The Belly and Conrad effect

The Summer I Turned Pretty has become one of the biggest comfort shows in recent years. It has the vibes, the soundtrack, and the characters, but what makes it particularly interesting is, of course, the dynamic between Belly and Conrad. Belly externalizes her emotions, while Conrad internalizes his. One wants answers, while the other withholds them. In many ways, they represent opposite responses to the same fear: what if loving someone means eventually losing them?

Conrad's internal struggle often comes from his sense of responsibility to protect the people he loves, even if that means protecting them from himself. He convinces himself that keeping his distance is a way of sparing others from his own pain, even when that distance ends up hurting them in the process. There are situations where Conrad could have handled things better, and acknowledging that is important. His intentions do not always excuse his actions. However, what makes his character so compelling is his willingness to change and better understand himself. He begins to recognize that shutting people out is not necessarily the same as protecting them, and that his fear of hurting the people he loves can sometimes become the very thing he does.

Considering everything that happens between Belly and Conrad, it would have been reasonable to assume that he would eventually move on. Belly is with his brother, and Conrad is moving forward with his own life. He attends a great university, enters a new environment, and begins experiencing a world beyond the one he has always known. He has every reason to believe that time and distance will help him move past his feelings. Yet, despite all these changes, he is never quite able to lose sight of Belly. It is almost as if she has become a part of his psyche, woven into the way he understands himself and experiences the world. She is not simply someone he loved in the past. She is someone whose presence continues to shape him, even when she is no longer physically beside him. 

The same can be said for Belly. Throughout the third season, she is navigating a period of transition, trying to figure out who she wants to be and what she wants her life to look like. She makes mistakes, changes her mind, fights with the people she loves, and eventually moves to Paris. In many ways, these experiences reflect her desire to step outside the life she has always known and discover herself on her own terms. Belly is growing up, and part of that growth means making decisions that do not always make sense to the people around her. She needs the freedom to explore who she is outside of her relationships, to make mistakes, and to learn from them.

Yet, even as Belly builds a life of her own, she struggles to fully let go of her feelings for Conrad. Her journey is not simply about moving away or finding new experiences. It is also about figuring out whether she can truly separate the person she is becoming from the person she has always been in love with. She can change her surroundings, meet new people, and imagine a different future for herself, but that does not automatically mean her feelings will disappear. Growing as a person and moving on from someone are not always the same thing.

Perhaps this is what makes Belly and Conrad's relationship so interesting. They are both trying to move forward, but neither of them can completely escape the emotional weight of what they share. Conrad attempts to protect himself and others by keeping his feelings buried, while Belly tries to make sense of hers by confronting them, sometimes impulsively. Their approaches may be different, but underneath them is a similar struggle: learning how to live with feelings that are difficult to understand, let alone let go of.

What makes their connection so interesting is that it persists even when their lives begin to move in different directions. They are growing, changing, and discovering parts of themselves that exist outside their relationship, yet their feelings for each other remain a constant in the background. Perhaps loving someone does not mean that you stop growing as an individual, nor does growing as an individual mean that you must stop loving them. Sometimes, the hardest part is learning who you are when the person you have always imagined in your future is no longer guaranteed to be there.

And maybe that is what Belly and Conrad have been trying to figure out all along: whether love is something you eventually outgrow or something you learn to understand differently as you grow up.

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