The 10 Best Fictional Boyfriends

Sep. 25, 2012

By Chelsea Fagan

Chelsea Fagan is a writer living in Paris. It's less pretentious than it sounds.

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1. Tom, 500 Days Of Summer

(500) Days of Summer

It’s unclear as to how much of the internet’s collective rage against Zooey Deschanel is actually based on her as a person, but we do know that a huge percentage of it stems from her character’s treatment of Our Beloved JGL in 500 Days of Summer. How many of us sat at home on our couches (or, let’s be real, in a movie theater full of strangers), yelling, “It’s okay, my sweet prince, I will love you forever! Forget her and come let me lick your precious, be-sweatered wounds!!” (possibly whilst licking the screen)? Or was that just me? I have a hard time believing that we all didn’t feel a serious pang of jealousy as we watched poor TomTom’s heart get torn to shreds by a set of bangs wearing little girl dresses, unable to do a thing about it. Whether he’s drawing on our arms, kissing us in the copy room, or simply gazing at us with eyes that resemble warm chocolate cupcakes, Tom would be a perfect fictional boyfriend.

2. Aladdin, Aladdin

Aladdin (Two-Disc Platinum Edition)

Hey, girl. You like bread? Aladdin’s got all the hot, stolen bread you need. He’s got a monkey in a vest, he’s got this amazing rooftop loft that he somehow managed to secure as a homeless person in what is clearly the tight Agrabah real estate market, he’s got it all. And now, as if that weren’t enough, he has a Genie. Wishes, girl. Wishes. You want a castle? All yours. You want to ride around the city on what appears to be a flying IKEA area rug? Hold on tight, baby. You want Aladdin to fall in love with you? Hey, Genie don’t fucks with free will. He can’t make anyone fall in love. Lucky for you, though, girl, Aladdin’s already head over curly-shoe-covered-heels for you. Let’s use those wishes to get some surround sound in the boom boom room.

3. Aidan Shaw, Sex and the City

Sex and the City: The Complete Series (Collector’s Giftset) [DVD] (2005)

I am willing to forgive almost any outfit that Carrie wore on SatC (yes, including this one), but I cannot forgive her mind-boggling rejection of Aidan Shaw, also known as the human embodiment of a Ray Lamontagne song. That man just wants to carve you some wooden furniture, take you up to his cabin in his delicious burly arms, mix you a drink at his hot downtown bar, and be perfect in every conceivable way, all while looking like a Greek statue wearing a leather jacket. The fact that she cheated on him once, and dumped him twice, is perhaps the only thing that calls into question his perfection — how is it possible that he would have stuck around for that? Maybe he’s just really into chicks with no money management skills and Madonna arms. In any case, we can all collectively teach him how to love again, and while he’s at it, he can redo our wainscoting. And maybe fix the shower.

4. Noah, The Notebook

The Notebook

Whether you like him in his clean-shaven, hopeful early days, or his scruffy, overgrown, widow-boning, depressed days, Noah is inarguably one of the greatest fictional boyfriends to ever not exist outside of our collective imaginations. What more could you want out of a boyfriend? The man is funny, intelligent, hard-working, wants to build you your Barbie dream house on some old sugar plantation or wherever the hell that was, and he’s also RYAN FUCKING GOSLING, also known as the only guy who could ever unquestionably rip you away from JAMES FUCKING MARSDEN in a military officer’s uniform. I think we all could do with a little more Noah in our lives, we all have some naked balcony painting to catch up on.

5. Josh, Clueless

Clueless

Aside from the fact that he’s apparently more than willing to nail, (okay, “nail love to”) his underage step-sibling when he’s in his mid-20s, Josh is pretty high up there on the list of fictional boyfriends who you could totally listen to 90s music and get high talking about Nietzsche with. He is just perfect in that slightly-crunchy-granola way, with just enough actual work ethic to not end up trying to convince you to be a freegan and live in his parent’s basement. In short, he’s aware, but not too aware, and he’s going to grow up to be a rich (yet soulful) lawyer. Get in on the ground floor with this one.

6. Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice

AKA the original best fictional boyfriend. If you’ve ever been really, really into this wealthy, aloof, hot guy who treated you like a pile of used kitty litter because he was clearly out of your league and the both of you knew it, you have only Mr. Darcy to thank. We all like to think that we’re original and ~unique~ when we’re having our tortured love story with the emotionally unavailable sex god, but really, we’re all just settling for a shadow of The Darce.

7. George, George of the Jungle

George of the Jungle

I’m not really here to talk about whether or not the George character would actually be a good boyfriend, as I think his qualities both emotional and intellectual are highly irrelevant. He could honestly be a serial killer and I think we would be able to let it slide. What is actually important is that getting to look at Brendan Fraser topless throughout the entirety of this movie is God’s apology for HPV. It’s cool, God, we forgive you. We’ll go get our vaccines.

8. Ron Weasley, Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

Look, it’s not like any of us are Emma Watson, so who is to say we deserve a fictional boyfriend as loyal, brave, and funny as Ron? No one. But what we can say is that if we are ever in a situation that puts us in the face of death about once every semester (and this does not include the times you get mono and are kind of excited about it because you get to stay home and watch Netflix and lose weight without exercise), there is no one better to have on your team than the Weas. He comes from a cool, down-to-earth family of poverty-stricken gingers, who all basically just live in a shoe, eat gruel, keep warm together under a home-knitted blanket, and other adorable Dickensian poor people activities. But what they lack in inheritances for the 87 children, they make up for in closeness and what I can only imagine are sweet holiday parties. It’s the kind of family you want to marry into, and there are few better ways to do it than with Ron.

9. Jesse Pinkman, Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad: The Complete First Season

Whether or not you’d want a relationship with this ABQ hottie for his sweet, sweet blue hookup is irrelevant. If five seasons of Breaking Bad have taught us anything, it’s that Jesse Pinkman is the sweet, buttery little heart in a world of darkness and cruel betrayals. Him, and his life-ruining blue eyes, and his internal conflicts, and his disapproving parents, and his adorable love for children — it’s all one big melting pot of feelings that make you just want to give him a hug, maybe improve his fashion sense a little bit, and take him down the straight-and-narrow pathway into a happy life together. All he really needs is love and approval, and he’s certainly not going to find it with that pimple on the ass cheek of humanity, Walt, so it’s going to be with us. Come let us love you, and maybe give us some of that meth money. Also, this gif:

10. Beast, Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast (Two-Disc Platinum Edition)

The man will give you a private library inside a castle filled with talking cabinetry that make you food at all hours of the night. I know that that is more than enough to convince anyone to run away forever and live with this dude, even if it means unclogging the shower drain about once a day. But (and you didn’t hear this from me), I hear the place he’s really a beast is where it counts! Ha. Hahaha. I’m gross.

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