Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah? Growing Up in a Love Triangle Obsessed Culture
- Guest Contributor
- Sep 17, 2025
- 3 min read
By Mary O'Gara
The Summer I Turned Pretty seems to have us all hooked this summer. A show about teenagers somehow has full-on adults debating a two-tier, dark chocolate wedding cake with a 70% cacao mirror glaze and raspberry coulis filling and counting down the minutes until our beloved Connie baby is back on screen.
I am right there with you. I, too, have a weekly Wednesday ritual: sitting down with friends after work to watch the newest episode, analyzing how Belly is destroying a mourning family, then scrolling TikTok for color theory breakdowns, the meaning of each carefully chosen Taylor Swift song, and the hidden infinity symbol Easter eggs sprinkled throughout the series.
Is it the carefully plotted music, the colors, the Easter eggs, and the touch of cringe-inducing writing that keeps us hooked? Or is it that we were raised on media that trained us to crave a love triangle?
From One Tree Hill and Gilmore Girls to Twilight and more, the early 2000s thrived on them. Would our heroine choose the popular jock heartthrob or the introverted, shy boy who reads poetry by the river? (Spoiler alert: she always goes for the moody boy.) We grew up on triangles, so of course, we are drawn into the drama between Belly, Conrad and Jeremiah.
Our culture is obsessed with choosing sides. Conrad is set up, especially this season, to be the favorite. While Jeremiah complains, people-pleases, racks up credit card debt on hockey tickets, cheats and is generally insufferable for most of season three, Conrad is painted as the ideal man. He is in therapy, cooks chicken, pines after Belly for years, is a yearner, buys hurricane vases at Michaels, and confesses his love on a midnight beach.
We’ve seen this triangle a hundred times, and we're addicted. Why else would we keep watching the same plot play out? We have been sold the idea that the chosen boy offers the greatest love this world can give.
But let’s face it, the chosen boy (Edward, Lucas, Conrad and more) falls far short. Their love has trained us to strive for something mediocre. These rom-com heartthrobs cannot hold a candle to the love God offers.
Shows like The Summer I Turned Pretty encourage us to settle for cinematic sighs, half-baked apologies and the kind of love that makes good television but not a good life. Jeremiah’s charm or Conrad’s broodiness might keep us glued to the screen, but they only leave us hungry for more drama, not more peace. We idolize the “moody boy” archetype as if his longing stares could heal the ache in our hearts.
But here is the truth: no matter how well written, the TV love triangle can only showcase mediocre love. We cheer for boys who buy peaches, book last-minute tickets to Paris or pine away for years at Stanford, forgetting that none of these gestures come close to the perfect love of God.
God does not wait to love us until the summer we “turn pretty.”
He does not brood in silence.
He pursues us with a love that is steady, sacrificial and eternal. No cliffhanger. No finale that leaves us screaming at the screen. Just perfect, merciful, abundant love that fills us.
So maybe, this Wednesday, as we watch Belly break hearts internationally or Conrad check a bag full of Sour Patch Kids to Paris, we can remind ourselves: this is entertainment, not the ideal.
We were made for more than triangles. We were made for perfect love, and that love has already chosen us.
