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alt title(s): Love Is Oblivious; My Crush Is Oblivious
Love Hurts, it's messy and a mathematical nightmare where only a few can come out happy, never mind unscathed. One of its worst injuries is perhaps the plainest one... pining away at someone because All Love Is Unrequited, and in the end never even holding them because I Want My Beloved To Be Happy.
Then, there's times a deep frozen love life is not because of Star Crossed Lovers, the pursued Love Interest being the Master Of The Mixed Message or any such thing. It's because they simply don't notice the protagonist's overtures. Bob likes Alice, and he makes several increasingly obvious hints that he's interested, he'd like to ask her out, and wants to be her boyfriend. Alice (though gender reversals are common) will usually be oblivious enough that his stuttering overtures aren't heard or followed up on, and on top is usually blind to Bob as a love interest because she either sees him as a brother, believes she is unworthy of love and assumes she's misunderstanding his intentions, or he never blips her romantic radar to begin with. Deep, deep denial also is a possibility.
Expect Alice to say things like "I wish there were someone out there for me" and Bob to respond with "He might be closer than you think." Of course, she'll think he's being vaguely hopeful rather than literal. Alice is usually either looking for someone or already seeing someone (let's call him Charlie), Charlie may or may not be the right guy for her, but that's secondary to her being oblivious to Bob trying very hard to get her attention.
If Charlie is the wrong guy, Bob will win Alice's heart in the end. If he's the right guy, then expect Bob to either hook up with whoever he was ignoring or suddenly be revealed as a psycho slimeball.
If Alice really is attracted and doesn't realize it, Tsundere behavior may result, or she may treat Bob as her Protectorate, or ensure that he's fed.
This is commonplace in the Love Dodecahedron, and is a type 5 in Triang Relations. It also overlaps with Everyone Can See It. It is also prevalent in boys love and (especially) girls love works, where it is often mixed with confusion about one's feelings for someone of the same gender. Compare It Meant Something To Me, where Bob overtly says he loves Alice, but she denies having any feelings.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club, whose obliviousness to other people's feelings towards her has led to many accidental "Just Friends" speeches, usually when the person with a crush on her was about to give a love confession.
- Tamaki from the same anime takes this trope to its logical extreme. He is oblivious to his own feelings towards Haruhi and thinks that his constant fawning over her can only mean that he thinks of her as a daughter.
- Which leads to a Crowning Moment Of Funny in the manga when he does figure it out, as he has a temporary Heroic BSOD due to now thinking he's an incestuous pervert for liking his "daughter".
- Sakura of Card Captor Sakura, who somehow missed the very obvious affections of her lesbian best friend and constantly blushing rival until one of them explicitly said that they love her in that way at the end of the series.
- Towards the beginning, her lesbian best friend also explicitly told her that she loved her; Sakura interpreted it as "I love you as a friend". Recognizing the rival's confession as romantic love was actually Character Development in that area.
- The Megami Sound Stages of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha portray Nanoha as this in regards to Yuuno. For example, she misinterprets his worries and wishes to protect her for inferior battle tactics.
- Kasumi seems totally unaware that Dr. Tofu is totally infatuated with her in Ranma ½. Although given that Dr. Tofu basically flips out when he so much as hears Kasumi's voice, has been doing this at least since she hit puberty, and neither Ranma nor Akane want to tell her why the good doctor does so, it's quite plausible that she sincerely doesn't know what the deal is.
- And her sister Akane is even worse in relation to Ryoga.
- That might actually be less obliviousness and more deliberately ignoring. The one time Ryoga did manage to get her on an actual date, he scared the living daylights out of her, almost killing her several times due to his inability to control his strength when emotional, and chasing her around completely oblivious to the panic he was putting her in. It's possible that little incident made it perfectly clear to her what his feelings for her are... but she keeps up the "Ryoga, in love with me? Don't be absurd." act because she's that afraid of what might happen if she starts acting as though he has a chance with her.
- The titular character of Naruto somehow never manages to realize that Hyuuga Hinata's constant blushing, stammering, and fainting around him 'might' hint at her having a massive crush on him.
- Well, he knows NOW. Granted, she almost literally had to scream
 it out loud at the top of her lungs... While saving his ass from The Dragon by attacking him. It couldn't have been more blatant if she'd carved it into his forehead. Not that it seems to have changed the situation in any way whatsoever.
- Sakura looked pretty surprised when Sai had to tell herthat Naruto is in love with her. How she missed all the hints of Naruto loving her is also a huge mystery...
- Kurosaki Ichigo, from Bleach still hasn't noticed the fact that Inoue Orihime is in love with him. It doesn't help that like Hinata above, Orihime has never come out and said it to him, well, the one time she technically did, he was unconscious.
- Train from Black Cat, being the Chaste Hero he is, is very oblivious of a lot of character's feelings for him. Though he's especially this way with Creed, who is unbelievably outright about his scary obsessive love for him. In the manga, after all these years, Train is shown to still be incapable of understanding what possible reason Creed would have for killing Saya. There's even a scene where Creed tells Train that he would at least want to have Train by his side even as a dead body rather than have Saya have him. When other characters are creeped out by this, Train dismisses it by telling them to ignore him, and that Creed is simply being selfish and weird. Missing the point, no?
- Hayate from Hayate The Combat Butler is very oblivious to pretty much all the character's love for him. And Maria, Hayate's crush, is completely oblivious to his feelings for her.
- Not to mention Isumi being completely oblivious to Wataru's crush on her... or Wataru not noticing Saki and Sonia's crushes on him... in fact, the only person who isn't oblivious to their crush's feelings is the Mad Scientist, who ends up dating her crush. Which is a robot.
- To make his feelings for Isumi worse, she thinks he likes Nagi.
- Wataru is aware of Sonia's feelings for him. Very, very aware. In addition, it appears Sakuya and Aika have developed feelings for Wataru as well. And a recently translated chapter of the manga has Wataru taking Saki what looks and feels like a date. This causes havoc with Saki's feelings, while in truth Wataru is trying to broach the topic of Saki's "adulterous affair" (never ask the Nishizawa siblings for advice). Ironically, the whole thing started when Wataru obliviously made Saki jealous by commenting how pretty Aika was.
- Wataru is probably keenly aware of the affections the girls around him have. He's not as clueless as Hayate is about these things.
- Hayate is pretty much oblivious full stop.
- Hayate is very much in love with Athena, much more so than any other character, even Maria. She may even be the reason why he is so oblivious, or rather unaccepting, of anyone else.
- More accurately, after the failure of his relationship with Athena, because of his parents, he considers himself to be an unfit boyfriend for anyone.
- While she made him think he was unfit to be anyone's boyfriend, one has to wonder how he applies what she taught him to even consider the two of them to be a couple. "Be able to support her." How would he do that for any of them? The only one who isn't rich is Ayumu.
- Hayate clearly knows that Nishizawa likes him, and yet he still treats her like before she confessed.
- He's made it clear to Maria that he likes her, unless she's as oblivious as he is.
- Negi Springfield of Mahou Sensei Negima is utterly oblivious that a number of his students are in love with him, only picking up on it when they just tell him to his face. Somewhat justified by the fact that he's too young to know what's going on, and several of his students (especially Chisame) point out just how blind he is to anything involving romance and note that this is going to lead to a lot of trouble in the future.
- This directly leads to a rather nasty predicament involving Negi (magically aged up, pretending to be his own cousin) inadvertently leading on one of his students. Understandably, he freaks out when he finds out what's going on.
- Chisame, upon seeing Negi's natural charm and general good nature combined with his future handsome self, comments that he's going to be a heartbreaker when he gets older, and that they ought to kill him now and spare future girls the heartache.
- There seems to be some dispute over whether Konoka is completely clueless over Setsuna's feelings for her, a downright sadistic tease, or making subtle overtures 'Set-chan' is too dense to realise are intentional.
- Now that those 'subtle overtures' include enthusiastically slipping her tongue in during their very, very long pactio kiss, Setsuna might have figured it out.
- Early in the series, Konoka directly tells Negi that she wasn't ready to be in a relationship with anyone. Judging by a recent chapter, her earlier behavior was simply playing dumb until she decided she was ready.
- By this point, the relationship has more or less inverted; Konoka obviously likes Setsuna in that way, but Setsuna is still stuck in "I'm just her bodyguard!" mode.
- And now in Ch. 269 we see that Negi apparently got it from his mother Arika, who for someone so intelligent was still unable to tell Nagi had feelings for her until he flat-out stated it to her.
- Subverted in Magic Knight Rayearth where it seems that Umi is unaware of Ascot the Summoner's feelings for her. It becomes apparent that she knows, she'd just rather stay friends and not talk about it.
- Otani from Lovely Complex. Not only is he initially completely oblivious to Koizumi being head over heels in love with him, even writing off an outright declaration of love from her as a joke, but he also doesn't realize that his childhood friend Mimi is also madly in love with him, which makes Koizumi express sympathy for her own romantic rival for having to deal with Otani's denseness for the longest time.
- Himawari from XXX Holic appears very oblivious to Watanuki's obvious affection for her, turning it up when he gets more direct. Though this may be a rather rare instance of being a Subversion in which she actually DOES know it, but chooses to ignore it out of fear that her bad luck will bring harm to him.
- Kyoko of Katekyo Hitman Reborn is painfully oblivious of Tsuna's crush on her, despite everyone else in the series knowing about it.
- In Kanon, Yuuichi has been doing this regarding Nayuki's feelings for seven years straight. Probably the only reason that she hasn't given up or decided that he wasn't worth the trouble was because he'd already gone through too much at the time of the revelation. Indeed, in the end he realizes that his own amnesia is also caused by Selective Obliviousness— he wanted to forget the town where he "lost" Ayu.
- Kyon from Suzumiya Haruhi, despite being told several times by Koizumi (who openly and exasperatedly states that he can't believe Kyon still doesn't get it) about his importance to Haruhi, despite her hitting him with clues as subtle as a brick, despite him kissing her in closed space being the only thing that makes her want to return to the real world, still insists he has absolutely no idea why Haruhi gets so upset every time he acts too familiar with other girls. Partly on account that Kyon is an Unreliable Narrator, and partly because he's very good at putting walls up in his mind around things he doesn't want to think about.
- An example is during the seventh volume when he wonders if the reason Haruhi is a bit downcast is problems in her love life. Immediately he kills this train of thought and spends several paragraphs convincing himself that's ridiculous/trying to laugh it off. Denial? Doesn't want to think about it? Oh yes.
- In one scene Haruhi becomes overly emotional and nearly beats him up when she thinks he wrote Yuki a love letter. How much clearer can it get?
- One thumpingly obvious example from the anime is when Haruhi disappears at lunchtime after being thanked for by the band for helping them. Kyon wolfs down his lunch and then tells us he went for a walk to help digest it and definitely no other reason whatsoever, no way, not at all and certainly not to see if she's all right.
- Wilhelm Schultz in Allison And Lillia manages to remain completely unaware of his childhood friend Allison's feelings for him, in spite of his Hyper Awareness and Photographic Memory. Until she pins him down and forces him to kiss/marry her, anyway. In the second half, his daughter Lillia can also be like this, though it's exacerbated by the fact that the people around her help to keep it that way.
- Hikari from Special A is utterly unable to separate "rival" and "lover" in her mind, and despite the most obvious hints from Kei (even a kiss and Kei attempting to get a date with her), she continues to be blindly ignorant of this. Yet everyone else around them seems to have caught on.
- Hidamari Sketch has an expanded version, in that everyone tiptoes around Sae's quite obvious crush on Hiro—even when Sae goes into a barely concealed fit of jealousy when Hiro gets a love letter from a boy.
- Let's say, Sae doesn't even understand what's being popular with boys...
- Natsume's feelings for Sae also fit this trope. C'mon, does she have to jump her object of affection before anyone notices it?
- Kaze No Stigma neatly subverts this. Kazuma almost certainly knows Ayano likes him and is willing to go on missions with her if paid by her father, who is trying to invoke Bodyguard Crush on him.
- In the Girls Love Manga, Girl Friends, Akko is completely oblivious to Mari's affections despite twice being kissed by her, and hearing what should have been a love declaration. Mari is likewise oblivious to Akko's affections although Mari hasn't seen as much evidence of those feelings.
- Akko's actions could often be seen as flirtatious though (sexy bathing pics, anyone?), but Akko downplays them by claiming that "it is what girls do". Uh-huh...
- In the Hen manga, popular Chizuru couldn't have been more obvious with her crush on Yamada, what with her blushing, sweating, stammering and even outright telling Yamada that she loves her. Yamada keeps treating Chizuru as a friend (albeit a weird one), even after Chizuru's very transparent attempt to steal a kiss from her—that is, until Chizuru pratically explodes in a dramatic public love confession.
- Sousuke is this for the majority of Full Metal Panic. He's shown to be completely oblivious to Kaname's affections and jealousy over him, and only starts returning her feelings later (and even then, possibly because he was never in love before, he didn't even realize he was in love). And Tessa, who was incredibly aggressive in her pursuit of him? Pretty much all of her advances went right over his head (including an instance where he misunderstood an incredibly direct love confession as her telling him she loves alcohol). In the novels, he's also shown to be oblivious to Nami's feelings for him, despite the rest of Nami's crew constantly trying to get it into his head that she's in love with him and pair them up.
- In the case of him and Tessa, he turns his obliviousness to love Up To Eleven. There are the numerous occassions where Kurz and Mao try to tease Sousuke and get him to realize Tessa likes him (Mao: "Hey Sousuke, Tessa was especially worried about you." Sousuke: "Worried about me?... oh, of course. Undoubtedly, the mission going smoothly would be very important to her." Mao: "That's not what I meant..."), along with that Anguished Declaration Of Love she gave him. How the heck he manages to misunderstand even that opens up the possibility that he might possibly be Obfuscating Obliviousness To Love... considering that he has shown moments where he underlyingly acknowledges some awareness of her feelings.
- In the World War Two Girls Love manga Kurogane Pukapuka Tai, Commander Kuki acts wholly obliviously to the wholly obvious attraction of her XO, Mamiya; even when she's told about it, she responds, "Don't be ridiculous! It is not possible between women!" She gets really flustered when women make advances on her, though, suggesting that the obliviousness may be denial rather than cluelessness ... at least sometimes.
- Pokemon: Ash, Ash, Ash. Numerous Characters of the day and one especially long-lasting traveling companion have had obvious feelings for him, and he's remained the Chaste Hero since you could count the number of episodes on your hands.
- Like Red is any better. Even by the end of the Emerald arc he remains blissfully unaware that Yellow and Misty see him as more than a "friend" at times (though the end of the GSC arc indicates that this is intentional obliviousness on his part, as dealing with romance makes him very uncomfortable.) Ruby, on the other hand, is aware of Sapphire's feelings for him (and vice versa) but chooses to "forget" them... and it drives her up a wall.
- Naru in Love Hina falls into this with regards to her feelings for Keitaro. Later on, it is more a case of willful denial.
- Yurika Misamaru in Martian Successor Nadesico not only refuses to accept that Akito Tenkawa is not head-over-heels in love with her, but does it so convincingly that Akito eventually does fall in love with her. Yurika, being a tactical genius, probably had it planned out that way from the very beginning.
- Kyohei and Sunako from The Wallflower absolutely refuse to even entertain the thought that they're in love with eachother- Sunako going as far as to say 'Love is an illusion' and Kyohei using the excuse that he 'loves her food'- and this is after they've kissed twice, saved eachother countless times and had the entire cast calling them out on UST and feelings-so much that at this point of the manga everyone is convinced they are in love/together. EVERYONE. EXCEPT. THEIR STUPID SELVES.
- Suetake from Doki Doki School Hours absolutely fails to recognize that his (male) classmate Kudo has a major crush on him. Of course, Suetake is quite dumb, but Kudo doesn't really keep it a secret, so everybody else knows.
- Ami in Toradora is very very transparent with how she feels about Ryuji, dropping incredibly obvious hints ("I would be your equal in a relationship") but since she never actually says anything outright, Ryuji is oblivious. So is the rest of the cast...
- In Saki, Nodoka forms quite a crush on Saki, to the point that it has a negative influence on her Mahjong-playing abilities. Most everyone in the mahjong club seems to realize this—except for Saki herself.
- Shunsuke from Yuria 100 Shiki has no clue that Yuria likes him despite how hard she tries to take care of him, not to mention her constant attempts to have sex with him.
- Boa Hancock from One Piece is (extremely obviously) in love with main protagonist Monkey D. Luffy, yet is too shy to say it outright. He has no idea whatsoever.
- Luffy is somewhat... shall we say, dumb as a brick. Hancock mis-interprets this as him playing hard to get.
- Bijou from Hamtaro has a crush on the title character, who thinks of her as being just another member of his family of friends, while not noticing Boss's crush on her; she attributes the attention he pays her to simple generosity.
- In Ayashi No Ceres, Aya becomes flustered when Tooya kisses her, she falls asleep in his arms, and STILL his stoicism prevails. He does realize his feelings for her a couple of episodes later, but it takes longer—and is played straighter—in the manga.
- In Kampfer, Natsuru is probably one of THE most oblivious people when it comes to love. Only loves a Shallow Love Interest and he still has three people going crazy for him. He STILL doesn't even know about it.
- As of the last episode, he doesn't seem entirely oblivious, enough to choose them over getting them killed. But he still lusts after the girl who explicitly tried to kill them and mind controlled him for good measure.
- In Simoun, Aer (Aaeru?) falls under this. At the start, she has no idea why anyone would want to kiss someone else if they weren't about to pilot a Simoun.
- Nanako Yamamoto, a teacher at Hanamaru Kindergarten is described as having a world-record level ability for not noticing when men are interested in her.
- Goku in Dragon Ball probably takes the cake. Chi-Chi develops a crush on him right after meeting him, and he fails to pick up on it, and when she asks if he'll marry her he has no idea what she's talking about.
- Judia in the dub of Yugioh GX with Asuka, because there are some added hints of her feelings for him in the dub that make him a complete dunce for not picking up on them, most notably when she tells him what a marriage is (because he didn't know), she says "it means friendship, at least for now big guy." Note in the original she just called him an idiot.
Comic Books
- Peanuts: Charlie Brown and Marcie. He's understandably intimidated by Peppermint Patty's overtures, but has yet to notice Marcie; who I think we can all agree would be a better fit for him than just about any other girl he knows.
- Let's not forget Charlie and the Little Red-Headed Girl, who probably doesn't even know he exists.
- Rampant throughout the post-Zero Hour Legion Of Super Heroes comics, and probably at least some of the other versions as well. XS in particular is known for developing intense crushes on characters like M'Onel and Cosmic Boy, both of whom are entirely oblivious; meanwhile, XS herself spends a while being completely ignorant of the fact that Dyrk Magz has a crush on her. Eventually she catches on, but they get just about enough time for one date before Dyrk gets Demoted To Extra and then wiped from continuity completely.
- Calvin and Susie Derkins from Calvin And Hobbes. Word Of God says that Calvin and Susie have a mutual crush on each other. Calvin, apparently, either doesn't know about it or doesn't know how to deal with it, so he does his best to gross out and anger Susie, who then always gets mad at him.
- Strangely enough, in the strip it's Hobbes (Calvin's alter ego?) who is attracted to Susie and is always convincing Calvin to go play with her.
- "...So what happened to the mandibles of death, you sissy furball?!?"
- "I was beguiled by her feminine charms. Yow. Go soak your head."
- Most likely Calvin just projects his feelings onto his imaginary friend as a way of dealing with them.
- Spider Girl May Parker was for very long time completly unaware that one of her friends (or more likely, one of her friend's friends), Wess Collins has a crush on her. She was the only person in entire school who didn't knew it. She got better, but it took a very long time.
Film
- Ted the gym manager in Burn After Reading is in love with Linda, who looks everywhere for a man and wants several rounds of cosmetic surgery to improve her odds. In the end, he does something heroically stupid to try and help her.
- This is of course the basic plot of any number of romantic comedies out there.
Literature
- Edgar Rice Burroughs generally had oblivious heroes. Special mention must be made of Tan Hadron, the hero of A Fighting Man of Mars, who actually managed to not realize he was in love with Tavia instead of Sonoma after 1) he had seen beautiful women and the first comparison that had popped to mind was to Tavia, 2) he had been betrayed, and when he realized it was Sonoma and not Tavia, his first words were that he was glad it was not Tavia, and 3) he had taunted Sonoma for her cowardice by saying he had fallen in love with someone else, a slave girl, and someone else had pointed out he had obviously been talking about Tavia. Indeed, he denies it then — although admitting a few days later.
- In Sandy Mitchell's Warhammer 40000 novel Scourge the Heretic, Mordechai is oblivious to the attraction that Keira, another character in the Inquisitor's retinue, feels for him. Partly because it is expressed in a rather truculent manner (until another woman points out to him that it could be attraction), partly because Keira, who was raised in a Sex Is Evil cult, does not realize it herself until she accuses Danuld of wanting to sin with her, and he tells her that he can tell that he doesn't have a chance because of Mordecai.
- In Dorothy L. Sayers's Gaudy Night, when Lord Peter Wimsey is being criticized for how he spends his life, Harriet Vane snaps back: perhaps he catches murderers for fun, but he does it, and he could be killed, and many innocent people have reason to thank him for it. She reflects afterward about what her reaction shows about her own attraction.
- In Graham Mc Neill's Warhammer 40000 Horus Heresy novel Fulgrim, Serena d'Angelus realizes that her Bad Dreams stem from murders she committed and forgot. She seeks out Ostian, thinking he could save her. She finds him murdered, weeps that he loved her and she hadn't seen it, and that she loved him. Then she commits suicide.
- The Star Wars Expanded Universe reveals that Padme's eyepatched bodyguard was in love with her. Naturally she had no idea.
- In Warriors, Firestar somehow never notices Cinderpelt's love for him.
- He wouldn't have noticed that Sandstorm was in love with him either if Cinderpelt hadn't told him.
- To quote the author: "Stooopid man-cat!"
- One story in Mack Reynolds' Section G Spy Fiction In Space had Li Chang Chu abandon subtlety, pointing out to top agent Ronny Bronston that they were alone together in a stateroom with the door locked and no other demands on their time. Particularly funny in that he'd been hot for her about as long as she'd been for him, but didn't think he had a chance — despite being well aware that women found him very attractive. He just didn't realize this woman did, too.
- Robert A Heinlein's Juvenile books often had young male protagonists that were oblivious to girls. They were otherwise intelligent, so either they were just blind to people or just not interested in females. It was often a Wall Banger. However, one of his stories (The Menace From Earth) had a male only oblivious to the protagonist. She was rather upset when he noticed another woman.
- This was a case of Executive Meddling — Alice Dalgleish, children's book editor for Charles Scribners & Sons, had very firm opinions on how much "suggestive" content was "proper" for juvenile novels (absolute zero), and ruthlessly quashed anything Heinlein wrote that even remotely hinted that teenaged males might possibly have a sex drive. Heinlein didn't even try to write romance into his stories until after he changed publishers and stopped writing juveniles. (The Menace From Earth was not first published by Scribners, note.) Also, even though Dalgliesh was an extreme case, virtually no editors in the 40s and 50s would approve anything but the most ultimately chaste romance material for young adult novels.
- In Harry Potter, Ron is totally oblivious to Hermione's feeling for him till Volume Six or so. This is especially apparent in the Fourth Book, when Ron his desperately trying to find a girl to go to the ball with, and suddenly rember that Hermione "is a girl too". Hermione is upset that Ron didn't think about her immediately and she goes with Victor Krum, from the Bulgarian school. At the dance, Ron his angered that Hermione is with Krum, but is totally obvlivious to the REAL reason why he is angry (jealousy). Harry ain't that dumb however. Though he is oblivous to Ginny's feeling until Book Six.
- In the Ravenloft novel Vampire of the Mists, young priest Sasha is oblivious to the huge crush the thief Liesl has on him. He's in love with Katya (who is really The Mole), but once he realizes that Katya is a werewolf...
Live Action TV
- Sonia and Astrov in Uncle Vanya
- My So Called Life: Angela is less oblivious to Brian as Brian never really tells her.
- Unless you count the time he took her to the dance, and suggested they might go off together. In a subversion of the Anguished Declaration Of Love, she is completely disgusted by the idea.
- On the other hand, when she asked him to ride with her, he dumped Delia, then lied about it to Angela. When Angela saw Delia at the dance, the jig was up. In other words, he was just as oblivious to Delia's crush as she was to his. Maybe even more so.
- Seems to be the set up for Barney and Robin in How I Met Your Mother — Barney actually tells Robin that he loves her in "Benefits", but she thinks that he's commenting on Ted's neediness.
- Clark regarding Chloe's feelings for him in Smallville. But under the influence of Red Kryptonite or other forms of Phlebotinum, Kal-El repeatedly taunts her with the truth that Clark just doesn't feel that way for her.
- Niles and Daphne started out this way on Frasier.
- Ross and Rachel during the first season of Friends.
- And the roles are reversed in the second season.
- There are two examples of this in Season One of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Xander develops a huge crush on Buffy, who is oblivious to his advances, while he himself is unaware of Willow's feelings.
- In the Season 5 Angel episode "Smile Time", Wesley is the one who informs Angel that Nina obviously has feelings for him, all while ignoring the hints that Fred loves him. It takes a direct kiss from Fred for Wesley to notice, but he reciprocates quickly.
- In Pushing Daisies, it was a while before Ned twigged that Olive had romantic feelings for him, despite some really blatant flirting on her part in the first episode.
- A psychiatrist on Bones tells Dr Sweets that only one of the Booth/Brennan pairing is aware of their mutual feelings. Since Booth is normally the best with emotions and has shown more signs of being possessive and jealous, we're left to assume that Brennan is the oblivious one. Entirely in keeping with her nature, though.
- It is implied that this may partially be the cause of Mal and Inara's UST in Firefly, at least on Mal's side. The episode "Heart of Gold" very strongly indicates that while Mal is attracted to Inara, he is unaware she is attracted to him.
- It's a fair enough assumption on his part. I mean, let's face it, is there anyone here who wouldn't be attracted to Inara? So it's natural for Mal to assume he's just one of many and she's basically as uninterested in him as she is in Jayne. Well, maybe not quite as uninterested as she is with Jayne, but - you get the idea!
- Star Trek Voyager. Commander Chakotay has subtly hinted a number of times to Captain Janeway that he's attracted to her; she's either oblivious or prefers loneliness to the problems of becoming involved with a subordinate.
- The Doctor to Martha in Doctor Who. He describes to her a device that keeps them hidden from the hypnotised public to her as "It's like when you fancy someone, but they don't even know you exist." He rushes off, and Captain Jack reads her expression: "You too, huh?"
- The X Files. At the end of "Triangle" Mulder flat-out says "I love you" to Scully. Her only response is to mutter an exasperated "Oh brother" and walk off. Admittedly Mulder had just been raving about how he and Scully had just saved the world from the Nazis back in 1939, so Scully clearly felt Mulder had hit his head too hard, not realising it was actually a matter of her hitting Mulder too hard.
- Robin was more or less oblivious to Kate up until the time they got together - and then for most of the time after that as well.
Video Games
- In Metal Gear Solid 3, Big Boss is very oblivious to Ocelot's infatuation with him. EVA, being a Yaoi Fangirl, teases him about how dense he is about it. Even Gene from Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops remarks on how Big Boss "caught Ocelot's eye," prompting Big Boss to ask confusedly what Ocelot has to do with anything. Of course, Big Boss (and others who share his genes) isn't known for being the brightest when it comes to romance...
- Milanor from Yggdra Union has no idea that Kylier has feelings for him. He eventually does find out, but tragically, only after Kylier gives her life to save the party.
- This really doesn't help Tsukihime's Shiki out when you combine it with the Tohno Gland and penchant for attracting only people with superpowers or are dangerously crazy. By Kagetsu Tohya he seems to be at least a little aware, going out of his way to keep people like Ciel in his
unwanted harem focused on him. But still clueless to a baffling extent when you consider the six people in love with him in that story that he doesn't recognize at all.
- Shirou in Fate Stay Night remains comically (or tragically, depending on your point of view) oblivious to Sakura's advances and obvious interest in him for many years. While he does find her attractive, all he wonders is whether or not this makes him a failure as a sempai, combined with the fact that she is the sister of one of his friends.
- Fire Emblem loves this trope with its lords. Both Roy from Fuuin no Tsurugi and Ephraim from The Sacred Stones are fairly oblivious to the affection of their various possible love interests. Ike from Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, however, takes this obliviousness to entirely new levels and never quite gets it despite all the women who have expressed interest in him. There are of course, other explanations
- Played as a game mechanic in Pokemon; some Mons have the trait Oblivious, which prevents the "infatuated" status condition.
- Link in The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is completely unaware of the fact that Princess Ruto believes them to be engaged. Of course, he's completely unaware of the interest of just about every other female character in the game too.
- Why don't really know that because Link is a silent protagonist.
- He's not much more observant in Twilight Princess, either, where both childhood pal Ilia and pint-sized Deadpan Snarker Midna have a thing for him. The closest he gets to catching on with anyone is when he shares a brief hand-holding scene with Princess Zelda...and she doesn't seem to have any real romantic feelings for him in this game.
- Wind Waker Link seems to be a bit less of an idiot, which may make sense, as he's the first Link to have actually seen normal, functioning couples, and returns Tetra/Zelda's affection about as well as a Heroic Mime can. And one could argue that Link not only knows Ilia (and Midna's) feeling, but even reciprocates them. After all, the guy lets a royally important trip get interrupted (and gives the plot time to start) because the girl is mad at him for scratching the horse's leg. Sounds pretty whipped to me.
- In the Backyard Sports series, Marky Dubois is in love with Billy Jean Blackwood. Billy Jean is oblivious to Marky because she believes he has cooties.
- Terranigma has Meilin, who eventually decides that she's in love with Ark. She then proceeds to make overtures to him, only to get (albeit amusingly) shot down because Ark is too busy worrying about Elle.
Meilin: You know, Ark...I have stories to tell, too.
Ark: Look! This is Elle's house!
- Fairly common in the Tales series games with the main protagonist. In Tales of Symphonia, Sheena practically confesses her feelings to Lloyd in one possible scene, and he doesn't realize it. In Tales of the Abyss, Tear falls in love with Luke, and he's the only character in the party that doesn't pick on it (which is saying something since of the characters, Anise, for the most part actually appears to be dumber then Luke). Similar thing with Tales of Legendia, with Chloe having a crush on Senel (which even the game's big idiot Norma notices). Senel at least picks up on Shirly crush for him.
Webcomics
- In Schlock Mercenary, Lt. Elf had a major crush on Captain Tagon, a crush that was obvious to every member of the crew except Tagon. (Pretty much every attempt by Elf to broach the subject was interpreted by the one-track minded - and occasionally stunningly dense - Tagon as referring to their current mercenary job). She eventually gives up on Tagon and hooks up with Second-In-Command and company Mad Scientist, Kevyn.
- In Corner Alley 13, Noelle fails to realize that Tsac has feelings for her.
- Elan, who is a Genre Savvy mix of TheDitz, SpoonyBard and CloudCuckooLander from Order of the Stick, takes hundreds of strips, and dozens of hints, to finally reciprocate Haley's feelings.
- Andrew Smith of Gunnerkrigg Court is an interesting case. He agrees that Parley is "hotter than hell", but because he's either dense or in denial, he mistakes her tsundere-style signs of affection for mockery.
Web Original
- Harry to Ginny in A Very Potter Musical to the point that he tests out a love song for another girl by singing it to Ginny; the result is a Crowning Moment Of Funny.
- The relationship between Marik and Yami Bakura/Florence in Yu Gi Oh The Abridged Series could be seen as this, in an entirely non-serious way (of course). Marik is implied to be gay but oblivious to it throughout the series, and completely fails to understand when Bakura hits on him, leading to many sarcastic comments on Bakura's end. Then, out of nowhere in a bonus video, when Marik is trying to get Bakura to sing Come Sail Away by Styx by offering him things like killing Yugi and giving him his Millenium Rod, he suddenly says "What if I told you I loved you?" Cue shock from Bakura. Then they sing together to the end of the episode. It's actually kind of adorable.
Theatre
- Anne in A Little Night Music is not only oblivious to her awkward stepson's feelings for her, but also to her own feelings about him, which she only realizes at the end.
Western Animation
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