History Main / MatchmakerFailure

* Yang Dae-su decides to become a 'Love Doctor' in ''Fanfic/ThisIsAWildGameOfSurvival'' after seeing his classmate Ji-min look on sadly as his friend Gyeong-su and her friend Na-yeon become close, and tries set up Ji-min and Gyeong-su... too bad she's actually an ArmoredClosetGay and really into Na-yeon. Not helping is that his attempts at matchmaking involve; Loudly asking a very short-tempered girl about orgasms, getting attacked by a crab, and tackling Gyeong-su. Additionally, when he learns that his best friend Woo-jin is bisexual and into their friend Joon-yeong, he tries locking them in a closet... except he does it so quickly, he ends up pushing someone wearing the same-colored shirt as Joon-yeong in with Woo-jin instead; Ji-min.

* ''Literature/{{Emma}}'': Emma loves matchmaking, spending a good deal of the novel trying to set up the people around her with each other. Yet, the only time she's successful is when she sets up Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston. Every other one is a failure.

** When Annie starts dating Vaughn, both Jeff and Britta are disgusted. They plan to break the two up by encouraging Troy, who Annie had a crush on, to pursue her. The thing is, Annie had gotten over her feelings for Troy, and his attempts to pursue her fell flat. This results in both Troy and Annie getting mad at Jeff and Britta. They do succeed in breaking up Annie and Vaughn, but it's only temporary.

* ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'' had Vivian mention that she was once a matchmaker in college and she managed to get many couples married. However, when Phillip stated at all the couples separated within five years, Vivian replied, "I just get them to the altar, after that they're on their own".

* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': Inverted. Ted learns that Lily has been sabotaging his relationships with women she doesn't think are right for him. One of these women is Robin, who Ted still has feelings for. In fact, [[spoiler:he tries to get back together with her in the series finale after his wife dies.]]

* Yang Dae-su decides to become a 'Love Doctor' in ''Fanfic/ThisIsAWildGameOfSurvival'' after seeing his classmate Ji-min look on sadly as his friend Gyeong-su and her friend Na-yeon become close, and tries set up Ji-min and Gyeong-su... to bad she's actually an ArmoredClosetGay and really into Na-yeon. Not helping is that his attempts at matchmaking involve; Loudly asking a very short-tempered girl about orgasms, getting attacked by a crab, and tackling Gyeong-su. Additionally, when he learns that his best friend Woo-jin is bisexual and into their friend Joon-yeong, he tries locking them in a closet... except he does it so quickly, he ends up pushing someone wearing the same-colored shirt as Joon-yeong in with Woo-jin instead; Ji-min.

TheMatchmaker lives to get people together. They'd love nothing more than two watch a couple they've set up walk off into the sunset. However, things don't always work out how they've planned. Maybe they've misjudged the couple. Maybe the two had an IncompatibleOrientation. Maybe the two have so much in common that they'd rather [[OppositesAttract be with someone else]]. Whatever the case, TheMatchmaker has failed to bring them together. Reactions to this failure may vary. The matchmaker might just shrug it off or getting very angry, depending on their investment in the relationship. That's not even getting into how the couple themselves react to this meddling.

MatchmakerCrush could be a reason why the couple doesn't work out. ThinksLikeARomanceNovel could be another cause of this, as relationship aren't always this straightforward. If TheMatchmaker is a ShipperWithAnAgenda, this failure might cause other problems if their motives are exposed. A BadDate could either be the cause of or result in this trope.

* ''Film/SetItUp'': Harper and Charlie, {{beleaguered assistant}}s to two tough New York executives, conspire to set their bosses up to make their work life less stressful. Things get hairy when Harper and Charlie discover that Charlie's boss, Rick, is cheating on Harper's boss, Kirsten, with his ex. Eventually, Charlie personally sabotages Rick and Kirsten's relationship when he realizes that by allowing their relationship to continue, he is compromising his own ethics.

[[folder: Live-Action Television]]

* ''Series/{{Blackish}}'': In one episode, Junior asks his sister Zoe if she can help set him up with a girl he likes. Zoe scoffs at this, finding the [[NoAccountingForTaste girl too nerdy]], and tries setting him up with a more attractive girl. It looks like she's successful at first, as Junior lands a date with this girl. Then he reveals the only reason the girl went out with him was so he would edit a video for her. Zoe is actually more upset about this than Junior, because she took pride in her matchmaking skills.

** When Annie starts dating Vaughn, both Jeff and Britta are disgusted. They plan to break the two up by encouraging Troy, who Annie had a crush on, to pursue her. The thing is, Annie had gotten over her feelings for Troy and his attempts to pursue her fell flat. This results in both Troy and Annie getting mad at Jeff and Britta. They do succeed in breaking up Annie and Vaughn, but it's only temporary.

* ''Series/TheFreshPrinceOfBelAir'' had Vivian mention that she was once a matchmaker in college and she managed to get many couples married. However when Phillip stated at all the couples separated within five years, Vivian replied, "I just get them to the altar, after that they're on their own".

* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'': Inverted. Ted learns that Lily has been sabotaging his relationships with women she doesn't think are right for him. One of these women is Robin, who Ted still has feeling for. In fact, [[spoiler: he tries to get back together with her in the series finale after his wife dies.]]
* ''Series/{{Roseanne}}'': Roseanne sets up Jackie with Fred. The whole relationship ends badly. But not before it ended with pregnancy, marriage, cheating and divorce.

'''''Note:''''' This is a SpoileredRotten trope, that means that '''EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE''' on this list is a spoiler by default and most of them will be unmarked.

* Naruto and Sakura are mentioned in ''Fanfic/IAmNotGoingThroughPubertyAgain'' to have picked up the hobby of trying to pair their friends together. While this actually has resulted in a few happy couples (Choji/Karui and Kiba/Tamaki being among the listed examples), they only have a 1:12 success rate, and their attempt to pair Shino with Kiba's older sister Hana in particular resulted in millions of ryo in property damage on the first date.

[[folder:Films Animation]]

* ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe2'': Jillian is constantly trying to set Gru up with women. He eventually goes on a date with her friend Shannon. However, the two have vastly different personalities. Not to mention, Shannon gets angry at the fact Gru is wearing a wig, as she thinks it means he's a "phony". It goes so poorly that Gru's love interest Lucy has to shoot Shannon with a TranquilizerDart to get Gru out of it.

[[folder:Films Live-Action]]

* ''Film/SetItUp'': Harper and Charlie, {{beleaguered assistant}}s to two tough New York executives, conspire to set their bosses up to make their work life less stressful. Things get hairy when Harper and Charlie discover that Charlie's boss, Rick, is cheating on Harper's boss, Kirsten, with his ex. Eventually, Charlie personally sabotages Rick and Kirsten's relationship when he realizes that by allowing their relationship to continue, he is compromising his own ethics.
* In ''Where Is The [[SdrawkcabAlias Nophelet]]?'', this drives the plot. Ladies' man Gena tries to find a girlfriend for his ConfirmedBachelor cousin Pavel, using the eponymous question as a pick-up line. However, due to Pavel's shyness, it only ends in huge embarrassments (such as Pavel running away during a game of spin-the-bottle). Finally, Gena develops a MatchmakerCrush on one of the women he found for his cousin, and his own wife arrives and puts a stop to it. [[spoiler:Subverted in the end. After Gena leaves the city, Pavel musters the courage to talk to a beautiful stranger he sees every day on the bus. He asks her "[[RunningGag Where is the nophelet?]]", and the girl is delighted because she was too shy to talk to him first]].

** In an early episode, the group discovers a picture of Abed with hearts drawn around him in a Spanish textbook. Excited to learn someone has a crush on Abed, the group pushed him to find the girl who drew it and ask her out. It turns out that the girl wasn't drawing a picture of Abed, but her boyfriend who looked like Abed only white.

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': In "The Love God", Mabel tries to cure Robbie of his depression by using one of the Love God's potions to set him up with Tambry. This backfires horribly as it causes Wendy's group of friends to break up, as Wendy hates Tambry for dating her ex-boyfriend while Nate gets pissed off at Robbie because he also had a crush on Tambry and apparently told Robbie about this in confidence so he wouldn't date her until Nate asked her out first. Mabel desperately tries to fix it using an anti-love potion, but winds up making things worse and invoking Love God's wrath. In the end it's [[ButtMonkey Thompson]] who manages to convince the group to stay together by [[FailureGambit deliberately humiliating himself in public]], while Robbie and Tambry stay together as a couple.

!! Potential Indexes
* ComedyTropes

* IndexFailure

* LoveTropes

* ShippingTropes

* ThisIndexBrokeUp

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