A trope common in Romantic Comedies and Teen Comedies, in which a dorky (not necessarilyugly, just... geeky) guy ends up with the totally hot babe. Generally, at the beginning of the story, the geek begins the story as an outcast whom the beautiful girl would never be attracted to. He may be a band geek, or a scientist with all the social graces of a tube worm, or a D&D player who still lives in his mom's basement. And through the course of the story, she begins to see through his spaz-like exterior to the decent, love-worthy man within.
Often, the guy will be smitten with the girl the first time he sees her. She, on the other hand, won't be attracted at first, and will often fight the attraction later on in the story. Eventually, despite whatever Three's Company-style misunderstanding crops up (and it will; you can count on it) she comes to realize that there is more to the geek than his pocket protector and love will bloom. It is neverLove at First Sight for the babe, in any case.
Related to Ugly Guy, Hot Wife, and subject to the same Double Standard, since gender inversions are practically non-existent; there may be more to the male geek than his pocket protector, but for women, looks are all that should matter. If a Hollywood Homely geek girl (or Hollywood Homely non-geek girl, for that matter) sets her sights on a hot guy, she might be able to make afew slightalterations, (although the glasses might not have to go) but it's more likely she'll just be the Abhorrent Admirer who makes him run away in terror. Also extremely rare is the male geek that actually considers a similarly geeky girl. This holds even for works aimed at a female audience, and therefore any nerdy girl will eventually be revealed to be Beautiful All Along.
Compare Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl and Nerd Nanny. See Nerds Are Sexy and Geeky Turn-On for when the attraction isn't despite nerdiness, but because of it. Contrasts with All Girls Want Bad Boys. Often overlaps with Just Friends.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
The ending of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt has "Geek Boy" Brief finally having sex with Panty. It helps that he turns out to be Beautiful All Along. However, after the final battle, their relationship seems to be the same (IE he's still the No Respect Guy), though at least Panty starts using his name.
Peter Parker. By all accounts an average-looking guy who is incredibly nerdy, he still managed to date three bombshells before marrying a supermodel.
This hasn't gone uncommented — Pete's friend Johnny Storm (otherwise known as The Human Torch) has pointed out the sheer number of gorgeous women that Spidey has dated, including Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, and the Black Cat (although Black Cat is more about Spidey than Peter).
He's also recently caught the attention of Ms. Marvel.
His cause is helped by the fact that most artists post-Steve Ditko have given him a significant amount of male polish.
Also lampshaded in the Ultimate Universe. When the Johnny Storm tells Peter that he met a hot girl from the world of Spider-Man, Peter starts listing off every super powered female he'd ever run into. Much to the annoyance of Gwen Stacy and the envy of Johnny and Bobby.
Amadeus Cho, the 7th smartest person on Earth (as verified by a soap company - oh, and Reed Richards). Managed to win the heart of a Perky Goth Amazon Gorgon girl.
It must be noted that the looks are inverted, as the aforementioned Amazon Gorgon got her looks from Medusa, while Cho is always drawn quite handsomely.
Louis: 'cause all jocks think about is sports. All we ever think about is sex.
To be fair, she falls for him as a consecuence of him giving her really good sex, so it may be a subversion.
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: The geeky, unmacho Nick gets the girl, naturally. (Inverted in the book, where she is somewhat dowdy while he is compared to a gay porn star.)
In the American Pie films, Jim Levenstein and Michelle Flaherty fit this trope. While it's true that Michelle is also a geek (specifically, a band geek), she's a sexed-out band geek played by Alyson Hannigan.
Partially subverted in-universe though- Jim initially dismissed Michelle for her [[Adorkable dorkiness.]] whereas she seems to have chosen him at least partly by physical attraction.
Complete geeks Evan and Seth end up with hotties Becca and Jules in Superbad.
In Can't Buy Me Love, nerd Ronald Miller ends up with cheerleader Cindy Mancini.
Weird Science: Gary and Wyatt get the girls with the help of Lisa, their artificial woman.
In his movies, Woody Allen has dated or been married to Téa Leoni, Goldie Hawn, Helena Bonham Carter, Elizabeth Shue, Julia Roberts and Mira Sorvino, among others. Of course, given his string of real-life wives, this could also be a case of fiction imitating reality.
Has there ever been a film starring Adam Sandler or Jack Black where this trope didn't apply?
Tenacious D.
School of Rock.
The 2008 Get Smart movie has Maxwell Smart (played by professional nerd Steve Carrell) and gorgeous bombshell Agent 99 (played by authentic hotness Anne Hathaway) hook up.
2009's I Love You Beth Cooper. High school valedictorian stalker nerd with enormous nose meets up with Hayden Panettiere as Beth Cooper. Nuff said!
Sideways. Lampshaded by Paul Giamatti's long monologue comparing different types of wines.
Subverted in A Cinderella Story in that by the end, the Alpha Bitch is willing to give the geek a chance - but he chooses the weird, purple-haired announcer girl.
Not to mention the real reason why she wanted to get with him was after he starred in that commercial and became popular. Earlier, after they had kissed during the ball and when she found out she had actually kissed him, she promptly expressed her disgust.
In Where The Heart Is, Natalie Portman's character falls for the "library guy".
Hilariously subverted in National Lampoon's Stoned Age, when the nerd is, and is called a complete moron by everyone, watches his dream girl marry his jock older brother, and when the girl is kidnapped by a rival tribe and his own tribe runs away, the nerd goes through the trouble of trying to rescue his beloved, only to find out that she's staying with the rival chief, because he's manlier than her brother, and provided her with furs, jewelry and food.
Also, he has guaranteed sex with a tribe of hot amazons, but naturally, he fucks it up. In the end though, the nerd doesn't die a virgin, because he had sex with a monkey,
Applied with irony in Ghostbusters. Geeky accountant Louis Tully is often hitting on pretty cellist Dana Barrett, despite Dana's constant hints that she wants absolutely nothing to do with him. However, once they're both possessed, they merge the key and the gate.
In the sequel Louis and the Ghostbusters' Sassy Secretary Janine Melnitz end up babysitting Oscar and, after some wine and pizza, start making out on the couch.
Played very straight with Hiccup in How to Train Your Dragon. He's smitten with Astrid first thing, but she hates him until she finds out his mindblowingly cool secret and, more importantly, how brave and principled a warrior he actually is.
In Back to the Future, sci-fi writing and socially inept George McFly gets the girl, though with a bit of help from his time traveling son.
Although, he still managed to get together with Lorraine originally even without the help of his future son. The difference being, due to Marty's involvement, was how they got together, ultimately ending up improving their lives drastically, which Marty discovered upon returning to 1985.
Cruelly, cruelly subverted in Wet Hot American Summer with Katie and Coop. Though she seems to warm up to him and even confesses her love for him, at the very end of the movie she rejects him for the hot Jerk Ass Andy, telling Coop that she really likes him, but she just wants to have sex with a hot guy and she doesn't care if he treats her like crap.
Neurotic, geeky Columbus and hot "bad girl"-type Wichita in Zombieland are a pretty textbook example, although it probably helps that he may be the only guy her age left after the zombie apocalypse.
In The New Guy the geeky and socially awkward Dizzy ends up with head cheerleader Danielle.
Josh Rosen, a high school film geek, decides to make a domcumentary about high school popularity and chooses Dylan Schoenfield, the most popular girl in school, as his subject. Over the coarse of making the film he discovers the real Dylan and she begins to see that Josh is the one for her, in the disneychannel movie "Geek Charming", based on the book of the same name.
Literature
In The Hunt for Red October, it is stated that Jones, the sonar technician of the USS Dallas, because of his nerdy looks and knowledge, gets enough action on the beach to "wear down a squad of marines".
Oliver Tyler, a former nuclear submarine officer (retired after losing most of his left leg) and computer nerd, though also a former American football player, has "five and two-thirds" children with his wife, "making up" for lost time while a submariner.
The latter bit about a male geek never pursuing a female geek is subverted in the later book, The Cardinal of the Kremlin. Major Gregory, a huge geek and the head of the book's US SDI program is in a relationship with another, female geek, who specializes in mirrors, which Major Gregory uses in his laser defense system. A match made in Heaven. If the universe, a certain jealous lesbian, and the Russians didn't conspire against them, that is. It all turns out fine in the end, though.
In Paper Towns, Ben and Lacey, and Quentin and Margo to a lesser extent.
Reversed with Ron and Hermione. By Prince, Ron's technically a jock, and Hermione's still a geek.
Another gender-inverted example is good-looking, popular athlete Calvin and bookish, frumpy Meg from Madeline L'Engle's Time Quartet who eventually get married. (Although A Swiftly Tilting Planet implies that Meg, like her Hot Scientistmother, grew up quite nicely from her 'awkward geek' teenage years.)
Live Action TV
In One Tree Hill the character of Mouth who used to be geeky comic relief involved into a full-fledged character. Mouth throughout the years has not not only became one of the more popular kids but is also given plenty of hot girlfriends, one being an office affair with his boss.The writer admits that he feels a lot of sympathy towards kids like Mouth and even claimed the character resembles himself in some ways.
And now Mouth is in a relationship with Millicent (who's somewhat geeky herself)
Hot bimbo Leeta and total dork/technical genius Rom in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Even other characters don´t understand.
The Drew Carey Show, with Drew and just about every woman he dates, with a few exceptions like Wanda Sykes, and the much-older Shirley Jones. See also the page quote, from one of his standup routines.
Jerry Seinfeld regularly brought home supermodels on Seinfeld.
One could at least argue a funnyman with a reasonably successful career could do well. George Costanza on the other hand...?
When asked how George could get so many attractive women, Jason Alexander put it down to persistence (indeed in one episode, George's persistence makes one woman who previously wasn't interested at all want to date him).
And of course there's Kramer, an unemployed, slightly shady Cloud Cuckoo Lander who woos women (including nuns and lesbians) into his embrace with the power of Kavorka.
The entire premise of the live-action Japanese series Densha Otoko which chronicles the attempts of a weakling, nerdy, geeky, otaku-type guy who is trying to date a beautiful woman with the assistance of a messaging board on the internet, after he saved her from a drunk guy on a train. Based on a real story.
Later reversed when Marcy married the amazingly hot Jefferson Darcy
This was, in fact, the central gimmick of the 1992 FOX series Flying Blind, in which Neil, a shy, repressed nebbish played by Corey Parker, somehow fell into a mutually fulfilling relationship with Alicia, an incredibly hot bohemian woman played by Tea Leoni. The series slightly bucked the trope by keeping the couple unmarried, which allowed the constant implicit tension of the possibility that Alicia would come to her senses and leave him.
On Stargate SG-1, Daniel Jackson has the best romantic record in the group. He picked up a wife in the original film, and also spent over 50 years with Vala in the finale.
Rodney and Jennifer Keller in Stargate Atlantis. When he takes Keller to a science presentation on Earth, his colleagues initially think she's his (also attractive) sister.
On the flight back, she is the one who suggests they join the Mile-High Club, although it could've just been to shut him up.
Chandler and Monica on Friends. What makes this interesting is that Phoebe and Rachael act as if Chandler is far beneath Monica, casually mentioning that Monica "could do better" or even at one point trying to set her up with other men. Note that they are both supposedly Chandler's friends too.
Given Chandler's self-esteem record, he'd probably agree with them. At one point, they had to talk him into approaching a beautiful woman:
Which is odd, considering Chandler is considered, in universe, the funniest of the friends, is the most successful, and is hardly unattractive. He's the catch of the entire cast by any standard.
Smallville has a rare male-hottie/female geek version of this trope with Chloe Sullivan and her crush on Clark.
And then they bring it back to make geek/female hottie with her relationship with Jimmy Olsen.
Charlie and Amita on NUMB3RS. It's true she's a computer geek, but she's a smoking hot computer geek.
Chuck and Sarah (and Jill) on Chuck. Granted, he's Hollywood Homely / a Hollywood Nerd, but still he's an ubergeek with a dead-end job at a big-box electronics retailer...
Although Jill is also really geeky.
Arguably inverted in Sabrina the Teenage Witch with Sabrina and Harvey. It's true that the pretty, blonde, funny, Sabrina is practically the poster girl for Cool Loser but she does have a lot of dorky interests (science, maths, high school journalism...). Harvey on the other is a popular jock (though not a jerk).
This is reversed in the animated series, where Harvey is a nerdy weirdo... who has girls fighting over him anyway.
In CSI: New York it's a partial inversion as female geek hottie Lindsay ends up with male hottie Danny.
The Reality ShowBeauty And The Geek reinforced why this could be Truth in Television. By the end of the show first season, many of the Beauties were gushing about how their Geek was one of the best guys they'd ever met, when only one or two of said Geeks were conventionally good looking (though, admittedly, none of them were particularly gruesome either). One "beauty" and one "geek" had a brief romance during their season.
Leonard and Penny. However, in earlier seasons, Leonard was paired with the equally geeky Leslie Winkle, but it's Penny he's fixated on. They're currently in full-on Will They or Won't They? mode.
Averted with Howard Wolowitz, the show's resident Casanova Wannabe who regularly strikes out with most of the hot babes he tries to pick up, before hooking up with the utterly adorkable Bernadette.
In 3rd Rock from the Sun, Officer Don Orville (A really big dork of a small town police officer) ends up with Sally Solomon, who is supermodel beautiful. Ironically, she loves him because she thinks he's everything he says he is, despite the fact that as a professional soldier, she should be able to tell he's not. Or perhaps it's just the fact that whenever the two are alone, the tone of the show switches to Film Noir.
Plus they figured out that he has to always be in uniform too.
Primeval has Connor and Abby. N erdy, awkward Connor Temple and hot, ass-kicking Abby Maitland.
Averted in No Ordinary Family. Bailey is genuinely interested in JJ, but he only wants fellow geek Natalie.
On 15/Love Rick was socially inept Butt Monkey. Cassidy was a very attractive British tennis star. To be fair, Rick was at least physically attractive and her interest in him was a combination of this and Geeky Turn-On.
Sav Bandhari on Degrassi tends to be a bit socially awkward, but ends up having a rather storied love life.
Liberty and Toby were both this trope in the earlier seasons too, although Toby was gradually Demoted to Extra.
The song "The Geek Gets The Girl" by American Hi-Fi is made of this trope.
Played with in David Bowie's Short FilmJazzin' for Blue Jean. His Adorkable protagonist Vic, who tells his frosty dream girl a Celebrity Lie about knowing a handsome rock star (also Bowie), loses her to said star, whom she knew all along. At this, Bowie breaks character and objects to the "too obvious" unhappy ending.
Pokemon Diamond And Pearl has a tag-team battle with two NPCs: an Aroma Girl (a Yamato Nadeshiko-type girl) and a Collector (a Type 1 Hollywood Nerd). The pre- and post-combat dialog indicates that they've just recently started a relationship.
In Mass Effect 2, a male Shepard can romance the quarian machinist (i.e. engineer) Tali. In the game's prequel, a Shepard of either gender can romance the asari scientist Liara. Of course, Shepard can be played as a bit of a geek himself (especially an engineer Shepard).
Web Original
In Thalia's Musings, Hephaestus tries to invoke this in his marriage to Aphrodite. It doesn't work. After his divorce, he inverts the trope by falling for Aglaea, a science-obsessed demigoddess who's had a crush on him for awhile.
Gerald and Phoebe from Hey Arnold! is one of those rare moments that the girl is the "geek" in question here.
Occasionally played around with for Velma from Scooby-Doo such as later on in Scooby Doo on Zombie Island.
While the writers of the RugratsAll Grown Up! series tried to avoid flat out confirming certain pairings (most likely trying to avert a Broken Base) but Ship Tease did happen nevertheless. One example of a pairing that got Ship Tease that fits with this trope is Chuckie and Angelica. (In which of course has received even more attention from fans in fan work.)
Dr. Walter Hartford of Galaxy Rangers fits a lot of the usual definitions for a geek; highly educated, computer hacker, fast mouth, and fond of pop culture references. Princess Maya didn't think much of him at first, and was more attracted to Gooseman. Then, Doc turned on the charm...made contact with an alien computer that was protecting the planet, and handed a Crown Empire spy his ass in a swordfight. Maya never mentioned Goose again!
Doug: Athletic Patti and the clumsy, shy, Adorkable title character.
Subverted in Daria, and also inverted - the geek doesn't give the popular girl a chance, at least not when it comes to a relationship: In Is It Fall Yet, Quinn, Daria's beautiful and popular sister, falls for her geeky tutor. She asks him out, believing that she is playing straight this trope, but he tells her that he's not interested in her because she's shallow.
Real Life
Netscape founder Jim Clark is married to a supermodel.
Filmmaker and self-professed comic book/sci fi geek Kevin Smith and his wife Jennifer, who is absolutely gorgeous. In fact, Smith wrote in his book that he fervently hopes their daughter Harley grows to be as tall and shapely as her mother, thus sparing her from what he goes through with his weight.
Smith also theorized that geeky and/or chubby men are better catches, as they're much more willing to go the extra mile for a woman.
Batman:The Animated Series writer Paul Dini is married to a very lovely magician named Misty Lee whose resemblance to Zatanna is downright uncanny.
Bill Gates once said, "Be nice to nerds, because chances are you'll end up working for one."
Mistress Matisse's column in the Seattle Stranger mentions that geeks and nerds make up a frighteningly large percentage of the kink community, and advises those looking to mingle among them brush up on their Robert A. Heinlein and watch some of Joss Whedon's work.
