Can Not Spit It Out - Television Tropes & Idioms

Pick an Unlucky Childhood Friend. Any Unlucky Childhood Friend. It will also be coupled with the intended target Failing All Spot Checks on what few hints they do manage to give off.
This is more or less Rumiko Takahashi's S.O.P.: At least one member of the pairing must not be able to confess their feelings:
- Ranma ½. After spending most of the series calling Akane an "uncute tomboy", Ranma finally musters up the courage to tell her that actually, he thinks she's really cute — and then she doesn't believe him because she thinks he's trying to trick her.
  - Don't forget how Ryōga actually spends the entire manga obsessing over how much he loves Akane, but never actually tells her without being interupted by something.
- Urusei Yatsura: Ataru can't admit he really loves Lum because if he did, he'd have to give up his dreams of a harem. (It should be noted that this makes sense to no one other than Ataru, given his horrible luck with women.)
  - Also during the second tag duel in the fifth movie, Ataru refuses to say that he loves Lum despite the stakes because under those circumstances the words wouldn't be meaningful.
- Maison Ikkoku: Godai is openly in love with Kyoko, but is too wishy-washy to 'fess up. Kyoko is aware of this, but is conflicted both by a rich rival suitor and her inability to let go of her dead husband.
- Inu Yasha: Although Inu-Yasha and Kagome seem to have "reached an understanding" as to how they feel about each other, neither has been able to actually say the words, even to themselves.
  - Even worse (and more obvious) is the Sango/Miroku quagmire, where one side can occasionally get their feelings out, but the other either locks up or spoils the moment (though they did eventually get on the same page).
- One Pound Gospel: Thoroughly averted with Kosaku Hatanaka, who's quite vocal about his wish to live with Sister Angela and have her as his girlfriend. Subverted with Angela herself; she likely could spit it out, if this didn't conflict with her wish to become a full nun.
Dramatic example: Peach Girl.
Love Hina did this a lot, and eventually referred to this in the Kanako arc OVAs
In Hana Kimi, Mizuki loves Sano, and Sano loves Mizuki pretty much from chapter 3 onwards. Also, that's about when Sano also finds out that Mizuki really is a girl. And neither knows about what the other knows until chapter 133.
Keroro Gunsou spent an entire episode milking the trope, as Momoka's attempts to refer to Fuyuki on a first-name basis lead to increasingly absurd changes in the conversation.
How anime fans (and anyone with half a brain) react to Arashi No Yoru Ni (One Stormy Night). They keep saying the word "friend" but you keep thinking one of them should just blurt out the obvious.
Many love triangles, such as the one in Kimagure Orange Road, have a third wheel who thinks that the main character returns their feelings. In the case of KOR, he doesn't, but feels it's far better to lead her on for the entire series instead of sitting her down and explaining the situation, as he does care for the girl as a sister and can't bring himself to hurt her feelings. It certainly doesn't help that the girl whom he does have feelings for is the best friend of the third wheel and a Hot Amazon who already promised to help the wheel girl, as well as willing to beat the shit out of him if he causes said girl harm.
In the first two seasons of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, the villains have their own reasons for doing what they're doing, but refuse to tell why despite Nanoha wanting to talk to them. Nanoha (whose main characteristic is her honesty and straightforwardness) decides that the only way to get them to explain their actions is to beat them in combat and demand an explanation. It works.
- Nanoha and Fate never outright say anything to each other about their relationship, but the way they act around each other indicates that they do know and don't need to say anything.
In Eureka Seven, three of the characters, a seasoned rebel named Holland, his girlfriend/second in command Talho, and a young boy named Renton get into an argument over an injured teammate. Holland pretends he doesn't care, and goes on a mission to save a head priest "for a lot of money." Renton is furious that he doesn't care. Talho understands that Holland is saving this priest because he can save their teammate. Holland beats Renton up for his suggesting they try to save their teammate, Talho slaps Holland for not telling Renton that he wants to save their teammate, she also slaps Renton for not realizing that Holland wants to save their teammate (but she doesn't tell him this). This leads to Renton leaving the crew, and falling into the company of a rival mercenary. Just because everybody Cannot Spit It Out.
Ai Yori Aoshi would have been much simpler if Aoi and Kaoru could just tell Kaoru's Unwanted Harem that he was taken.
- Also much shorter. On the upside, it paves the way for Tina's crowning moment.
  - Shorter, maybe, but not much. Tina already had a strong suspicion, Mayu clearly doesn't care if Kaoru is taken (even after he's married), Taeko never considered actually chasing after him until very late, and Chika... hard to tell just how serious she was being.
- Tina is a even better example. Her inability to confess her love to Kaoru before the series begins leads to her going on a year-long trip around the world, mainly to try and get over it.
  - This troper still greatly respects her for her grace in loss, and her retaining her loving friendship with Kaoru and Aoi.
Katekyo Hitman Reborn! stars Tsunayoshi "Tsuna" Sawada, an Unlucky Everydude with a crush on his classmate Kyoko who Cannot Spit It Out. One of Reborn's first tasks in making Tsuna a suitable heir to the Vongola Mafia family is using his "Dying Wish Bullet" to make Tsuna confess his love to Kyoko. But in the end, she still thinks he was joking, and he has yet to convince himself to confess a second time.
Used famously in CLAMP works, especially Card Captor Sakura, Wish and the newer series Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles and xxxHolic.
- They also tend to use a unique variations of this trope especially with the dreamseers. Who can see the possible futures both good and bad. They'll tell the rest of the cast whenever the future is good, however when the future is generally bad they won't say anything. The reason behind this is because as long as they don't tell the key players that future then they can change it, but telling others of that future can set it in stone. And the only dreamseer who actually DID say the future was still unchanged... said so after her death.
The inability of various characters in School Rumble to confess their love, Harima's feelings for Tenma being the principle example.
Hagino in Blue Drop for the largest part doesn't tell Mari that she is the commander of the space ship that caused the disaster in which Mari's parents died.
Kaorin of Azumanga Daioh can't do anything about her crush on the resident Huge Schoolgirl, as she becomes so flustered around Sakaki that it's amazing that she can talk at all.
The fact that the two sisters Asu and Kyou from Binbou Shimai Monogatari love each other a lot can't prevent them from communicating poorly on a regular basis, making them run in panicky circles where a few choice words would have helped immensely. But the making-up hugs are cute indeed◊. Awww...
In Kannazuki No Miko the plot would have been almost completely different if Chikane had told Himeko about what happened in their past lives.
After episode 9 of Abenobashi Mahou Shoutengai, Sasshi finds himself unable to bring himself to tell Arumi that Masa-jii is dead.
In Tekkaman Blade, an early episode has D-Boy's transformation crystal being broken, forcing him to use a modified Pegas robot to transform into Blade. Late in the series, when he's losing his memory due to a Deadly Upgrade, he forgets that his crystal broke and starts trying to transform on his own. Despite that he is searching the ground frantically and asking, over and over again, where his crystal is, Pegas refuses to say even something as simple is "I have your crystal, give me the command," instead uninformatively urging D-Boy to transform. Later, he dryly explains, "D-Boy refuses to access my Tek-Set function."
In Kanon, no one thinks to mention to the main charrie that the girl whose death traumatized him 7 years ago was still alive in hospital.
This is a somewhat less obvious example, but this troper has long suspected that in Code Geass, Suzaku might not have gone to such extremes if he had known that the Euphinator incident was completely accidental, and Lelouch had actually intended to cooperate with Euphie, were it not for a poorly timed Mode Lock. Predictably enough, Lelouch never thinks to mention this, and Suzaku is left with the impression that he deliberately and ruthlessly betrayed both of his childhood friends and orchestrated a genocide of the same people he was supposedly acting on the behalf of to make himself seem like a hero for intervening, when he was actually simply making the best of a disastrous situation. While this troper sees this as quite sensible, the odds that Suzaku would actually believe Lelouch if he told him are rather low at best. Things are that bad between them.
- Towards the end of R2, Suzaku finally manages to see through what Lelouch says, but it takes Tokyo getting nuked and Suzaku witnessing Lelouch kill his parents to stop the Assimilation Plot - it's complicated - before they actually make up.
- Lelouch's real problem here is that he never tells them the answer to what they asked, he just changes the topic slightly to pave over the question without addressing it.
- C.C. is blatantly guilty of this as well. Think how much shorter the series would have been if she'd told him in the beginning what his parents were really up to.
  - While that would seem like the better choice, the only reason it doesn't happen from the get-go is because C.C. starts off the series as wanting to use Lelouch for her own gain and giving him the Geass in the first place for the lulz/so she can die.
- Lelouch does this intentionally with Kallen in Turn 22, because he's on the path to become the evil Demon Emperor and Kallen would surely join him if he said anything.
In Kaleido Star, Ill Boy Ken Robbins tries often to tell Sora Naegino that he greatly loves and admires her, but never gets the chance. In a more adult version, Kalos Eido loves his best friend Sarah Dupont, but feels guilty for their common past and doesn't want to let her know. And last, Jerry the policeman can't tell his best friend Kate that he loves her since they've been friends for decades and he fears to lose that friendship When he does tell her, he graduates to Victorious Childhood Friend.
- To be fair, Ken does manage to tell Sora his feelings in the second season — and then the policeman ruins it by thinking that Ken means he's one of Sora's fans. In the end, poor Ken never gets to tell her the way he feels.
In Princess Tutu, Ahiru can't tell Mytho that she loves him — Not because of nervousness, but because she'll cease to exist once she does. This becomes very troublesome in the first season finale when Princess Kraehe offers to return Mytho's emotion of love, but only if she says that she loves him.
Evangelion: This Troper wonders if telling Shinji beforehand that Touji was piloting Unit 03 would have made Episode 18 turn out differently. This is not necessarily a case of Cannot Spit It Out — it might actually have ended the same way....
- It would. In the manga, Shinji already knew this beforehand, and the same events occurred; the only difference was Shinji's reasoning behind his actions.
- Scarcely a character in the entire series is capable of admitting his or her deeper feelings toward those he or she loves most. Often even the exceptions turn out not to be exceptions. For example, Asuka's flamboyant confessions of love for Kaji are often in part to mask her growing attraction to Shinji. Of course, it doesn't work.
In Chrono Crusade, it's hard to say that the plot would have changed had he told Rosette, but Chrono constantly dodges around telling Rosette about his past — to the point that "one of these days, I'll have to tell you a story" practically becomes his Catch Phrase. The few times he does seem to be about to explain it, he's interrupted. In the manga, Rosette has to go into his soul and dig around in his memories to find out the truth.
All Daisuke needs to do in DNAngel to stop transforming into Dark is to get the girl he loves to love him in return — but that includes loving Dark, since Dark is a part of him. Daisuke is unable to bring himself to tell her the truth, partially because he's scared of rejection and partially because part of him isn't sure if he wants Dark to leave.
Subverted in Yu Yu Hakusho. Just before Yusuke leaves to face his demon heritage, he has one last meal at the Yukimura diner. Cue Yusuke's marriage proposal, which Keiko reacts to rather nonchalantly. The subversion comes when Keiko returns to her room — Yusuke drops "Oh, come on, Keiko... you know I love you." without nary a second thought. Keiko's response? An even more nonchalant "Yeah, yeah."
Hinata regarding her feelings for Naruto. That about covers it.
- Until she did spit it out.
In Hidamari Sketch, Sae has trouble telling her little sister Chika how much she really cares for her.
- Likewise, Natsume is sending Sae mostly confusing messages, although it's admittedly quite hard to get through Sae's obliviousness.
Tatsuya and Minami in Touch. He likes her and she likes him, and she even kisses and confess to him before the 20th episode. It still took over 100 episodes...
Mahoraba takes the romantic variety to insane levels, leaving you to wonder if either of the mains have tongues at all until the last episode.
Effectively invoked in Mahou Sensei Negima, when Negi tries to ask his father's allies who his mother is. Unfortunately, Rakan swore them to silence until he "acknowledges Negi as a man", seemingly so that Negi would have even more incentive to beat him in their upcoming fight.
- Naturally, it's then revealed with no build up at all, by a newly introduced character. It's later confirmed by Jack Rakan, in the same offhand manner:
Jack: Oh, by the way, Arika really is your mother. See you later. *heads off to bathroom*.
- But can you really stop there? The entirety of Negima is comprised of characters who can't spit it out. Nodoka, Yue, Chachamaru, Evangeline, Asuna, Negi, Kotarou, and a slew of side characters have relationships they refuse to act on, for reasons ranging from denial, feelings of unworthiness, fear of hurting others feelings, or amnesia.
  - Lampshaded:
  Kotaro: What's with her? All she's saying is, "L-L-L-L" over and over again.
In Saki, Nodoka desperately tries to cover up her feelings for Saki whom she keeps referring to as nothing but a friend—not to much avail, though.
In Tegami Bachi, Connor is unable to bring himself to tell Lag that Gauche, whom Lag befriended while being delivered to Cambel Litmus, was fired from his Letter Bee position after going missing. In a one-shot story, a woman's maid is unable to reveal herself as the person who had sent her the picture postcards, because she had been forced to sell the gift she had received from her future employer when the two were younger. One of Lag's Heart Bullets reveals the secret, which the woman takes well.
In Full Metal Panic, through the entire anime, Kaname was unable to bring herself to come out and confess to Sousuke. Granted, anyone should have been capable of noticing her feelings without a direct confession, but... Sousuke being Sousuke, normal methods don't work with him.
The titular character of Kenichi The Mightiest Disciple is totally unable to take initiative in starting a romantic relationship with Miu, even though she obviously likes him. All of the masters are constantly guessing (and probably betting on) when he'll finally say something.
This is suspected to be the case with Rudolf in Umineko No Naku Koro Ni. To be fair, after his first wife Asumu died, he quickly remarried to Kyrie, and his son Battler left home for six years. Now he has to tell Battler that Asumu wasn't really his mom. One can only imagine how Battler will react to THAT.
In Tona Gura, would-be couple Kazuki Arisaka and Yuuji Kagura sometimes get so flustered by their obvious feelings that they cannot speak to each other at all, not out of anger, but out of trepidation. In one instance, where he has fallen on top of her (legit in this case, despite his immature tendency to grab at her), they are at this point so tongue-tied that a primal Accidental Pervert / Tsundere moment passes with only a few 'Excuse Me's'—and that's all.
A large amount of problems in Gundam Seed and it's sequel could have been avoided had Athrun actually spoke his mind to various people, instead of moping around silently and constantly going "it's nothing" when people asked him what he thought.
One reason for the Idiot Plot in Kedamono Damono. Haruki has his reasons, though.
The foundation of pretty much all the tension and drama of Sasameki Koto is based on Sumika's inability to tell Kazama that she loves her. Kazama likes girls too, and very openly... But Sumika isn't her type, and is petrified that a confession of love would destroy their friendship. As of chapter 20, the tension is even more balanced on this, from both sides: Kazama is in love with Sumika as well, but doesn't know that Sumika likes girls (or even just her), so she is also terrified that confessing her love would tear them apart.
Esther Blanchett and Ion Fortuna from Trinity Blood.
- True, it can be argued that she's a Roman Catholic nun and heir to the throne of Albion, AKA England, and, as such, is already spoken for, and that he's a vampire noble/"unholy beast". But in the Trinity Blood universe, chastity among the religious hierarchy in general doesn't seem to be as virtuous a trait, or enforced as zealously, as it is supposed to be in the real world. And while some may question Esther's feelings for Ion, he does a much poorer job of masking his own emotions.
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya: Kyon seems to be the only cast member who is oblivious to the fact that Haruhi is attracted to him (even though she would likely die before admitting as much, perhaps even to herself).
- Conversely, Kyon has admitted on multiple occasions (in the novels, at least) that he is attracted to both Asahina Mikuru and Nagato Yuki (but never confesses as much to either girl). In a subversion of the latter, Asahina warns Kyon that he mustn't allow himself to become too close to her.
Including it in the Anime & Manga section even though it's technically an Original English Language manga. In Dramacon by Svetlana Chmakova, despite three years of blatant flirtation and the fact that, like Kagome and Inuyasha, each has more of less come to an understanding with regards to the other's feelings, neither Christie or Matt openly confess their feelings before the story's final act.

Close Anime & Manga

Charlie Brown's inability to talk to the Red-Haired Girl in Peanuts.
In the 1990s Marvel Comics series Sleepwalker, Rick Sheridan finds himself unable to explain his sudden sleeping problems, caused by Sleepwalker being trapped in his mind, to his girlfriend Alyssa, mostly because he's afraid of how he thinks she'll react.
Spider-Man suffers from this trope in spades, with Peter Parker unwilling to reveal his dual identity to his Aunt May, because he fears the shock will kill her, and later because he doesn't want her constantly worrying about him risking his life as Spider-Man. This became a Wall Banger in and of itself after a while, and it became even worse when Peter wouldn't tell his first girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, the secret either. He never told Mary Jane while they were dating, either — she had to tell him that she knew his secret.
- When May does find out and talks to Peter, it's one of the most touching scenes in comics, including the part where she specifically points out that she's a big girl and she won't just keel over, and that she will be worried, but he has her blessing. Unfortunately Ret Con'd by One More Day.
- This is subverted in the Ultimate Spider-Man series, where Peter reveals that he's Spider-Man to Mary Jane in issue #13. Mind you, that's really early in the series by Bendis standards. Then again, it takes him nearly a hundred to tell this to Aunt May. So Yeah.
The current Cable series tends to get sapped of any and all momentum it may have built up at least once an issue, as all the conflict roots from Bishop's complete inability to simply explain his apparent Face Heel Turn to the X-Men he's been working with for years, despite countless opportunities to do so.
For most of his super heroing career, Captain Marvel Jr couldn't tell anyone his name, because it happened to also be his transformation phrase (minus the "Jr"). (He's now known as Shazam, having taken over for Billy Batson, who took over for the Wizard Shazam as guardian of The Rock Of Ages.)
Mouse Guard: Incredibly, it's the Hot Blooded Boisterous Bruiser Saxon who embodies this trope. In Winter, we learn that he's been sitting on his feelings for Gwendolyn for years. He spits in the denoument.

Close Comics

One Forgotten Realms fanfiction had Drizzt trying to tell Catti-brie how he feels about her at the most perfect moment — on a balcony during a ball — only to be interrupted because Delly was having a baby.

Close Fan Works

In the movie Spider-Man 3, Harry Osborne has a terrible grudge against Spider-Man, as he believes him was responsible for the death of his father, Norman. As one of the only people who knows Spider-Man's real identity, he spends the greater part of the movie making things difficult for Peter Parker, battles Spider-Man a few times as the Green Goblin, and eventually, in one of said battles, gets injured. Later in the movie, Peter asks Harry to help fight the team of Venom and the Sandman, but Harry declines the offer. At this point, the Osborne family's loyal butler Bernard arrives, and tells Harry that Spider-Man was really never responsible for Norman's death, and that he died of his own folly. Apparently, the butler knew this all along, but still allowed Harry to play out his vendetta against Spider-Man.
- According to the DVD extras, the butler was a hallucination for Harry to justify himself. Note how only Harry sees him during the entire movie.
  - Seriously? I thought there was a scene where he talked to the butler while Pete was right there, and Pete didn't act like anything was off...
  - Wait. If the Butler is a figment of Harry's imagination how can the Butler know that Peter didn't really kill Harry's father and Harry not know?
  - The idea is probably supposed to be that Harry always knew but didn't admit it to himself because he wanted to keep the image of his father as a good guy.
- To be fair, Spider-man himself was partly responsible, as he obeyed Norman's dying request not to tell Harry.
- Many people believed that the butler's reason for not speaking out until then was that Harry was not ready to listen, and that attempting to tell Harry this truth earlier would have just resulted in being fired and unable to help him later.
  - Plus, y'know, the butler's name was Bernard.
- And lets not forget Mary Jane. If she had just said that she got fired from her job, about half of the conflict in the movie would disappear.
- Peter is unable to tell Aunt May about how Uncle Ben died until late in the second movie. Justified in that he was partly responsible.
Several Abbott and Costello films play with this, with Costello needed to impart some important information, usually that the movie's villain is nearby. However, while he mimes speaking the words, he's so scared that he literally cannot make any kind of audible sound.
Used rather movingly in the 1989 Batman film. Bruce tries to tell Vicki he's Batman, but he just can't bring himself to actually say it. When she gets tired of waiting and walks away he disgustedly mouths "I'm Batman" to himself.
Tragically used in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Shu Lien and Li Mubai are deeply in love with each other and pretty much everyone knows, including themselves, but Shu Lien's first love and fiancée was actually Li Mubai's best friend, and he tragically perished in an event that Mubai still blames himself for. Therefore, to not shame the dead guy's memory, they can't act on their love. And don't do so until Li Mubai is fatally poisoned and, in his last moments, he shares a Last Kiss with Shu Lien.
- Maybe it would disgrace the late friend's memory according to Asian codes of honor. However a Western hero could be safely assumed to approve of his best friend and girl getting together after a decent interval of mourning. In fact heroes have even been known to ask their best friend to "take care" of their girl if "anything should happen" with pretty obvious sub-text.
  - And if you're from Ebou Dar, it gets just plain weird.
Averted in Ghostrider: Johnny's love interest confronts him about breaking their date... so he tells her that he turned into a burning biker skeleton possessed by a spirit of vengeance. Naturally, she finds this preposterous, but when she sees proof that he was telling her the truth, she unhesitatingly steps up to help him.
One of the protagonists of Better Than Chocolate keeps starting to come out of the closet to her mother, only to have her mother interrupt, assuming she was trying to disclose something else.
In Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back: Jay's trying to figure out where their monkey's being taken. Silent Bob spots a sign on the back of the leaving car reading "Critters of Hollywood." Silent Bob gestures wildly to Jay, who can't figure out what the hell Silent Bob's saying. Until finally...
Silent Bob: THE SIGN ON THE BACK OF THE CAR SAID "CRITTERS OF HOLLYWOOD!" YOU DUMB FUCK!
Jay: Say it, don't spray it.

Close Films

The fall and damnation of Satan, the eternal struggle between heaven and hell, and the loss of quite a few demigods is all due to all characters in To Rule In Hell performing an extended dance remix of this trope.
In The Rise of Endymion, the eponymous main character spends a great deal of energy angsting over a period of time that his love spent unaccounted for while he was off touring planets, having kidney stones, and eluding the Space Pope. No, really. He deduces that this time was spent with another man, and angsts accordingly. At length. Of course, he can't bear to ask her about it; otherwise she might have told him that thanks to some time travel tomfoolery, the other man was him. However, considering how much of the plot's pacing hinges on said lover's constant reluctance to give information that would explain anything to anyone, maybe not.
- To be fair, he did ask, and she tearfully told him she had a baby, and begged him not to ask further.
In Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, all characters assume they know best. Each lies or hides the truth "for the greater good." The resulting confusion, interpersonal conflict, jealousy, and setbacks invariably stem from the main characters' inability or unwillingness to communicate. In the end, it turns out all the good guys are on the same side! Who knew?
A recurring theme in Anne McCaffrey's books, where couples spend entire books (occasionally several) pining for each other until something forces one or both to admit their feelings. (See: F'lar and Lessa in Dragonflight, Afra and Damia in Damia, Sebell and Menolly in Dragonsinger)
In the book Destiny (book 3 of the Rhapsody series), dragon-blooded Marty Stu Ashe cannot reveal the identity of his new wife to his soulmate, the equally sueish lead character, Rhapsody, for reasons that were never made very clear (possibly spelled out in greater detail in the previous book). It turns out that the wife was Rhapsody herself (who had the memory magically zapped from her mind for the same reason Ashe couldn't tell her himself).
Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier). The heroine is convinced that she's a complete failure compared to Rebecca, her husband's first (dead) wife, until she finds out that the husband murdered Rebecca. Which cheers her up immensely.
Everything ever written by Russell T Davies.
Sophie Hatter in Howls Moving Castle is cursed to take the form of a 90-years-old woman — and part of the curse is that she can't tell anyone. If she tries to, she's either interrupted or people misunderstand her.
- Done a lot more literally in the Miyazaki film, in which, whenever she tries to tell someone about the curse, her mouth actually locks shut.
In Aunt Maria, the protagonist Mig spends a good part of the book trying to convince her mother that the evil Aunt Maria has turned Mig's brother into a wolf. The mother refuses to believe this and continues to insist that he's just around the corner, mostly due to the fact that Maria also enchanted the mother to basically hang around and be a housekeeper.
In Isobelle Carmody's "Ashling", Rushton and Elspeth love each other, but neither of them admit it until Rushton has an emotional breakdown and tells her that he thinks that she doesn't love him because he can't use his psychic powers, when she was actually ignoring him because she thought he was carrying on with Freya. So sad.
In The Name Of The Wind, Kvothe finds himself unable to tell Denna how he feels, at first out of mischance (and her frequent, frustrating absences), but later it is because he fears he has nothing to offer her, and that if he were to pursue a romantic relationship with her it will end badly, as most of her relationships apparently do. Instead of trying to work up the courage anyway, he ends the book as an Unlucky Childhood Friend. Of course, this is only the first part....
Seregil from Nightrunner takes at least a book and a half to spit out anything: the secret of his protege's heritage, his true feelings for his protege, his own murky past....
Harry Driscoll from The Frog King hates the word "love" at first, then when he has the chance to attempt to redeem himself to his ex-girlfriend and show how much she means to him... he abuses her and her new author/boyfriend and only realises he never said he loved her until it's too late.
Romeo And Juliet uses this trope, making it Older Than Steam. Tybalt confronts Romeo, challenging him to a swordfight. Romeo tries to explain that there's therefore no reason for their two families to keep feuding, since he and Juliet recently got married. Tybalt won't let Romeo get to the part about marriage, assuming Romeo's unwillingness to fight is simply the act of a coward. Then Tybalt makes the whole conversation moot when he fights and kills Mercutio instead.
Edgar Rice Burroughs used this trope a lot. His character's justification was usually that they thought the other person already knew, or that they didn't realize the information was important. Unless it's love, in which case Oblivious To Love generally covers it. This results in situations:
- In A Princess Of Mars, although aware of the Culture Clash, Dejah Thoris is so offended by John Carter than she declares him unfit to clean the teeth of her grandmother's cat. Later, when he finds that she is crying, believing him dead, he talks with her companion, saying that Dejah Thoris is distressed that her grandmother's cat would have no one to clean its teeth.
- a character fighting alongside another for several days before realizing the other character is his long lost father (The Gods of Mars)
- a woman accepting a marriage offer from The Paolo because she thinks The Hero should have told her he loved her
  - And when she's been kidnapped, and the hero has helped her, she coldly declares that how he acts in the future will determine what she thinks of him. A little hurt, he manages to shrug, and it's her turn to be hurt — he has to know that she is honor-bound not to encourage him.
- a man in love with a woman thinking she's already married because she mentions she loves another man when really she's just talking about how she loves her brother (Tarzan at the Earth's Core),
- a character thinking he's a genetically engineered monstrosity when really he's a totally normal amnesiac human (The Monster Men).
Stephen King's DarkTower series does this a hell of a lot: Whoops, pregnant with a shapeshifting deamon baby and I'm one of the fathers and there's two of us. Funny part is I never had my way with you. My seed is being passed to you by an oracle who'll proceed to rape you for a good 30 pages. Gosh darn, can't not love Stephen King.
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Ginny is about to blurt out her Big Secret (also the solution to the deadly mystery at the center of the story) to Harry and Ron when Percy comes blundering in and scares her off.
- In Half-Blood Prince, a large part of the story is getting a memory (essentially, a magical retelling of events) from a man who fudged the version he originally gave. This memory is considered very vital by Dumbledore for understanding Voldemort. However, it takes a potion of felix felicis to get the memory from him. Horace was unwilling to part with the proper version of events because he was horrified and ashamed of what he had done, believing he had done "great damage".
- And let's not forget Order of the Phoenix, where the adults' unwillingness to tell Harry about his connection with Voldemort and all that it entails is largely responsible for Sirius's death.

Close Literature

This drives most of the entire story of Mad Men. If Don Draper came clean about his Dark Secret, then he would be able to straighten things out with his wife, stop looking over his shoulder generally, and would have saved his brother's life.
One of the worst ongoing examples is from Monk; the titular character has obsessive-compulsive disorder, but it's almost never mentioned, even when it would help. On one occasion, he shook hands with two white women, then a black guy, then asked his assistant for a wipe, like he frequently does. The black guy assumes Monk is racist, and explicitly asks him if he has any excuse. They tried to say Monk wasn't racist with Natalie saying "He loves Rainbows!" and Monk doing a rainbow-type of a hand motion.
Subverted in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, "Once More, With Feeling", in which several "Can't Spit It Out" plot threads that could have been milked for weeks, if not seasons, are dragged into the open by a demon's musical curse.
- Sadly, since this was all-wangst-all-the-time season six THEY STILL &%$@ MILKED THEM!!
Doctor Who, "Doomsday". After Rose chokes out "I love you" to the Doctor (transmitted as a short-term holograph into the parallel world she's trapped in) it's his turn. "Since it's my last chance to say it... Rose Tyler—" And then the transmission cuts, he vanishes, and this troper sobs for the next ten minutes. Every time.
- Even when he gets a second chance to tell her in "Journey's End", the Doctor is too broken to say more than "Does it really need saying?". However, his part-human clone fares better.
- Also in 'The Satan Pit', where it looks like he might finally ask another character to pass 'I love you' along to Rose, the Doctor bails out at the last minute - in a very sweet way, mind. "Tell Rose, tell her...Oh, she knows."
Lost. The episode where they all think Sawyer has Shannon's inhaler, if he just told everyone he didn't have it there would have been no torture, but also no first Kate/Sawyer kiss...
- And then of course, the castaways ignore good advice that is spit out. Even by themselves. "Don't wander alone in the woods full of tree-smashing monster-thingies." Always good advice. But no....
In the series Smallville, arguably every problem befalling the characters stems from Clark's refusal to tell anybody about his powers.
In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, if Riley talked to John, John talked to Sarah, Derek talked to either of them, Sarah told people where she was going OR they just had a nice, normal family dinner once in a while, they would figure out in about 5 seconds that Jesse was holding Riley hostage, that she had pretended to be a school official to get info on John, was lying to Derek and is not on their side. Instead they remain oblivious and one of them gets killed.
- You're asking the Connor family to act liek normal people? That's pushing it.
A lot of problems in the show Reaper come from Sam's inability to tell Andi about his problem with the devil.
- However, he does tell her about them later, in the First Season when she witnesses Sam beheading one of the souls.
Almost every single thing that happens between Serena and Dan towards the end of the first season of Gossip Girl could have been avoided if she had just told him about Georgina.
- Can also be used for Blair, Chuck, and those "three words, eight letters."
If it weren't for this trope, there would be no Sports Night. Every character on that show is far too busy talking and having emotions to f#&%ing communicate with each other.
The second season of Heroes could have been about fifteen minutes long if characters who were on reasonably cordial terms at the end of the first season a) remembered each other's phone numbers and b) bothered to discuss the, y'know, impending pestilent apocalypse with each other.
- The Mohinder/Bennet subplot was a particularly awful in this regard: Mohinder spends the entire season obsessing about the world-killing virus. Bennet waits until the second to last episode of the season, after their partnership has imploded and Mohinder has consequently shot him, to mention, "Oh yeah, the Company has been experimenting with that for decades."
This trope is the fuel that powers every soap opera ever written and is what allows them to keep babies switched for years, lovers separated and family members feuding. In addition to situations where a character is too afraid to say what needs to be said, soaps love to use "last minute inturruptions" where JUST as someone is going to tell their big secret to the person who needs to hear it, someone else comes in the room and not only derails the conversation, but usually says something that ends up convincing the one with the secret that it's a good thing they haven't said it out loud quite yet.
The last 2 episodes of the first season of Jeeves and Wooster has Bertie making several attempts to get Gussie to confess his love for Madeline Bassett. The first time, Gussie loses it just a little and starts rambling on about newts at length until Madeline, who is actually waiting for him to confess his love, gets fed up and leaves.
In To Love and Die, Hildy tracks down her estranged father, stalks him to his workplace, gets a job working for him, finds out he is a contract killer, follows him to and interrupts his latest hit, is consequently captured by his associates and interrogated on suspicion of being a rival contractor. One would think that the perfect time to finally reveal that she's his daughter would be when he has her tied to a chair and is demanding, on pain of death, to know who she really is, but even then, she manages to spend the entire interrogation rambling, and doesn't blurt out the truth until he's already given the order to kill her and is seconds away from leaving the room (fortunately, he listens).
The Muppet Frog Prince had a particularly silly version of this. The Princess's evil aunt places a spell on her where she is unable to speak straight. Despite trying her hardest to explain that "Tant Aminella" (Aunt Taminella) is the evil witch, no one catches on. Of course, this is aimed at kids, so no deep plots here (not bothering with spoilers tag since it's painfully obvious to anyone over the age of about... 8).
Big Wolf On Campus has Tommy trying many times to make his obvious crush on Stacy known to her. While it's pretty apparent that she suspects this and likes him in return, kisses, dates, hugs, or other intimate moments are usually interrupted by Tommy turning wolfy (caused by feelings of extreme emotion) and thus forcing him to run away.
Frasier: the titular character's brother, Niles, spends seven years pining after Daphne, his father's physical therapist and (default) housekeeper (in fairness, he does spend much of that time married). Despite trying to confess his feelings to her several times, his attempts are continually thwarted (usually owing to his own fear of rejection or, unwittingly, by Daphne herself). He remains unable to give voice to his emotions until the eve of Daphne's marriage to another man, and even then only after learning that Frasier has already let slip Niles' little "secret".
- In the final season of the series Frasier and Niles' father, Martin, displays a similar inability to confess his growing feelings for his girlfriend, Ronee.

Close Live Action TV

This is the premise of the song "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" by The Police. The narrator is in love with a girl, but can't work up the courage to tell her.
Likewise "I Want to Tell You," by The Beatles.
Same with "When You Walk in the Room", most famously covered by The Shearchers.
In "Living Next Door to Alice", most successfully covered by The Smokies, the narrator has been in love with his neighbor for 24 years, but couldn't tell her.

Close Music

Final Fantasy VII did it, but it did it right. Cloud is convinced he used to be a member of SOLDIER, and all evidence is towards this — he has the uniform, the sword, the skills and the glowing eyes. However, after leaving town to join SOLDIER, he failed to get in, and instead enrolled as a basic grunt. After his idol burned down his hometown, maimed the closest thing he had to a childhood friend, nearly killed his best friend, and stabbed him through the chest, he was patched up by Evilutionary Biologist Hojo as part of an experiment. However, the combination of the drugs and trauma completely destroyed his mind, and when they escaped and Zack died defending him he utterly snapped, adopting an elaborate system of Fake Memories and osmosed personality from Zack. The only person who knew all this was Tifa, who met Zack on the mission. But, being in love with Cloud, she was unable to tell him anything. Her inability to do so earns Cloud a Mind Rape and a Heroic BSOD, which Tifa has to fix in a Journey To The Center Of The Mind, after the damage has been done.
- Possibly justified in that Tifa was actually doubting her own memories. Cloud's story had details that she thought he couldn't have known - remember, he was hidden under a Shin-Ra grunt's mask, so she didn't know he was there - so she wasn't sure she was remembering correctly, or whether her memories had been muddled by her injuries.
- Not to mention that she was genuinely afraid of what would happen if she ever called him out on it. When she stumbled across Cloud in Midgar, he was still a drooling mental wreck lying on a train platform before he remarkably became 'sane' again. She had good reason to doubt his mental state, and how he might become a nutcase again ... which is exactly what happened.
There's also Irvine's inability to mention his past association with the other main characters and even the villain.
A significant portion of the conflict and tension in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Explorers of Darkness could have been easily avoided if Grovyle had taken a moment to explain himself. Indeed, once the main characters find out the truth, they go into hiding for several days and a number of tense sequences result... until the main character comes up with the brilliant idea of telling the guild about it. This simple act eliminates at least 80% of the angst, reduces the events of at least three earlier adventures to a simple off-screen quest, and helps give the main characters transportation and escorts to the next few areas.
In Fire Emblem, Hector and Florina's entire support conversation set is based on Florina being unable to say two words to Hector, when all she wants to do is thank him for saving her from certain doom in Laus. It takes Hector and her pegasus fighting to get her to finally spit it out.
- Of course, her androphobia didn't exactly help...
Used absolutely heartbreakingly in Prey. Tommy asks himself in the mirror why he won't just tell Jem he loves her. He eventually does after having had to kill her.
An interesting example: It takes a borderline Heroic BSOD (or maybe Villainous Breakdown is better considering the character) for Viconia in Baldurs Gate 2 to admit that she loves the protagonist. She has no problem sleeping with him, but confessing love is trickier.
- Of course, this is entirely in-keeping with drow culture. Hell, in the few cases where drow have fallen in love, the relationship tends to collapse under the weight of suspicion. Love Hurts, especially when both partners have Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
Casavir from Neverwinter Nights 2 has this problem. He can't even admit his feelings to people who *aren't* the one he's in love with, though said feelings are painfully obvious to the rival...
Toward the end of Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time, Toadbert recovers his memory, and becomes frightened by the brothers’ gathering the Cobalt Star shards, but runs away before he can tell anything. He tells the brothers to rub some dirt off the sketch he had given to them earlier, which reveals the other Shroob Princess, but gets turned into a mushroom before he can say anything else. Peach is about to tell the brothers about the Cobalt Shard before a flying saucer attacks, and misses several opportunities to tell them before Bowser pieces together the shards, freeing the elder Shroob Princess.
In Mega Man Zero 3, Cyber-elf X seems to be hiding a very important piece of information to his best friend Zero (even though X doesn't have a problem revealing it to someone else; what were you thinking, X?!). It was the Big Bad that revealed the secret behind Zero that X was trying to hide: Zero is using a clone body and Ax Crazy Omega Zero is the original body. Naturally for Zero, he still doesn't care about it when he finds out.

Close Video Games

In The Order of the Stick, Haley at one point becomes unable to speak intelligibly at all for some time until she expresses her feelings for Elan by an Anguished Declaration Of Love.
For the first year of Avalon, the characters seem (progressively less) unable to say the word "lesbian", which complicates Ceilidh's attempts to ascertain whether her best friend Phoebe is one (as rumor would have it). When she finally asks Ryan outright why he would ask out a lesbian, she learns all about what started the rumor, among other things. Unfortunately, by this time Ceilidh's constant innuendo has half the school — including Phoebe herself — convinced that she's a lesbian.
Eric (one of the Loserz webcomic's protagonists) has this problem with Alice. Despite the fact that she already told him she liked him. See here.
Shakespeare. Ophelia. Does it really have to be spelled out?
In the second part of the Love Potion arc of Sluggy Freelance, Gwynn curses Torg by turning him into a half-man, half-donkey and causing him to bray every time he tries to say something important in order to make sure that he does not tell anyone about her plan. Unfortunately, while on a date with Zoe, Oasis arrives and abducts him, kicking Zoe in the face in the process. Under the curse, Torg is unable to tell anyone what happened, causing Gwynn to believe he mistreated Zoe, but he eventually manages to get Riff to find out the truth.
Red String and Reika and Eiji. Despite the massive piling of sexual tension, despite Eiji beating the hell out of his former best friend for impugning her honor, despite even getting a book cover together...they're still not a couple. They just can't say it. Recently lampshaded when Fuuko asks Miharu point blank if they've hooked up yet and a weary Miharu answers in the negative.
Nadia from The Key To Her Heart hides her sexuality from her friends, and thinks it will help keep anything from getting out if she doesn't let on that she knows about Juliet's "condition," not because she's worried about homophobia, but because she's trying to dissuade her lesbian best friend. It's not clear how she thinks the Masquerade will help, but the general secret-keeping drives pretty much every problem they have.
Dave and Helen from Narbonic gradually become attracted to each other. This week of strips gives you a good idea of their relationship. Eventually, they end up together. Then break up. Then almost destroy the world. Then get back together. Then plot to destroy the world together.
It took years (real-time) for Piro and Kimiko to admit that they had feelings for one another in the web comic Megatokyo, even if it was only about a week in comic time (or about seven weeks if you count Chapter 0).
- Depending on how you look at it, it may have taken even longer in the case of Largo and Erika. Even though it's pretty much a given that they're a couple, neither one has ever voiced his or her feelings for the other in-comic.
- Even more mysterious is the Yuki/Kobayashi relationship, such as it is. It's been intimated that he's spent years pining for her, and that just about everyone other than Yuki was aware of the fact, but it remains unclear whether she considers him a potential romantic interest or "just a friend". Either way, she isn't telling.

Close Web Comics

The entire reason Dr. Horrible wanted to make a Freeze Ray was so that he could work up the courage to talk to Penny. Unfortunately, due to his own terminal shyness and his later vendetta against Captain Hammer, he never does get to tell her how he feels about her. And then Penny dies.
There's just so much of this in the Whateley Universe stories, but of course that is a Teen Drama.

Close Web Original

In one episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, after Squidward has played a prank on SpongeBob, he realizes how much he's humiliated him and goes to his house to apologize... but every time he tries to say "I'm sorry", he just can't pull it off without doing weird cartoon-takes.
This is the cornerstone of Ulrich and Yumi's UST in Code Lyoko.
Sam too, from Danny Phantom. She's outspoken on so many things... except her obvious crush on Danny. She's had a lot of close calls with other romantic rivalries as a result. They [predictably] got together in the end.
In the Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers episode "Good Times, Bat Times", Chip tries to reveal his feelings to Gadget. Twice. He always fails.
- So does he do in several FanFics. This troper should know, he drove this to extremes.
Subverted to an extent in Family Guy. Brian has confessed his feelings to Lois (and in one instance at least to her husband, and Brian's best friend, Peter) on more than one occasion, but she always turns him down (it has been implied that she has always known of Brian's romantic feelings for her; ironically she seems oblivious to next door neighbor Quagmire's naked lust for her despite his repeated and shameless advances).

Close Western Animation

The description mentions not admitting affection for someone, but the opposite is also common in dating. How many pretend "nothing's wrong" while letting resentment build to relationship-shattering levels? Or feign affection only to malign the date as a creep behind their back, but never consider that simply saying the truth would make the creep go away?
- Lack of communication/poor communication is the number one reason that relationships fail.
The fear of screwing up a wonderful friendship by confessing one's feelings (or is that just me?).

Close Real Life

Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing Help

Tools

Toys

Examples