ITCHY SWEATERS: The Secret Ingredient of Friends to Lovers
Why other love interests just might be the salt that makes your Friends-to-Lovers Butter delicious.
Confession: I don’t write Friends-to-Lovers. The closest I’ve come is an Enemies-to-Lovers setup where high school friends secretly crush on each other for a few short months until their true feelings come to light.
I think I find this genre particularly unattractive to write because I prefer the clear “He’s possibly an irredeemable Fixer-Upper” conflict that Enemies-to-Lovers arcs with over-the-top (OTT) heroes bring to a story.
But I love to watch and occasionally read Friends-to-Lovers romances. So, I was thrilled that Abbott Elementary and Bridgerton, two seemingly night-and-day shows, advanced their Season 3 power couples from friends to lovers in pretty much the same way—with an Itchy Sweater.
SPOILER ALERT: Stop here if you’re not all caught up with Season 3 of Abbott Elementary and the Season 3 first half of Bridgerton because we’re breaking these two Friends-to-Lovers arcs down for all their Butter. Let’s gooo!
But first up, just in case you haven’t read The Universal Fantasy™ List: ROMANCE yet, here are the UF breakdowns for two of the biggest PATRON SAINTS of the Friends-to-Lovers trope:
The Office
UF OVERVIEW: A story in which Perfect-Fit Work Bestie-Baes overcome their Itchy Sweaters and a few other Love Obstacles and FINALLY! Big Confess Their Love. Dopamine! Dopamine! Dopamine!1
and…
When Harry Met Sally
UF OVERVIEW: A story in which Cozy Best Friends Become Lovers, featuring Someone Who is Seriously Seeking Love and Someone Who is Not Seriously Seeking Love—but somehow ends up Seriously Falling and Big Groveling for a Serious Relationship HEA.
And here’s some working Butter vocab, so you won’t have to leave me the same kind of cranky “What does that even mean?” messages I send my daughters whenever they text me something written in skibidi toilet.
Work Bestie-Baes: Office spouses (usu. a work wife and a work husband) who positively vibrate with the potential to become a genuine couple.
Itchy Sweater: The wrong person for your romantic lead.
Perfect Pajamas: The right person for your romantic lead.
Perfect Fit: These romantic leads aren’t just True Love. For glowing neon-sign obvious reasons, we know they belong togetheeerrrr with the same soaring yearning of that Mariah Carey song.
Cozy Best Friends: A pair of friends who do all the domestic and emotional things a cozy couple would do—except have sex or admit they’re in love.
Some Kind of Longing: When only one of the Cozy Best Friends realizes they belong togetheeerrrr. This creates a Desired Friend dynamic and is often the perfect setup for a Heartstakes Competition with a Shiny Itchy Sweater (which we’ll define below).
The Major Universal Fantasies for Friends-to-Lovers tropes often include:
Perfect-Fit FINALLY! Fit Together (ex. The Office)
Cozy Best Friends Become Lovers (ex. When Harry Met Sally)
Desired Friend Realizes We Belong Together!!! (ex. Some Kind of Wonderful)
Deserving SKL (Some Kind of Longing) Friend Gets the Love They Deserve (ex. Abbot Elementary)
Playboy Settles Down For a Traditional HEA (ex. Bridgerton)
I could go on and on about all the details that make these UFs work, but for now, let’s just break down how Abbott Elementary and Bridgerton Spread and Baked their Friends-to-Lover Butter using Itchy Sweaters.
Spread that Itchy Sweater
A Spread for a Friends-to-Lovers Universal Fantasy most often revolves around the central question of every Skye Warren ads class: Why Can’t This Couple Be Together?
There are usually three reasons2 that friends can’t be lovers at the beginning of your story, and two of them involve Itchy Sweaters.
REASON 1:
One of them is committed to an awful Itchy Sweater.
[Jim and Pam from The Office]
Don’t you hate it when Mr. Right comes along after you’ve not-so-low-key settled for Mr. Wrong?
Butter Writing Tip: Make it obvious why the Itchy Sweater is itchy with a scene that clearly shows your main character itching.
Think about…
Daniel Dae Kim’s character refusing to hold the purse of Ali Wong’s character in Always Be My Maybe.
Pam having to go wedding shopping with her office bestie-bae Jim because Roy, her fiancé, would never.
Janine liking the gift Gregory gave his Valentine way more than the designer tote she got from hers. (Season 2, Episode 14)3
These Itchy Sweater Spread scenes are great because they set up stark comparisons for huge Butter Serves:
For example, in Always Be My Maybe, the Perfect-Fit Bestie delivers a terrific Serve/Big Grovel that ends with him declaring his bone-deep desire to hold her purse.
Anyway, that’s one reason why two Perfect-Fit Friends can’t be together, and the second reason also depends on an Itchy Sweater.
Bake That Itchy Sweater
REASON 2:
One of them honestly thinks that an Itchy Sweater is their True Match.
[ex. Some Kind of Wonderful, the Polin arc from Season 1 of Bridgerton]
There’s a reason so many of us can sing along word-for-word with “You Belong With Me” by Taylor Swift, even though it was from her early country era. I mean, it’s a bop, for sure, but it also perfectly captures the deep friendzone ache of Some Kind of Longing with a Desired Friend.
It kills us (I’m talking about the audience and the SKL character romantic lead) when a Desired Friend is so blinded by the light of a Shiny Itchy Sweater that he can’t see the Cozy Best Friend Perfect-Fit that’s “been there the whole time.”
This also sets up a Heartstakes Competition.
Winning a Competition is one of those Universal Fantasies that works in both real and fantasy life. And in the case of a Desired Friend Realizes We Belong Together! UF, this is one of the easiest ways to compel your audience to that big Serve of Cozy Friends (Finally!) Pairing Off.
Heartstakes Competitions can also net you an easy Audience Character Relationship point in the ROOTING FOR category if you…
Taylor Swift Your MC’s Itchy Sweater Competition
Okay, what does that mean?
I’m talking about those phenomenally jaunty bits of “You Belong With Me,” in which Swift’s POV character emphasizes how much shinier her ITCHY SWEATER COMPETITION is than her.
The Shiny Itchy Sweater wears short skirts and heels. She’s not just a cheerleader. She’s cheer captain. Meanwhile, our POV girl is sitting in the bleachers, wearing tees and sneakers (like most high schoolers4).
The easiest way to construct a compelling Heartstakes Competitor is to give the Shiny Itchy Sweater a ton more status than the SKL Friend.
The Universal Fantasy we’re playing around with here is your MC Getting Chosen, even though the Desired Friend has access to someone who is…
more popular (Some Kind of Wonderful—the Patron Saint of the Desired Friend-to-Lover trope)
richer and more worldly (Mean Girls)
in higher demand—has more followers or suitors than your MC
an ex (To All the Boys I Loved Before)
more (conventionally) attractive (One Day, all three versions; and I love that the taller, prettier character of Manny was brought into Season 3 of Abbott Elementary to jog Gregory out of his resolve to remain friends with Janine).
Take your pick from all these superlatives for your story, or take them all. Notice that Mean Girls became a movie, a musical, and a movie musical on the iconic Shiny Itchy Sweater back of Regina George. You really can’t slather on too much of this Better Than Me Butter.
Remember, GETTING CHOSEN is an ancient, primal, and perennial Universal Fantasy, and one of the UFs often playing out in the Desired Friends-to-Lovers trope is Desired Friend Chooses YOU over the seemingly higher-status competition.
Another UF that I just beyond love for this trope is Desired Friend Realizes They Were WRONG Not to Love and Appreciate You.
Obviously, this scratches a deep, universal itch to be centered, loved, and appreciated in equal measure by the people we center, love, and appreciate.5
And, if you’re looking to Bake this Fantasy, there’s one plot move that will put your Desired Friend character in position for their big realization every time.
Itchy Sweater Shoots Their Shot
Often, the best, most audience-engaging way to shove your Some Kind of Longing MC out of friendzone territory with their Desired Friend is to have an Itchy Sweater shoot their shot. This especially works when that Itchy Sweater happens to possess many qualities that the Desired Love Interest does not.
In Season 3 of Abbot Elementary.
MANNY VS. GREGORY
Gregory is:
A reserved introvert
Stoic (seldom smiles)
Deliberate
Skinny
Slow to make work or IRL friends
Meanwhile, Janine’s Itchy Sweater, Manny is:
An outgoing extrovert
Effusive (smiles and compliments often)
Spontaneous (offers Janine a job after one interaction)
Broader than Gregory
Immediately embraces work friends as family
LORD DEBLING VS. MR. BRIDGERTON
In Season 3 of Bridgerton
Colin is:
An outgoing adventurist w/ an avid interest in other cultures
Untitled as the third son of a Viscount
Connection-driven (seeks Penelope out at parties because he considers her a dear friend)
Spontaneous and sexually adventurous
Passionate about people
Lord Debling is:
A reserved naturalist with an avid interest in non-human organic life
Titled as the only son of a high noble.
Mission-driven (engages in conversation with Penelope because he feels she has wife potential)
Deliberate and sexually reserved (if Debling turned out to be an ace, no one would be surprised)
Mostly indifferent to people—especially their emotions
In both of these cases, the Desired Friend, who just wants to be friends with the woman who longs for them, gets knocked into real-feelings territory by a huge case of jealousy when someone who is everything he is not shoots the shot he refuses to take.
But what about serving that Itchy Sweater for these UFs?
The thing is, Itchy Sweaters rarely6 factor into a satisfying Friends-to-Lovers Serve. After they are deployed in the story’s Spread or Bake, it’s often up to one or both members of the Perfect-Fit couple in question to overcome an emotional block, misunderstanding, huge reveal, or limiting belief to get to the point where the most resistant friend has an Epiphany Moment that sparks a Declaration of Love.
In both Bridgerton Season 3 Pt. 1 and the Season 3 finale of Abbott, the Desired Friends, Colin and Gregory, are inspired to (finally!) shoot their shots when they discover that their Shiny Itchy Sweater Competition is no longer in play.
In other stories, the Desired Friend often has a Great Epiphany of Love. One of my favorite examples of this Epiphany Moment is in the surprise catfish Netflix Christmas hit Love Hard when Nina Dobrev’s journalist character realizes the guy who catfished her—not his hottie best friend—is actually her Perfect Pajamas while writing up the story for the media outlet that employs her.
I suspect the final obstacle to Colin and Penelope’s Friends-to-Lovers arc won’t involve any Itchy Sweaters but the huge reveal that Penelope is actually the person behind the Lady Whistledown column he despises.
But what are your predictions for the second half of Bridgerton Season 3? Let me know in the comments!
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* This breakdown is based on the US version of The Office.
Legal stuff: Universal Fantasy™ is not affiliated with or connected to Universal City Studios or its affiliated companies (“Universal”). This educational resource may incorporate the use of films or other content or property owned by the studio; however, such use is strictly for educational purposes and does not imply any endorsement, sponsorship, or affiliation with Universal City Studios or its affiliated companies.
The third reason is they have viewpoints that are too diametrically opposed for a relationship. Think about…
The “men and women can’t be friends” clash in When Harry Met Sally
Olive believing her fake boyfriend, Adam, too cold to actually want a relationship with her in The Love Hypothesis
Best friends She-Ra and Catra ending up on opposite sides of an ongoing war in the She-Ra Netflix Series because Catra can’t see why she’d side with the enemy.
Is anyone else seeing the Valentine’s Day conspiracy theory timing in that 2.14 season episode numbering? Is it just me?
…which almost certainly adds a relatability ACRS point to the ones TS has racked up in the ROOTING FOR and FEEL SORRY FOR categories.
This Being Truly Loved Back UF is so powerful, it works for just about any arc where one character desires the love of another character. One of the best UFs often employed by movies like Everything Everywhere All at Once, is Disapproving Parent Actually Loves YOU (and States it Clearly) .
Keep in mind that audiences will never tire of a True-Fit Friend disrupting a wedding to an Itchy Sweater to Serve their Big Declaration of Love. So, if you want to delay your Desired Friend’s Epiphany until it’s almost too late, go for it!