Summer and Tom: the relationship built on a love for The Smiths. Yet, there is a lot more to love than enjoying the same band or having the same favorite color. Summer and Tom are the main characters in the 2009 rom-com (500) Days Of Summer. They’re two young people navigating a relationship with opposite attachment styles. The film takes you through the 500 days that Tom knows Summer: getting to know her, “dates,” hookups, and the healing that Tom experiences after. It’s narrated by Tom, so it’s important to note that he is not always the most reliable narrator.
Tom
Tom is your typical hopeless romantic. He believes in love: he wants to find it, experience it, and fall into it. Tom is the perfect example of an anxious attachment style. He is looking for consistent validation and reassurance, and believes that love is meant to be perfect. He becomes clingy and can make stupid decisions for what he hopes will be lasting affection.
As the film goes on, it becomes apparent that Tom is really obsessed with the idea of Summer. He sees Summer as his “dream girl,” but it’s surface level. He doesn’t care to know about her goals, her personal life, or even how many kids she might want down the road. He creates an idealized version of her, but it’s not real. We don’t really know if Tom truly loved Summer, because he doesn’t even know it himself. Even though Summer tells Tom she isn’t interested in a relationship with him but is “having fun,” he understands it differently. To Tom, she just wants to take it slow.
Tom shows how toxic and unhealthy it can become when you place people on pedestals and hope for a change in them that they can’t provide. He wants her to engage in a relationship with him, but she has no interest. Summer is transparent about this, but Tom refuses to accept it. He then puts the blame on her when it ends up breaking his heart and not hers. He wants her to be his soulmate so bad that it doesn’t hit him that she is possibly the furthest thing from it.
Tom is rather unhappy with his life, so he puts an obscene amount of pressure on the relationship. It’s all that brings him joy, and it becomes all he lives for. It forms a sense of codependency which turns into a dumpster fire with Summer.
However, I know Tom well because I’ve been Tom. He lives so much in his head, he can’t get out. He’s constantly overthinking yet trying his best to be romantic. Especially with social media now, I feel like it’s so easy to get obsessive over people and start to see a future that you have no control over. Love can feel so far out of reach sometimes that the second it even comes a little close, it consumes you. You’re easily wrapped up in delusion and yearning, even though that is not ever the healthiest way to handle liking someone. It’s important to reflect and remember that even though Tom became obsessive, he is still human at the end of the day, not a villain.
Summer
Summer, as analyzed by multiple psychologists, is known to be an “avoidant,” or as having an “avoidant attachment style.” She is extremely independent, completely fine on her own, hates labels, and communicates with Tom that she has no desire for a serious relationship. Because yes, even people who prefer casual intimacy because it’s all they can handle still deserve intimacy. She is highly skeptical of love, even telling Tom that it’s just a “fantasy.” She believes you can enjoy it for a moment, but never forever.
She still gets close to Tom and experiences intimacy with him, but also knows how to keep her boundaries in place. She has to avoid feeling trapped or stuck, and not let herself open up enough to get hurt. She does like Tom, and spends time with him, but never commits fully to him and calls them “friends,” when they’re nowhere close to having a platonic relationship. This goes hand in hand with Tom for a little while, due to his lack of emotional involvement in the relationship. He never asks for a deeper emotional connection with Summer, so she never has to give it. This only becomes a problem when Tom wants more and Summer can’t give him that.
Summer shows how unhealthy it can be to send mixed signals, and continue to engage in a relationship with someone who sees it as more. Even though she communicated to him that no relationship was coming, his constant push for it was a sign to her that they weren’t on the same page. She invited him into her private life and told him things she’d never told anyone before, providing a false sense of intimacy to Tom. Her need to stay detached to avoid any kind of dependency hurts Tom in the long run, even if he should’ve seen it coming.
Unfortunately, I know Summer too, because I am her. Love can feel fleeting at times, and unsteady and scary at others. It feels easier to push others away than to sacrifice current emotional stability, or even freedom. For me, if I see nothing wrong with being on my own, then why fix something that isn’t broken? Yet everyone needs intimacy, and everyone deserves love. That feeling of loneliness hits you at times, and you realize how complicated it truly can be to want something that you can’t commit to. Relationships can feel suffocating and terrifying, and preemptively rejecting the idea of love feels like an easier pill to swallow than accepting that you have to take a risk to gain a reward. It’s hard to want intimacy without letting yourself attach. It’s easier to just run. I don’t think Summer is inherently a villain in this situation either, and she’s just as human as Tom.
The anxious-avoidant push & pull
Tom and Summer have strong chemistry at first. They bond over common interests, but don’t realize that there’s not much under the surface. Summer feels safe and unforced at the start, and Tom is riding the high of possibly falling in love. He knows it might be difficult, but he thinks he can make it happen. The relationship hits a point of major heat when Tom pushes for more and wants exclusivity with a label, which pushes Summer into a nervous breakdown. If she’s intimate she can’t be free, so she will pull away. The more the anxious pushes, the more the avoidant will pull away. It’s a constant back and forth, an emotional tug-of-war, and no one comes out undamaged. The pulling away from Summer creates even more anxiety in Tom. He processes it personally, wondering if he’s the problem and ruminating on all the things that could’ve gone wrong. This disrespects Summer’s boundaries, and makes her feel more suffocated. That cycle doesn’t end and just continues to get worse, until eventually both sides fail.
It’s very common for these attachment styles to find each other and create a tangled mess. The emotional needs of both cannot be met at the same time.
IT’s not really a rom-com
Even though the movie is known as a rom-com, it really feels like it could be horror 90 percent of the time. The movie explicitly states in the beginning that it’s not a love story. However, the film shows you that you can make a lesson out of loss, and find yourself coming out better.
Viewers often try to find someone in the wrong to blame at the end of the movie. The truth is that there is no person in the wrong here. They’re two people carrying the baggage of their pasts and navigating life through it. Summer shouldn’t be punished for her honesty and Tom shouldn’t be looked down upon for being eager to love. The film shows that as humans, we want to see people how we imagine them, not as how they show up.