philosopher Sean Kingston confessed that beautiful girls had him feeling suicidal, I took that personally and declared it to be my bare minimum when it came to the men I date. From that point on, I wanted a man to be absolutely miserable without me in his life. The sheer thought of me not being by his side would induce a brain aneurysm. Frankly, I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Whether it was witnessing the consistent love my father poured into my mother, or being exposed to a plethora of classic rom-com films in my early years, I longed for a young romance where a man would be so captivated by me that he could not rest until he confessed his undying love for me in either the pouring rain, an airport terminal, or at my door step halfway across the world.

Landon Carter from ‘A Walk To Remember’ was one of the first perpetrators to ruin my expectations of men. From the moment he started helping Jamie build her a telescope when she was too sick to do it, to eventually marrying her despite her not having a long life ahead, but so she could die knowing what it was like to be truly loved and experience every magical feeling life has to offer, I thought surely I could get the bad boy at my school to change for me too. I may have dated a bad boy or two, but none of them were certainly jumping at the chance to buy me a star like Landon.

This trend of falling for fictional men has plagued many Millennial women for decades. Whether it was the subtly in Mr. Darcy hands in ‘Pride & Prejudice’ craving Elizabeth’s touch; Noah writing Allie a letter everyday for a year in ‘The Notebook;’ Luke keeping Loreali’s horoscope in his wallet for eight years in ‘Gilmore Girls;’ Ross rushing around every airport in New York to tell Rachel not to move to Paris in ‘Friends;’ or Lord Anthony simply losing his fucking mind by the meer scent of Kate’s perfume as she walks by in ‘Bridgerton;’ these men have haunted many of my dreams and left me thristy for a love that possessed them.

With his side-swept hair and a resemblance to the young Leonard DiCaprio, Christopher Briney has captured the hearts of many Gen Z and Millennial fans in his portrayal as Conrad Fisher in ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty.’ I will not deny that, though quite young, Christopher is very attractive; however, I’ve come to find that most of us don’t just think he’s hot: we think Conrad is hotter. We’re in love with this character he’s played since 2022 because Conrad Fisher is everything most women desire in a man, yet we live in a world where our “Connie Baby” could never exist.

Conrad is not simply just another brooding boy of summer with puppy-dog-brown-eyes; he’s a character filled to the brim with unspoken devotion. He loves with a depth that is both patient and selfless. The man goes to Stanford to be an oncology doctor, not because he has an ego and wants money, but out of aching love and loss of his mother. (Normally, I would consider med students to be a huge red flag given my own past trauma, but I will let it slide in this case.) Where many men would lash out, Conrad turns inward, teaching himself to breathe through the chaos and anxiety. He carries the weight of his mistakes, admits to the distance he placed between himself and those who needed him most, and seeks help when the burden of grief grows too heavy to bear. Even when watching the love of his life run off with his little brother, Conrad holds his silence not out of weakness, but in hopes of protecting her. Over time, he finds the courage to soften, to open, and to risk everything on vulnerability. Because for Conrad, loving Belly was never about possession, but about becoming someone worthy of having her.

Dating for single women today feels more like a humiliation ritual than actual love. With the men on dating apps still “figuring out their dating goals” at the young age of 39, and the insurmountable levels of dating stages that feel similar to a game of ‘Super Mario,’ real romance is on its deathbed. Nowadays, single women are met with men who are more similar to Conrad’s father, Adam, and brother, Jeremiah. Men who take advantage of a woman’s love and care more about the idea of being with her than actually loving her. How is any woman meant to believe a man like Conrad Fisher could actually exist, let alone that I would even have a chance with someone like him?

Let me be clear: this is not the Conrad we met in the first season. Jenny Han created a character that first came to us as our mysterious, just out of reach, heartthrob that every girl pines after in high school. As the show goes on, we see that Conrad isn’t brooding for the sake of seeming cool. He’s imperfect, sensitive, and he’s hurting. In season one, we have a guy who is holding on to the secret of his mother’s illness, all while the girl he’s had a crush on for years comes back into his life as a new woman. He has a perpetual cloud looming over him until Belly parts the sky to let a little sunshine into his life with just a smile. This Conrad was terrified of letting anyone see his pain. As the show progresses, that brooding façade erodes, and what emerges is something rarer: a portrait of a young man embracing his emotions and choosing to be vulnerable.

Think about the last time you saw a man cry in person. Men are terrified to show any emotion because they believe their bros won’t think they’re cool anymore. They move through the world terrified of what might happen if they let their guard down. To be too vulnerable is to risk ridicule—a feeling that isn’t reserved just for men either. Vulnerability is a risk for anyone, but it’s also the hinge on which everything can turn; it’s the very risk that can alter the course of your life if you dare to take it.

By the time we reach season three, Conrad is no longer a boy hiding behind his façade, as he has grown into someone unafraid to wear his emotions on his sleeve. This is a young man who has carried the weight of loving Belly alone for years, steady and unwavering. He loves her quietly from the background, then gradually comes into focus. Each encounter—the intimacy of the peach scene, the warmth of Christmas at Cousins, the tenderness of the surf injury—chips away at the distance between them until finally, Conrad allows himself to step into the center of frame. A man no longer willing to let the love of his life slip out of his hands.

Was it poor timing on Conrad’s part to confess his love the day before Belly was about to marry his brother? Probably, but hearing Conrad utter the confession, “Don’t be with him, be with me,” only made me realize I’ve never dated a man who would be devastated if he lost me. While I remain steady in my feelings toward my partner, these men have wandered aimlessly around my heart. Is it absurd to yearn for yearning?

While men’s selfishness has withstood the test of time, Conrad Fisher is the Gen Z spokesperson for hopeless devotion. Whenever he’s with Belly, she is the only person in the room. In the finale, Belly takes Conrad around Paris to see the sights, but she’s the only view he has any interest in. I mean, the man pays over $400 for a plane to Paris in hopes that maybe he can find Belly at her apartment (to which he only knows the address of because he keeps the only fucking postcard she sent him in his wallet), and when he finds her, he doesn’t hesitate. He throws caution aside and lays everything on the line, determined to win her back. In a way, Conrad found power in his vulnerability. Once he confessed his love aloud to Belly, the fear that had shadowed him for so long seemed to lose its grip. This was a man willing to gamble everything on love. And maybe that’s what makes him so compelling: I can’t say I’ve ever seen it play out like this in real life.

More often, we see men retreat into pride, into silence, into the safety of never saying too much. Vulnerability doesn’t just feel uncomfortable for many men; it feels impossible. Almost like a betrayal of the very masculinity they’ve been taught to perform. That’s why Conrad’s confession strikes such a chord. It offers a glimpse of something we’re starved for: a man who is willing to stand in his feelings without apology, to risk rejection rather than live half a life guarding his heart.

There’s an intimacy in knowing someone so well that you find comfort in the silence with them. I used to say 4:00 am was my favorite time of day because it holds everyone’s secrets. I’d often stay up all night with a boy when we’d first start dating and just talk. Despite being fully clothed, I always left those nights feeling exposed, like we had undressed each other with words alone. We shared dreams, childhood memories, and private confessions that still live in my mind years later. That’s the thing about intimacy: it isn’t always grand gestures; sometimes it’s simply being remembered. Conrad comes to realize this with Belly. The acts of service he instinctively leaned on never landed with her the way he hoped. So he shifts. He makes her feel seen, not by what he does for her, but by reminding her that he carries every detail of their conversations with him—that he remembers, that she is always on his mind.

Conrad reminded me what it feels like to be loved with patience, with devotion, with the kind of quiet intensity that doesn’t exist in the chaos of modern dating. He wears his devotion on his sleeve as he only has eyes for Belly, no matter the setting, no matter the crowd. That’s what makes him so magnetic: he embodies a kind of yearning we’ve been starved of, a love that doesn’t hedge its bets or play it cool, but risks everything in the open. In a world where affection is often rationed and attention scattered, Conrad feels like a relic of a love story we no longer get in real life. And maybe that’s the point: we can’t stop reaching for him because he reminds us of what we deserve, but rarely get.

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