Allergic to Love

Garth: Wayne, what do you do when, every time you see a really hot girl, you feel like you're going to hurl?

Wayne: I say hurl. If you blow chunks and she comes back, she's yours. If you spew and she bolts, it was never meant to be.

— Pearls of wisdom from Wayne's World

Exaggeration of the nervousness and discomfort one feels at approaching someone cute to the point that they become physically sick (major turnoff). If the character is lucky, they might find the one person who doesn't trigger the reaction. Compare Cannot Talk to Women, Love Makes You Crazy, Does Not Like Men (or women), Paralyzing Fear of Sexuality and Chaste Hero. See also Girls Have Cooties for the childish version and Affection-Hating Kid (although for Affection-Hating Kids, their reasons for feeling nauseous is often because they don't find anyone cute and are grossed out by the idea).

Oddly, this is not automatically a Comedy Trope. Or an anime trope, but it's used far more there.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Ah! My Goddess: Keiichi tries to ask Belldandy out to a museum, and gets so nervous that she immediately diagnoses him with a terrible illness and acts accordingly.
• Shogo from Apollo's Song might count, except his reaction is "violent revulsion and pathological hatred" instead of "fear". He had a history of killing animals he saw mating and clearly would have graduated to killing human couples if he didn't get institutionalized first. The godess Athena punishes him for all eternity by putting him in scenarios where he falls in love that end tragically. He certainly learns the value of human intimacy!
• Call of the Night: Nazuna can't talk about or even hear the word "love" without her face turning red with embarrassment. It's one of the bigger reasons why she can't stand hanging out with the vampires in Niko's clique.
• The Dirty Pair have played bodyguard to boys with allergies to women twice (once on the TV series, once in DP Flash). Both boys were also extremely rich.
• Junta, the lead from DNA², vomits uncontrollably around any girl that arouses him, not just his love interest.
• While Daisuke from D.N.Angel doesn't get ill when he's around his love interest, experiencing the feelings of love sets off a "genetic condition" that turns him into his alter ego, Phantom Thief Dark. This leads to Daisuke constantly running away from the girl he has a crush on.
• In Dragon Ball, the tough guy Yamcha is severely gynophobic and intends to use the dragon balls to wish away his affliction. He doesn't get his wish, but he eventually gets cured when he realizes he just has to become familiar with a woman.
• The protagonist of Dragons Rioting, Rintaro Tachibana, has a disease where if he sees anything related to Fanservice, his illness will trigger and if it gets to be too much, he'll die.
• Fuko in Gilgamesh sneezes when in proximity to her (current) crush.
• Girls Bravo:
  • Yukinari has literal allergies to girls, vaguely explained as being a victim of bullying.
  • It also turns out that the Big Bad is the Big Bad because she's allergic to boys.
• The lead of the manga series Girls Saurus and its sequel Girls Saurus DX is a "healthy" young boy... until he receives a beating from an overweight high school girl, severe enough to send him to the hospital for a few weeks; afterward he develops gynophobia and has an unwanted harem form around him.
• Hanaukyō Maid Team. In the first anime series, Taro changes colors and sometimes collapses whenever women (except Mariel) touch him. This was toned down in the show's remake, probably because he literally had no other problems interacting with girls.
• Himenospia has Mizu Adachi, a girl who was raised by a deeply neglectful mother who treated her with contempt. Due to her wretched upbringing, she became someoen who thrives solely in a negative environment and becomes violently ill when shown anything resembling positive emotions. She ends up opposing the protagonist Himeno when the latter uses her abilities to forcibly condition Mizu's mother to be nicer since she cannot handle the idea of her mother showing anything resembling affection.
• Naeka of Kamen no Maid Guy is like this initially, due to the fact that her Lethal Chef tendencies caused to her accidentally poison her first crush. She gets over it, with some help from Fubuki. The whole thing then backfires spectacularly when she finds out that her secret admirer is a girl.
• Inverted in Maria†Holic. The protagonist is a lesbian but breaks out in hives whenever she's touched by a boy. Hilarity ensues, being that the antagonist is a cross-dressing boy.
• Mirumo de Pon!: Saori sneezes whenever anyone brings up the topic of or something regarding romance.
• Hinata from Naruto has some extreme reactions when in the presence of the only guy she loves, Naruto. It gets less severe over time until she finally confesses her love to him.
• In the first Negima! Magister Negi Magi anime, Nodoka starts out this way - she can't stand being anywhere near a man, seemingly becoming downright terrified just by the thought, and physically recoiling at the sight of a Boys' Love manga. Since she goes to an all-girls school, she can usually avoid such contact, but her friends warn her that once she leaves the school, half the world is men... and fortunately, Negi is just what she needs to get over her fears. This trope is absent in the manga itself, though: Nodoka is just generically shy, which she makes a serious effort to get over quite early on and is actually one of the most honest about her feelings by the end.

• Alex Treveney from Nightschool: The Weirn Books. If she says that she likes or loves something, it will explode.
• In One Piece, this is literally the reason why several empresses of the Kuja Tribe on Amazon Lily died of illness; they all contracted "Love Sickness" by falling in love with a man and died of "Love Burn" due to being unable to pursue their object of affection since men are forbidden on Amazon Lily. The only reason why Elder Nyon managed to survive is that she left the island. Hence, when Boa Hancock contracts the disease when she falls in love with Luffy, she's only cured when she aids him in his attempt to rescue Ace.
• Ouran High School Host Club's Haruhi has this affliction in the manga for a brief period of time. She has all these 'symptoms' such as heart palpitations and feeling feverish around Tamaki after he opens up to her more about his past and then kisses her on the head when he left. She thinks she has some sort of illness or that her heart is rejecting her. She got better a chapter or two later.
• Sailor Moon's Ami, along with other much more extreme and neurotic behaviors, reacts to getting a love letter by breaking out in hives in "Ami-chan's First Love," a manga side-story adapted into an animated short preceding the SuperS Non-Serial Movie. The short film version creates an Adaptation Induced Plothole, as the original anime's continuity saw her in a relationship with Canon Foreigner Ryo Urawa, and later confessing an interest in marriage to Usagi's brother Shingo who has a crush on her, with no previous indication of a love phobia.
  • In the anime adaptation of the manga, instead of breaking out into hives she instead turns red as a beet, sweats profusely and then screams at the top of her lungs so loudly that she gives all the students out at the front entrance a Jump Scare.
• Yukina in Seraphim Call passes out whenever confronted by men (even over the vidphone). It is so bad that she lives in isolation, and wears a special suit that inflates as a cushion whenever she is passing out.
• Xellos from Slayers is allergic to, in addition to love, any and all positive emotions.
• Rito of To Love Ru was sort of like this. He was less allergic to love/girls, and more shy of physical contact to the point he would run if he could. One of the major over-arcing elements of the plot is him getting what could be compared to immersion therapy throughout the manga.
• Sunako from The Wallflower. She completely freaks out, nosebleeds to the point of hemorrhage, and passes out whenever she sees "bright creatures." In a slight subversion, this applies to females as well as males, but is usually centered on her Bishounen ...housemates.
• In the manga Zodiac P.I., the smart, cool, and aloof Hiromi breaks out in a rash whenever a girl, even his sister, touches him, owing to a love letter gone badly as a child. He gets over it.

Comic Books

• Berrybrook Middle School: Jorge is initially very much against the idea that he might have a crush on Jazmine. But as he continues to interact with her, it becomes increasingly obvious to him that he can't deny it.

Fanfiction

• Guys Being Dudes: Sierra mentions that seeing Spark and Arlo happy makes her feel physically ill, along with Shaymin's cuteness and good vibes in general.
• Sora in Love Sick violently throws up even if he just SEES a girl. It varies, though, depending on age (girls closest to his age do the worst) and appearance (one girl looked so much like a guy he was unaffected until he realized "he" was a "she"). Kairi is labeled as the most dangerous girl he's ever encountered thanks to just a glance at her causing the most violent reactions in his life.
• In the The Owl House / Hazbin Hotel / HelluvaBoss Crossover A Divine (Romantic) Comedy Succubi and Incubi have the same kind of Squick reaction when seeing wholesome romance as normal humans do when seeing hardcore sexual deviancy. When a Hell talkshow called Lust in the Morning which ordinarily talks about celebrity affairs in Hell and the like is forced to do a segment on an upsurge in genuine romance in Hell due to several high ranking demons like Stolas, Ozzie and Bee making their relationships public the segment has a warning disclaimer that it isn't suitable for Succubi and Incubi to watch and the shows hosts, who are a succubus and an incubus have Faux Horrific reactions.

Film

• The protagonist of Adam (2009) finds it very difficult to talk to the female lead because of his Aspergers.
• Invoked in The Little Rascals, when the members of the He-Man Woman Hater's Club recite a pledge which describes the penalty for falling in love as "May I die slowly and painfully and suffer for hours or until I scream bloody murder."

Literature

• Angela Nicely: Conversed in the love poem Angela writes in “Matchmaker!”, which has the line “Evry [sic] day when you walk by, I feel so sik [sic] I want to cry.”
• In Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files, the White Court vampires of House Raith feed on sexual desire, but a person touched by true love can burn them like sunlight burns a movie vampire. The relationship between Thomas and his favorite toy, Justine, has slowly progressed from "mutually beneficial experience" (she gives him nourishment, he keeps her mental illness in order) in Grave Peril to "true love" in Blood Rites. It can't end well.
  • However, it only applies when the last person somebody was intimate with loved and was loved by them. As of Ghost Story, Thomas and Justine appear to have found a workaround. She's adventurous and her name is Mara.
• In Sideways Stories from Wayside School, the first Wayside School book, Joy exploits this to free Jason from a chair she'd put gum in before he sat back down in it. Apparently, the solution to setting him free is to hang him and the chair upside down so she can... kiss him on the nose? Jason also reacts quite appropriately for this trope, freaking out and begging for any of the other weird, painful things the class previously tried or suggested instead. This being Wayside School, where quite literally ANYthing happens, Joy's solution is the only one that works, and it even absolves her of any punishment for putting gum in his seat in the first place... which she did in retaliation for him getting up to report her for chewing gum in class.

Live-Action TV

• Played with in Noah's Arc. At the start of one episode, Ricky looks unusually pale, and Noah asks if he's sick. Ricky says he thinks he's "falling in love", implied to be thinking about Junito, and then passes out. He wakes up later in a hospital (come to find out, it was a Staph infection).
• An early episode of Northern Exposure had Chris struck dumb by meeting a beautiful woman. This prompted many of the citizens of the town to reflect that they felt sick when they met their partner; the one man that felt happy was dumped by his girlfriend 3 weeks later.
• Scrubs:
  • For an episode, J.D. had to deal with an element of this, when he couldn't get some of the ugly scenes from work out of his head and looking at any part of his would-be girlfriend ended up making him think of some scene involving that part of the body (throat cancer when he looked at her neck, etc). He was able to move past it with some "help" from Drs. Cox and Turk.
  • Elliot also has been known to throw up when she's nervous- one notable occasion occurring in front of her ex-boyfriend Sean when his incredibly hot new girlfriend shows up out of the blue.
• The early episodes of Smallville subverted this trope, as Clark Kent got weak and klutzy whenever he approached Lana Lang not because of his crush (which only affects his judgement), but because of her kryptonite necklace.

Music

• The Shins have a song called Know Your Onion which mentions this
  "I left all my friends at the morning bus stop
  Shaking their heads
  'What kind of life you dream of?
  You're allergic to love!'"
• In Nirvana's "Aneurysm", the line "Love you so much, it makes me sick" was inspired by Cobain pretty much having Stan Marsh syndrome around Tobi Vail before they became a couple.
• The song Tongue Tied by Danny John-Jules (memorably featured in Red Dwarf) is about the singer trying to confess his love to a woman, but suffering a variety of symptoms from weak knees to vomiting every time he tries to talk to her.

Tabletop Games

• Blackbirds RPG: All of the Outsiders that a player can summon to perform feats of magic have some kind of weakness that prevents them from using their powers, which are often very random things like being banished if doused in egg yolk or being unable to be summoned near cats. In the case of Father Longlegs, a powerful Lord of the Court of Silence, his weakness is that sincere acts of physical affection terrify him. If he sees one, he curries into a corner and refuses to leave it until sundown.

Theatre

Representative lyrics from "Love I Hear," from "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum":

I'm dazed I'm pale, I'm sick, I'm sore,

I've never felt so well before!

Video Games

• Cultist in the Tower Defense Game Leave Cthulhu Alone! states that "hugs make me break out in huge cysts."
• Disgaea:
  • Not only is Laharl from Disgaea: Hour of Darkness allergic (as in gets literally hurt by: his stats get cut) to women with sexy bodies, he is also allergic to optimistic sayings, especially "Eternal love", and optimistic sayings said by women with sexy bodies. "A ray of hope" isn't overly much for Laharl when said this way. However, Laharl isn't as straight an example as he'd want you to think. He clearly loved his mother at the very least (the entire reason he hates love in the first place is because his mom sacrificed her life to save his) and has quite a bit of running UST with Flonne.
  • Fuji, the protagonist of Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless, can't receive or give compliments without violently coughing up blood.
• Apricot from Galaxy Angel II is a female example, whose androphobia is so strong that it manifests into Super-Strength and she hurls any man that touches her several meters into the air — the exception being the game's lead, Kazuya. Oddly enough this affectation is also in the television series, despite the lack of fodder.
• King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella takes this to the logical extreme: the villain Lolotte is so evil that when Rosella shoots her with one of Cupid's arrows, the love is so poisonous to her that she dies.
  • Not that being shot with an arrow is healthy in any case...
  • It didn't seem to hurt the unicorn at all. (Either that or Rosella handing the unicorn over to Lolotte hurt it much, much worse...)
• Lord Dearche of the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny, as hilariously shown in Sequence X, has an adverse reaction to the idea that anyone could like her.
  Yuri: Thank you... Dearche, our kind King. I love you.
  Dearche: E-Eeei! Will you stop that?! A chill is running through my skin! You! Have you forgotten that I was born a King of Darkness?!
  Yuri: You're my important Dearche and everyone's King. I haven't forgotten and I'll keep on saying I love you no matter how many times.
  Dearche: U-uwaaaAAA~!!! Shut up already!! Shut uuup!!! No, it doesn't matter if you don't! With my power as the King who rules over Darkness, I'll shut that loose mouth of yours to never say those again!
• Persona 3 has Chihiro Fushimi, the student council treasurer, who starts off as being nervous about talking to men. As you progress her Social Link more, she starts becoming more confident.
• In Super Robot Wars, this is the aftermath of Tytti Noorbuck after witnessing her would-be lover, Ricardo Silvera, protects her by Taking the Bullet directed to her from her Arch-Nemesis. After that, she was scared to form any relationship with another man.
• A rare example that is as much dramatic as comedic: in Tales of the Abyss, party member Guy suffers from severe gynophobia, specifically being touched by women. Its origins, rather than funny, prove to be quite horrific.
  • A whole room full of women, including his beloved elder sister, died to protect him right before his eyes, and he got stuck under all the dead bodies for days until someone came to rescue him. He blotted this out of his memory, and could only subconsciously remember that "Girls=scary," thus leading to his gynophobia.

Web Animation

• In the season 1 finale of Helluva Boss, Moxxie and Millie celebrate their anniversary at a fancy restaurant in the Lust Ring of Hell. When Moxxie tries to perform a love song for her he ends up drawing the ire of Asmodeus, the ruler of the Lust Ring (and owner of the restaurant) who breaks into an Anti-Love Song mocking their affection for one another.
  • On the other hand, Asmodeus is gracious enough to allow Moxxie to continue singing... as long as he spices up the lyrics a little. After all, this is the Ring of Lust; a romantic song in a restaurant centered around carnal desires is rather out of place.
  • Amusingly, none of this prevents him from openly caressing and nuzzling his right-hand imp, Fizzarolli, and tearfully cradling him when he gets hurt. Season 2 reveals that this is an act, and that he actually loves Fizz in a romantic sense.
  • Additionally, he seems to prefer a mixture of love and lust - while he's the patron of lust, he believes it should be natural and enjoyable for both parties, and refuses to create love potions for that reason.

Webcomics

• Furry Experience: Whenever Hunter, a husky, attempts to ask Cat out, she runs off in a panic. It doesn't help that she was already quite wary of him as he's actually the nude model for her advanced art class; being a freshman, she really had to pull some strings to get into that class as freshmen normally weren't allowed, and being so naive as a result of her very conservative upbringing, she had no idea what she was in for. It doesn't help that he falls in love with her during her first lesson in the class, and asks her on a lunch date right after class is over. That's only the first time she bolts from him. Later, he ends up moving into the same apartment building as Cat and her roommates, and his roommate Luke helps Cat emerge from her shell, encouraging her to reciprocate if she likes Hunter back.
• Tavros, of Homestuck, is a Shrinking Violet by nature. It only gets worse when he's propositioned by Gamzee (and later Dave, who does so as a joke- though Tavros doesn't realize that). This is likely because Vriska's abusive stalking turned him off towards romance as a whole.
  • Jack Noir, one of the Big Bads, is disgusted by feelings of love and affection. He hates that he is unable to kill Jade after being prototyped with her dog/guardian Becquerel, and promptly flees when he falls for a very angry Peregrine Mendicant.

Web Original

• Charlie, the main character in this story is a fairly unique case of this trope. Whenever people start being mushy or making out near him (especially making out), he usually ends up with heartburn. He often uses this for comic effect (i.e. to weird people out)
• Matthew McCleskey's video "Trying to give a third gift in Stardew Valley" provides a platonic example. Matthew tries offering Sebastian a third gift in the same week, and the latter starts panicking and crying.

Western Animation

• On Daria, one episode has the protagonist get a mysterious rash on her skin which turns out to be stress-related. She first gets it at the Zon when she and Jane are hanging out with her crush Trent, and at the very end of the episode gets a sudden relapse when Trent shows up on her front door.
• In one ep of The Fairly OddParents!, Trixie falls for Timmy after he loses his emotions. When he doesn't respond, she decides to date Chester to spite him, much to Chester's dismay; he actually breaks out in hives.
  • He also finds A.J.'s crush on "Timantha" disturbing. (Granted, it was, but for a different reason.)
  • Also, Mark Chang can't handle human forms of showing love. In fact, it causes his alien tech to short out. Unfortunately the default human form on his transformation belt is quite pleasing to the ladies, making this a rather large issue.
• Rico, of The Penguins of Madagascar, has 'mushy love sickness'. Meaning any mushy display of affection (or anything mushy really) will cause him to become sick and vomit. This doesn't get in the way of his relationship with his doll however.
  • In the one episode it comes up, it actually saves his life, as it helps him get rid of a Time Bomb he had swallowed and was unable to barf out again.
• In early seasons of South Park, Stan vomited uncontrollably when his love interest Wendy Testaburger so much as talked to him.
  • This seems to have started all over again at the end of the episode The List. Though in Super Fun Time, he holds her hand through most of the episode with no ill effects. Then in Elementary School Musical, she kissed him without Stan puking on her.

Real Life

• Philophobia - the fear of falling in love - can cause those struck with it to behave much like allergic characters in fiction.

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