Incompatible Orientation / Live-Action TV

• In 'Allo 'Allo!, the very Camp Gay Gruber is hopelessly infatuated with the very straight René, who is frequently discomforted by the fact that Gruber "fancies" him. (Ironically, Gruber's actor, Guy Siner, is heterosexual, while Gorden Kaye, the actor who played René, is a very content and "out" gay man.) The series finale showed that Gruber had married Helga after the war and had many children with her, perhaps making this a further case of Incompatible Orientation from her side.
• Gabby and Justin from The Big Leap were this in high school, since Justin was either unaware of his sexuality or not ready to admit it. Justin also finds out from his father that his mom was a lesbian, and even though the man loved her she could never love him back or be herself around him.
• This was the whole point of the Reality Show Boy Meets Boy. Its gay male bachelor, James, had to choose a mate among several contestants, but unknown to him, half the guys were straight and planted by the show to see if he'd fall for one of them. If one of the straight guys won, he'd win the grand prize while James got nothing. But one of the straight guys came to like James as a person and grew a conscience, so he willingly left the show rather than taking part in potentially humiliating James on national tv.^note Fortunately, James ultimately chose a gay guy, though their relationship didn't last.
• The last episode of Britannia High, has this funny moment between Ronnie and Jez:
  [Ronnie pushes Jez against the lockers and kisses him]
  Jez: Ronnie! ... I'm gay!
  Ronnie: Awww, so!?
  [Grabs Jez and smooches him again]
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • One episode features a high school guy whose magic jacket makes any girl fall in love with him if they see him wearing it. Willow, a lesbian, is one of the many girls who fall under its spell. Hilarity Ensues.
    Buffy: Willow, you're a gay woman! And he... isn't!
    Willow: This isn't about his physical presence! It's about his heart.
    Anya: His physical presence has a penis!
    Willow: I can work around it!
  • Willow's case overall in the series tends to fall under No Bisexuals: now that we've established her as being attracted to women, we just couldn't have her be interested in a man, despite her previous physical relationships with Oz and Xander.
  • In the same episode Willow attempts to get around this trope by using a spell to change the man into a woman. Fortunately for him Xander and Spike stop her from completing the spell.
  • Buffy is this with Satsu. Even though Buffy is flattered, and sleeps with her (twice!), she is quite adamant that she is not a lesbian and they can't be together.
• A George Carlin HBO special had "Love and Regards", which begins with Rebecca asking the narrator to "give Klaus her love," and ends with:
  'What if Klaus doesn't want Rebecca's love? What if Klaus wants to give Wilhelm his love? If he asks do you say, "BULL-shit, Klaus! You give your own love to Wilhelm! I'm off to find... Rebecca!"'
• Played for comedy in an episode of The Catherine Tate Show where a lesbian nurse falls in love with (the very man-eating) Bernie.
• Crossing Lines: Luke is about to ask Arabela out, but then her girlfriend walks in and they start kissing. He's quite upset because he thought Arabela showed interest in him, though she denies it. Luke actually threatens to quit as a result, but later apologizes to Arabela over his behavior, saying it was because he really cares about her, but also accepts that they'll only be friends.
• Dear White People: Brooke comes onto Lionel, even though she knows he's gay, insisting that's "too reductive". Naturally, her attempt fails.
• Fiona from Degrassi: The Next Generation has come out of the closet, in the process revealing she had a thing for her best friend Holly J. However, after Holly J finds out, she tries to set Fiona up with another girl at a school dance. This doesn't amuse Fiona, but the two later reconcile, remaining best friends. In another episode, Fiona's locker is near the hockey team's lockers, and Dallas hits on her. She then says that she and her girlfriend Imogen are lesbians, but he doesn't believe her, since they don't kiss.
• Doctor Who:
  • In "Rose", the Ninth Doctor flips through one of Jackie Tyler's gossip mags and exclaims, "That won't last! He's gay and she's an alien!"
  • Played with and ultimately averted in a flashback scene from "Let's Kill Hitler"; when Mel questions why Amy and Rory haven't gotten together yet, Amy answers, "I'd love to, he's gorgeous, he's my favorite guy, but he's, well, gay." Rory then informs him that he is not, and after awhile Amy realizes that there is one girl Rory has eyes for; her!
  • "Knock Knock": Paul, one of Bill's new housemates, attempts to flirt with her a few times. Once she catches on, she informs him she's only interested in girls.
  • Happens to Bill again when a Roman soldier flirts with her in "The Eaters of Light". She nervously explains that she's only attracted to women, most likely expecting the people in this time to be homophobic. She instead gets mocked as "old-fashioned" for only being attracted to one gender. Not That There's Anything Wrong with That, it's just that normal people like both.
• Pops up occasionally on Downton Abbey around Thomas, who is by and large the only gay in the village. Daisy crushes on him in the first season, while he makes a failed pass at Kemal Pamuk and eventually develops a hopeless crush on footman Jimmy.
• Dracula (2013): Lucy loves Mina romantically, but the latter is straight and doesn't return her feelings that way.
• During the third season of ER Carter develops an attraction to fellow intern Maggie Doyle. All signs appear to be heading for them to end up in bed together. . .until she runs and hides behind him to avoid being seen by her ex-girlfriend, thus revealing that she's a lesbian. They remain good friends and his ardor cools once she makes it quite clear that nothing romantic or sexual will ever happen between them.
• Fantasy Island (2021): In Season 2 one of the visitors turns out to be a gay man who loves a good (straight) male friend of his. He confesses this publicly, and his friend warmly accepts this, but makes it clear that he doesn't love him that way, as his gay friend realizes. They remain friends after this.
• First Kill has best friends Ben and Juliette who dated each other for a little bit before the show started - and quickly realized that they were both gay.
• Frasier:
  • In a second season episode "The Matchmaker", Frasier introduces Daphne to his new boss, Tom Duran, Daphne finds herself immediately smitten by Duran, only to be crushed when she finds out that he's gay. At the same time, Tom finds himself attracted to Frasier, having no idea that he's straight.
  • In another episode, a Love Dodecahedron forms during a visit to a ski lodge. Frasier pursues a beautiful friend of Roz's, but she's more interested in Niles. Niles, meanwhile, is trying to develop things with Daphne, who has a crush on the ski instructor, Guy. Unfortunately, Guy is also more interested in Niles. When everything unravels, Frasier is most incensed that no one was attracted to him.
• Friends:
  • Rachel reveals that she kissed one of her sorority sisters, which Phoebe doesn't believe. Rachel takes Phoebe to dinner with the sorority sister, who insists she has no idea what Rachel is talking about. After dinner, the sorority sister reveals that after that kiss, she started feeling differently about Rachel and in fact pictures her face when she makes love to her husband. Rachel obviously does not return the feelings.
  • In a later episode, Joey attempts to woo the hot nanny Ross and Rachel hired to look after their infant daughter, only to discover she's a lesbian. Of course, he doesn't seem to mind this turn of events.
    Joey: It's like my favorite bedtime story come true: "The Princess, the Stable Boy, and the Lesbian!"
  • Ross is divorced from his lesbian ex-wife Carol but still retains feelings for her early on. After some heated arguments involving her life partner Susan and the birth of their son, Ben, they maintain a healthy friendship and share custody of Ben. It is strongly implied that he and Carol would still be happy together if she was straight.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Brienne of Tarth was in love with Renly Baratheon, but he was gay.
  • Renly is unable to consummate his marriage to Margaery in spite of her accommodating efforts to produce an heir with him, after she realizes that he's not the least bit attracted to her.
    Margaery: Would you like my brother to come in and help?
  • Sansa Stark had a crush on Loras Tyrell, but he is gay.
  • Couple Prince Oberyn Martell and Ellaria Sand (both bisexual) have an orgy in the brothel with male and female prostitutes. The prostitute Olyvar apologizes to Ellaria because he "has no taste for women".
• House of the Dragon: Rhaenyra agrees to marry her gay cousin Laenor as long as they have a discreet open marriage. Though they tried for an heir (and Rhaenyra really needs one as it would help solidify her as next-in-line to the throne), they were unable to conceive, with their incompatible sexualities being a likely contributing factor. She mentions that she enjoyed her affair with Harwin Strong because it felt good to be with a man who actually desired her.
• In The George Lopez Show, this is subverted in the episode "What George Doesn't Noah". Carmen brings home what seems to be the ideal boyfriend, Noah, after dating bad boy Zack. George and Benny spy on Noah and find him with another man in a movie theater. Turns out, Carmen was using Noah as a cover so that she could date Zack secretly.
• Ginny and Georgia: Max hits on a girl she thought liked her but it's revealed she's straight and rebuffs her. She's briefly heartbroken as a result.
• Glee
  • Kurt has a crush on Finn. In one episode, Rachel points out that she will always have more of a chance with Finn than he does because of the simple fact that she is a girl.
  • Mercedes also had a crush on Kurt, who turns her down.
  • Kurt also starts making out with and dating Brittany in one episode because he feared that his father saw the heterosexual Finn as a better son. His dad is understandably confused.
  • Depressingly, this also happens between Sam and Kurt. Kurt was only vaguely interested in him and more just determined to make him admit he dyes his hair. (Which he does.) This pairing seems to be 10% canon, 90% indignant fandom who are mad that Ryan Murphy changed his mind at the last minute (again) about Sam being Kurt's love interest.
  • Also, Blaine and Rachel, if only for one episode. After a drunk kiss with Rachel, Blaine (who has until then believed himself to be gay) decides that maybe he's actually bisexual. They go on a date, but when they kiss again while sober, Blaine realises that he was wrong about being bisexual. Subverted, as Rachel didn't seem to actually be in love with Blaine. It seems that the fact that he can sing and is a good kisser is enough for her to decide to date him, and she's positively thrilled when he tells her that he's gay after all:
    Rachel: That was amazing! I am speechless! I just had a relationship with a guy that turned out to be gay; that is song writing gold!
  • Also, in one episode, after Kurt gives Rachel a pep-talk, she says that she wishes he was her boyfriend. It's mostly joking though, since they are both taken.
    • Blaine also gets two of the girls from Dalton's sister school charmed by his performance of Animal and try to give him their phone numbers, asking him to call them. His response? "Sweet, but not your team."
  • Blaine was also crushing on Sam for a while in season 4. It took him a while to confront his feelings and to share them with Sam. Sam turned him down gently, saying they are first and foremost best friends.
  • Santana ultimately turns out to be this for Puck. He takes it well, though; by the time she's on the road to coming out, he's moved on, and in the episode where the club helps Santana dealing with her outing, he says that he knows that he "was just a phase" and is fine with it.
  • As of "Sadie Hawkins", Tina believes Blaine (gay) is her soulmate despite him turning her down for obvious reasons. Blaine has a massive crush on Sam (straight) but won't act on it because he doesn't want to be a "predatory gay" and because he's "proud that a gay guy can be friends with a straight guy."
• On Gotham, Penguin is in love with the Riddler and confesses it to him while the two are working together. Riddler doesn't have a sexual panic reaction, but doesn't seem to return his feelings either and his romantic choices (Kristen, Isabella, Lee) have all been women.
• Gotham Knights (2023): Cullen says Harper (who's bisexual) only falls for girls unavailabe in some way, including by being straight. It's said in reference to Stephanie, who they think is a straight girl. However, it turns out she's a lesbian and attracted to Harper, kissing her in the next episode.
• On Happy Endings, Max's old high school girlfriend is visiting and she and Dave hit it off. Max gets very upset by this, which Dave can't understand since Max is gay and obviously won't be getting back together with her. Max, in order to make Dave jealous, grabs Alex (Dave's ex-fiance) and kisses her, but Dave doesn't care because he knows it doesn't mean anything. Then Alex, who enjoyed the kiss, spends the rest of the episode mooning after Max (while Penny tries in vain to get her to see it's hopeless).
• Season 4 of Heroes has Claire's roomate Gretchen reveal herself as a bisexual who has a crush on her. This appears to be a case of Incompatible Orientation as Claire is thought to be completely straight at this point. This however is subverted in the episode "Pass/Fail" when Claire officially declares she also has feelings for Gretchen.
• High Fidelity: Rob dated Simon, but they broke up due to him realizing that he's gay, becoming best friends instead.
• The short-lived John Ritter show Hooperman featured a Running Gag involving a gay cop named Rick and a fellow officer named Mo who repeatedly hit on him despite him having no interest in women.
• How I Met Your Mother:
  • In an episode, Ted briefly dated a graduate student named Cindy. After they break up they part on friendly terms and Cindy is seen kissing a woman (who she later married and adopted two kids with).
  • Cindy also presents a female/female example since she had a repressed crush on The Mother. She realizes as she's confiding in her about her breakup with Ted, culminating in Cindy kissing her. Tracy is flattered, but understandably doesn't return her feelings
    Tracy: That was... nice.
    Cindy: ... I think I have some stuff to work through.
• I Am Not Okay With This: The relationship between Stan and Syd dies (at least romantically-they remain friends) as she realizes she's a lesbian soon after they sleep together.
• iZombie has a rare temporary example. Liv and Lowell are both zombies, which means they take on the personality traits of anyone whose brain they eat. Shortly after they start dating, Lowell eats the brain of someone gay, and suddenly isn't attracted to Liv anymore. He spends a night as her Gay Best Friend, and promises that his next brain will be "ludicrously straight", discussing the idea of possibly digging up Wilt Chamberlain.
• Just Shoot Me!: Finch tries to get Maya together with women on two separate occasions, in hopes they'll kiss or maybe more, while he watches. He also tries tricking Nina and Vicki into kissing. It never works, as all of them are straight (although they allow him to think so as a prank). He once is mistaken for a lesbian woman, and tries to play along in hopes of having sex with the woman who's made this mistake (it doesn't work). Also, once his transgender friend Brandi tries to pretend she's still male and seduce a straight woman they both want, thinking she might be willing to make an exception (nope).
• In Lip Service, Ed has a hopelessly unrequited crush on his lesbian friend Tess.
• Played with in Love, Victor; Victor starts dating popular student Mia to ward off his same sex attraction to Benji. It gets complicated when Mia really falls for him, and he enjoys being around her so much he begins to wonder if he’s bisexual. That said, he’s often scared to get too intimate with her. Eventually, after kissing Benji, Victor realizes that while he loves Mia as a person, he isn’t in love with her or any girl.
• The L Word:
  • Kit, a straight woman, is pursued by Ivan, a transmasculine person, and she's somewhat amenable. It's discussed by her and Bette (who feel's Ivan's a Butch Lesbian). Kit says Ivan's said they're "more of a man" so she's willing to explore a relationship. It doesn't work out though.
  • Mark's fascination with Shane obviously includes lust. His friend notes that it's hopeless since she's a lesbian.
  • Helena's affection for Dylan in Season 3 appeared to be unrequited because of this, but as the season progressed the situation proved to be a lot more complicated than that.
  • Season 5 introduced Molly, the one straight girl on the planet who won't go gay for Shane...until she does.
  • A rare variant with Jenny and Max, who is unable to accept him being a trans man since she's a lesbian and Max is technically a straight man.
• Midsomer Murders: In "Dance with the Dead", Marissa was in love with Laura. The murderer couldn’t stand the sight of the murder victim being someone else, especially someone of the opposite sex. Unable to handle the heartbreak, the murderer attempted to carry out the opening murder by knocking the couple out, placing them in the car, and suffocate them with toxic fumes. She reveals as Tom is interrogating her that she brought Laura’s body back to her house and buried it so that they were still together.
• Motherland: Fort Salem: Raelle thinks Byron is hitting on her at first when he approaches, and says she's only into girls. Then he tells her that he's gay, so they're mutually incompatible.
• Murder in the First: Jamie Nelson is obviously attracted to a pretty female bartender, and thus visibly disappointed when she's revealed to be straight, with a boyfriend.
• My So-Called Life: After her disastrous crush on Brian, Delia has that glorious dance scene with Rickie. By the last episode, the only one oblivious to her newfound crush is Rickie. When he tries to reciprocate, she tells him she knows he's gay (in that awkward, teenage way — "You're gay, right?")
• The Nanny:
  • In the episode "The Playwright", Maggie is in love with Gracie's ballet teacher, who helped her with her make-up and does great Liza Minelli impressions. Fran is just suspicious until Maggie says something about him getting along well with his "roommate" Chuck.
  • In the episode "Oy Vey, You're Gay!", Fran is led to think that Sydney Mercer, Maxwell's new publicist, in love with him, so she decides to wish them well as a couple. Turns out Sydney is gay, and thinks Fran is too, and Fran has to let her down gently.
    Fran: Oh, honey, I'm not gay. I'm just pathetic!
• Night and Day's Fiona and Mike Brake, despite many years of marriage.
• In Once Upon a Time Mulan finally gets the guts to tell Aurora she's in love with her... and Aurora beats her to the punch by announcing she's pregnant.
• In the first season of One Day at a Time (2017), Elena briefly dates Josh, but she simply cannot get as into it as he is. This is part of what helps her realize she's a lesbian. Fortunately, Josh is extremely cool about this, and still escorts Elena at her quinces as a friend.
  Elena: It was just, I realized that if I was going to be into a boy, it would be Josh. I mean, he's cute, and he's sweet, and he's such a gentleman, but I feel more when I look at a picture of Kristen Stewart than I do when I kiss him.
  Penelope: No wonder you saw those Twilight movies so many times.
  Elena: Definitely wasn't the quality storytelling.
• One of Us is Lying: Keely tells Cooper she loves him after he wants to end their arrangement where she's The Beard.
• Usually averted in Orange Is the New Black, because being in prison often makes the ladies reconsider, but present from time to time.
  • Poussey and Taystee may be the most compatible life partners you'd ever seen on TV, but the latter just isn't a lesbian.
  • Nichols tries hitting on Fischer, but is understandably turned down; Fischer is straight and a guard. Well, Nichols is ambitious.
    • Luschek suffers from the exact opposite problem concerning his crush on Nichols. She's gay and an inmate, making a romance both impossible and a crime.
• Outlander: British Officer Lord John Grey is hopelessly attracted to Jamie Fraser, but Jamie is heterosexual and inextricably in love with his wife Claire. John's one attempt at a come on is brutally rejected by Jamie whose brutal rape by the last British Officer who showed sexual attraction towards him has left him deeply afraid of men with homosexual proclivities. Although it takes quite a while, both men are eventually able to accept that while John does consider Jamie his One True Love, Jamie is incapable of reciprocating the sentiment with another man, so those feelings will remain unrequited. Instead, they settle into a lifelong platonic friendship.
• Oz: When Richie Hanlon (gay) joins Shirley Bellinger (straight) in the Death Row block, Bellinger offers to show her vagina if Hanlon shows her his penis. He points out that he's gay, but obliges anyway when she says she doesn't care either way.
  Bellinger: You must have made some guy really happy.
• Riverdale:
  • In Season 2, Cheryl became a Yandere Stalker with a Crush towards Josie, obsessively making drawings of her and even sending her a pig's heart. Josie obviously does not return Cheryl's affection, though Cheryl eventually gets over it when she meets Toni.
  • In "American Psychos", Betty's FBI partner, Agent Jillian Drake, reveals that she has a crush on her. Betty, while flattered, understandably rejects her advances.
  • In the final season, Betty is on the other end of this trope in her relationship with Kevin, even trying have sex with him despite his obvious discomfort. She eventually realizes her mistake when she sees Kevin slow-dancing with a guy.
• Following J. K. Rowling's outing of Dumbledore, Saturday Night Live did a sketch portraying McGonagall having this sort of relationship with the gay Dumbledore:
  Dumbledore: Oh Minerva, if only you had a penis and balls!
• Seinfeld:
  • Elaine once dealt with a crush on a gay man after being his beard for a night. Unlike most examples here, she actually succeeded in getting him to switch teams... but only temporarily.
    Jerry: He went back? Whaddaya mean he went back?
    Elaine: He went back.
    Jerry: I don't understand, you were having such a great time! The sex! The shopping!
    Elaine: [sigh] Well, here's the thing: Being a woman, I really only have access to the, um... "equipment"... what, 30, 45 minutes a week? And that's on a good week! How can I be expected to have the same expertise as people who own this equipment, and have access to it 24 hours a day, their entire lives?
    Jerry: You can't. That's why they lose very few players.
  • In "The Jimmy", Elaine crushed on an attractive, muscular guy at the gym, who turned out to be gay.
  • Averted for Kramer. As the Kavorka Man Trope Namer, there is no such thing as Incompatible Orientation for him, and he seduces a lesbian effortlessly.
• Alec's feelings for Jace on Shadowhunters, since Alec is gay and Jace is straight.
• Sherlock: There's a lot of this as the titular character is basically asexual and aromantic, making him incompatible with everyone. (Heterosexual) Molly Hooper's unrequited crush pales in comparison to the hideously confusing love triangle between Sherlock, John, and Irene. Sherlock is asexual, John constantly reminds everyone that he is heterosexual, and Irene is a lesbian. Yet Irene becomes sexually fascinated with Sherlock and observes that John is in romantic love with Sherlock whether he realizes it or not (with a physical dimension - John knocks Sherlock around to fake an alibi but can't bring himself to hit Sherlock's nose or teeth to make it convincing). Sherlock has a tongue-tied sexual fixation on Irene, while also feeling romantic love with no apparent physical dimension towards John. In short: the lesbian is in love with a man, the heterosexual man is in love with the same man, and the asexual is in love with both of them.
• Skins:
  • In the second season, Maxxie, who is gay, is stalked by a girl whom everyone calls Sketch. She sabotages her way into the school musical just so that she can kiss him, convinced she can make him love her. She also follows him home, sneaks into his house, masturbates on his bed and then hides under it while he is sleeping. Now you know how she got that name. The strangest thing about Sketch is that she is aware that Maxxie's gay and somehow thinks that by dressing in masculine clothes and binding her breasts, she'll break through the Incompatible Orientation barrier. When she decides to go after his best mate Anwar (who is straight) instead, she stops binding and starts wearing more frills and make-up.
  • Naomi tries to tell Emily this in the third season, but it's eventually revealed that she was just Armoured Closet Gay and has always loved Emily and only Emily.
    Naomi: Me, not muff-muncher. Me, cock-cruncher.
  • J.J and Emily. Emily offered to take his virginity the same day that she came out of the closet.
    Emily: This is a one-time only charity event, you understand?
    J.J.: Got you. Because you are gay.
    Emily: Yes, I'm gay. Get on with it.
    • This understanding didn't stop him from hoping for the possibility of a relationship when she asked him to the Love Ball, but it turned out that he was her beard, and she left him when Naomi showed up.
  • Cook and Naomi. She tried to jump him when she was still in denial about her sexuality, but stopped after about forty seconds of mad snogging, since she realized that she didn't want to do it. In the fourth season they share a big heart-to-heart, and Naomi ends up giving him a very platonic kiss, giving us:
    Cook: [beat] For fucks sake, I'm never gonna get to bone you, am I?
    Naomi: [Very matter of factly] No, I love someone.
  • When new character Alex is introduced in the sixth season, Liv gets a crush on him, only for him to reveal that he's gay when she admits her feelings.
  • The American remake has a very strange version of this with lesbian Tea and straight Tony. Tea sleeps with Tony as a joke, but he gets feelings for her. Yet, for some reason, she keeps sleeping with him, out of either a power trip or because she's confusing their platonic chemistry with sexual chemistry, depending on which interview you read. It ended up as a case of Platonic Writing, Romantic Reading since Tony and Tea were more believable together than Tea with her actual girlfriend and love interest, Betty. And yet, the show kept insisting that she was a complete, 100% lesbian with no interest in Tony.
• Late in the third season of Stranger Things, when they're both loopy after being drugged, Steve confesses to Robin that he's developed a crush on her. Robin confesses that she's only interested in girls, and part of the reason that she used to dislike him and take so much pleasure in tormenting him before they became genuine friends was because a girl she crushed on during high school was hopelessly infatuated with Steve. The two are best friends and Platonic Life-Partners from that point onwards.
• An episode of The Thin Blue Line concerns Constable Maggie Habib meeting a handsome firefighter and trying everything to get into bed with him. In the end of the episode, it's revealed that he hasn't touched her because his interests were focused on her colleague, Constable Kevin Goody, who's spent the whole series pining after her. In the last scene they all sit at a pub musing about their love triangle woes.
• Tidelands (Netflix): Lamar tells Violca he isn't interested in her "butterfly" when she acts enticing with him. The next scene shows him kissing Paul Murdoch.
• In True Blood, many gay men become attracted to Jason Stackhouse, who is straight. Lafayette complains that it's not fair that such a beautiful man like Jason would only be into chicks.
• In Waterloo Road, Phil and Roz find that they're compatible personality wise, and form a relationship which runs smoothly until Roz falls in love with her female teacher. At the climax of this plot point, Phil and Roz agree that since Roz is now a lesbian, they probably wouldn't go well together after all.
• The Wheel of Time (2021): Nynaeve spends most of the season refusing to act on her attraction to Lan since she assumes that he and Moiraine are a couple. Six episodes in it is shown that she has a girlfriend and that all the "hints" of the two of them being Platonic Life-Partners are absolutely true.
• The White Lotus: : The lesbian Valentina is infatuated with her younger, pretty receptionist Isabella, who obliviously happily announces her engagement to male coworker Rocco.
• Will & Grace:
  • The titular duo are an example. They dated in college, and Will even proposed to Grace, but broke up when Will finally accepted that he was gay. A decade later they're firmly Platonic Life-Partners who joke about the whole thing.
    Grace: I wanted to raise the kids Jewish, you wanted to sleep with men.
    Will: I do enjoy that.
  • In one episode, Grace encounters a Fag Hag who is in love with her gay best friend, Will's love interest. Having been down this road, Grace tells her that she has absolutely no shot with him whatsoever. She denies it at first before confessing why they can't be together despite their perfect compatibility.
• World on Fire: Henriette is attracted to Webster, and kisses him in a moment of passion. She seems aware that he's gay though, pulling away and then apologizing.
• There are subtle implications and innuendos throughout Young & Hungry that suggest the heterosexual, young, wealthy, good-looking website designer Josh is subject to a crush by his Camp Gay assistant Eliot, and some humor is based around Josh becoming more aware of this and deflecting Eliot's stealthy advances. It may be why Eliot is so snarky towards Josh's new cook Gabi, who had a drunken one night stand with Josh on her first day to their embarrassment. Played for Laughs for the most part as for the first season.