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I hope this movie never has a sequel, because Jon and Sara are destined to become the most boring married couple in history. For years to come, people at parties will be whispering, "See that couple over there? The Tragers? Jon and Sara? Whatever you do, don't ask them how they met."
Roger Ebert's review of ''Serendipity, a movie consisting only of Meet Cutes.

Two characters, a man and a woman, meet. The circumstances are none of the typical ways couples meet. There's something cutesy about it. Possibly they have an instant dislike for one another. Maybe they crash into each other in a hallway and papers fly about. Maybe one of them has been shopping for ISO Standard Urban Groceries and trips over the other walking down the street. Perhaps mistaken identity or other wacky misunderstanding is involved. Sometimes someone is naked or in an otherwise embarrassing situation.

Meet Cute is a subtrope of Boy Meets Girl, a way to quickly introduce two characters and set up their burgeoning relationship. A meet-cute is almost always rife with awkwardness, embarrassment, and sometimes outright hostility. It's often used in films, particularly the Romantic Comedy, due to time constraints; while on television a relationship can develop more naturally over many episodes, a movie has to get their couple set up right away to fit within 2 hours. Meet-cute is also a staple of shojo anime and manga, and may happen multiple times over the course of an Unwanted Harem story.

There is no clear cut definition of what constitutes meeting cute. One criterion is that it's not any way you or anyone you've ever known has met a significant other. A crucial indicator is that it makes you roll your eyes and wonder if there's a viewer alive who doesn't see where this is going — but then, it's not really intended to be subtle.

Meeting cute after the first episode of a TV series is often looked down on; it's a dead giveaway that these two will be a couple, and usually indicates that the writers are heavily invested in the couple. Chances are, they won't be willing to let go if the fans don't care for the pairing.

Television writers should probably take note that the most popular TV 'ships generally do not meet cute. They develop more naturally as characters who interact organically are found to share chemistry. Couples that meet cute tend to develop forced-down-your-throat, inauthentic, and annoying relationships.


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