Doppelganger Dating - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Come on, George, relax! Just because they look alike, that doesn't mean you're secretly in love with Jerry."

— Kramer, Seinfeld, "The Cartoon"

A character's new Love Interest is eerily similar (in personality, looks, etc.) to an established character—often a best friend of the incompatible sex, or even the character himself. The similarity is sometimes pointed out when someone is listing characteristics of the love interest, and realizes it sounds a lot like a description of someone else they know.

If the character is dating an opposite-gender doppelganger of a friend, it's more often played for laughs and mild Ho Yay than to suggest any serious sexual tension between the two friends. It might even be a positive omen for the relationship: the character gets along well with their friend, so the romance may be similarly successful. If the doppelganger and the friend are the same gender, though, it's likely to spark jealousy or suggest that it's the friend they're really interested in.

A common variant is someone dating their own opposite-gender doppelganger, which usually results in the characters becoming repulsed.

This trope does not include instances where the doppelganger is actually a clone or alternate universe double, or other situations where it is the same person or an actual duplicate: this is when someone similar comes along by mundane coincidence.

See also Identical Stranger, Similar Squad. Not to be confused with Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest.

Examples:

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Comic Books

In The Beano one of the Crazy For Daisy strips had Daisy dating a guy who looked almost identical to Earnest apart from different coloured clothing (right down to an extra toe and a mole on his bum). In the end he dumps Daisy for a similarly identical version of her to both Earnest and Daisy's confusion.

Fan Fic

One fanfic of From Eroica with Love has the strait-laced and (probably) straight German officer finding himself fancying a woman, and considering asking her out...when he suddenly realizes she looks like a female version of Eroica and starts doubting his reactions.

Live Action TV

iCarly
Seinfeld:
- In "The Cartoon", George dates a woman who looks a lot like Jerry. It ends up weirding George out to the point that he leaves the woman, and decides to take a break from Jerry for a few days.
- In "The Invitations", Jerry gets engaged to a woman played by Janeane Garofalo, who behaves almost identically to Jerry himself. Jerry comes to hate her, realizing that he "hates himself".
House: Wilson started dating Amber who, being mean and clever, was officially nicknamed "Cut-throat Bitch". House pointed out in conversation that she was basically his female counterpart, his eyes having gone appropriately wide from horror seconds before:
House: Oh my God. You're sleeping with me.
The Drew Carey Show: at a party, Oswald and Lewis become very attracted to the female counterpart of the other (and vice-versa): Oswald for "Louise" and Lewis for "Olivia." Both sets get creeped out and decide to forget the whole thing once they realize what's going on.
Friends, "The One With Russ": After breaking up with Ross, Rachel goes out with Russ, who looks, acts, and talks just like Ross. Amazingly, the only other character not to notice the similarity is Ross.
- In one episode, Phoebe and her identical twin Ursula date the same guy, who is very confused.
Similarly, on an episode of Frasier, Daphne goes out with essentially a clone of Niles. Like Rachel, Daphne doesn't notice; unlike Ross, Niles does and is very pissed.
- A much squickier example occurs in another episode, where it turns out that Frasier is in fact dating a doppelganger for his own (deceased) mother — played by the same actress, no less. Cue obvious Freud jokes.
The Sopranos has an example. In the third season Tony starts seeing a new mistress, the beautiful but depressive and temperamental Gloria Trillo. After complaining about her to Dr. Melfi in therapy, Melfi points out that his description of her (much more psychologically than physically) sounds eerily like his recently deceased mother.
The Nanny did it twice, once with Max dating an almost identical clone of Fran and once with her dating a guy you could tell apart from Max only by his job. The girls got along pretty well, while the men started hating each other's guts almost immediately.
On Two and a Half Men, Charlie dated a woman who strongly resembled their mother in terms of attitude, behaviour, etc. Everyone except Charlie could see it, until they met her two young sons, who were remarkably similar to Charlie and Alan, including in terms of how she treated them.
In Scrubs Danni is introduced as a female version of JD (right down the the Imagine Spots). Later in the series when he's dating her again it's revealed she's much more of The Lad-ette .

Web Comics

In Angel Moxie, Alex is telling her best (female) friend Riley about her new boyfriend Kevin, who's really into science and math:
Alex: I just realized I'm gonna be dating the male version of you.
Riley: That's a good thing, right?
In Shortpacked!, Robin sleeps with Jake Manley, who is pretty much an opposite sex clone, during a Cadbury Egg Cereal binge. After she snaps out of it, she realizes he is completely annoying and promptly breaks things off.
- In Dumbing Of Age, Danny begins to crush on Amber shortly after breaking up with Dorothy. When the pair run into Dorothy as well as Danny's friend Joe he's immediately Squicked by how similar the two girls look. (Admittedly not identical, but with the same basic body and hair design.)
In Khaos Komix, Amber briefly dates Mark and it's made clear by her mental comparisons of him to her friend Nay that she agreed to date him mainly because he looked somewhat like a male version of the girl she secretly had a crush on.
In one storyline of Bobwhite, Ivy breaks it off with a guy (one day after meeting him) because he's essentially a male version of her friend Marlene.

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