Ah, another thread about Normal People - I could talk about it all day. I watched it over two evenings then watched it all through again. I was completely swept up in it. Not really a great love story in that ultimately I don’t think they were as good for each other as Marianne believed in the final scene.
Marianne, for Connell, was a reliable friend, someone he could open up to, a link to his past which he was so connected to yet so isolated from and someone he felt very guilty about. He was a bit obsessed with her - more than she was with him.
Connell, for Marianne, was the only person she felt really knew her. He formed her to a degree - if not necessarily in a good way - and she found it impossible to let go of that security. The one who would always be there. And obviously he was the best of her bad bunch of boyfriends.
Posters saying “why didn’t they just communicate? Why wasn’t her nicer to her? Why were they so miserable and complex?” Those relationships exist too but don’t tend to be written about or adapted for 12 part tv series!! You’ve got to have some angst.
Nostalgia is a major reason for its success. It took me right back. I didn’t go to TCD but somewhere similar in terms of the makeup of the student body and the lives they led. We did some terribly grown-up things looking back. It still makes me smile. I actually did spend a summer at a friend’s Greek villa with a group of assorted friends and other halves. We did spend afternoons preparing dinner and all evening drinking wine and talking. Not very studenty or wild at all!!! No foam or vodka shots 
. But I had friends from every walk of life (some Jamies and some Connells too). I even had an intense and fiery relationship (I married him!). I read English.
I think this programme has made a lot of us relive those days, wonder about the decisions we made and think about those we left behind.