Shallow Cannot Comprehend True Love

Is she so nice that it makes up for her face?
There's no way...

— Fleming & John, "Ugly Girl"

When it comes to romance, some people only care about superficial traits such as looks, money, or status, and are indifferent to deeper qualities like compatibility or personality. Such people scoff at the idea that True Beauty Is on the Inside, and assume that everyone else shares their superficial views. Even if they see that other people aren't superficial like them, they will either reject the idea that not everyone is shallow or assume that there has to be some kind of "logical explanation" for a person's non-shallow behavior.

In regards to relationships between people in different "leagues," shallow people will think the "superior" partner must be crazy, stupid, or blind to be with someone "beneath them." Alternatively, they might assume that the "superior" partner is only with the "inferior" one because of personal gain, a dare, a joke, a lost bet, or pity, or that the "inferior" either used some sort of trick or has some sort of leverage against their partner. If the "superior" party is wealthy, beautiful, and/or popular, then people will likely assume that the "inferior" is dating them for money, bragging rights, and/or the opportunity to improve their own status. The idea that one or both parties might genuinely like each other would never cross a shallow person's mind.

Unpleasant people who are superficially desirable might think of themselves as irresistible, and their shallow admirers will likely agree with them. Because of this, anyone who rejects or breaks up with such people will often be thought of as foolish or stuck-up for throwing away such a "catch," failing to realize that no amount of good looks, money, or popularity can make up for a terrible personality.

When it comes to loyalty, shallow people will gladly cheat on or leave their partners for someone "better" if the opportunity presented itself, and usually expect others to be the same way. If a superficially attractive Attempted Homewrecker goes after someone whose partner would be considered "inferior" to the homewrecker, they will express confusion and disbelief that someone would stay faithful to a "loser" rather than "upgrade" to a "better" partner.

Compare Evil Cannot Comprehend Good and What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?. The Lust Interest in a Love Interest vs. Lust Interest scenario is likely to be like this. Overlaps with What Does She See in Him?, In Love with Looks and/or What's He Got That I Ain't Got?! if the confused person is judging someone's partner/crush based entirely on superficial traits, Wasted Beauty and/or Beauty Is Bad if an attractive person doesn't understand how someone could reject them and/or choose an uglier person over them, or Offended by an Inferior's Success if a shallow person is offended that a "loser" is in a relationship with someone the shallow person feels is "too good for them." Loser Friend Puzzles Outsiders is the platonic equivalent of this trope. Hot Guy, Ugly Wife and Ugly Guy, Hot Wife couples are often targets of this trope.

Examples

Anime & Manga

• The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Hahari is a pervert with a fetish for anything cute who fell in love with a terminally ill classmate at the age of 13 and made an impulsive decision to conceive a child with him through artificial insemination. When she found out that her daughter was dating a boy with four other girlfriends, she issued a Break Up Demand for her daughter, believing that he would break her heart and that Hakari was making the same mistake that she did as a teenager. Not only does Rentarou have no intention of breaking the hearts of any of his girlfriends, he's willing to risk his own life to save them if they're in trouble, a sentiment he proves to Hahari by taking a Lie Detector test and then saving Hakari when she tries to jump out her bedroom window.

Fan Works

• In Once Upon a Time fanfic For a Spin, Keith Nottingham repeatedly tries to flirt with Belle, since he is sure Mr. Gold, much older and with a bad leg, is just a Meal Ticket for her. He is shocked when Belle tells him in no uncertain terms that she loves Mr. Gold.
• Galactic Romance: In A Stitch of Time, Eful Perenn only cares about money, power, and getting away with his crimes, so he assumes that Rat has the same mindset and married Alice just to get a pardon. Perenn is so certain of it that his entire plan of kidnapping Alice hangs on the presumption that Rat wouldn't raise an alarm, at least not until much later. When he learns that he was wrong and Rat began searching for his wife immediately after she vanished, Perenn is completely flabbergasted. By his last appearance, he still hasn't figured out what his mistake was.
• The Many Dates of Danny Fenton: In both the original story and its spin-offs, Dash is unable to understand why girls prefer nice, if unpopular, guys like Danny over popular, but obnoxious guys like him. In spin-offs where Dash signs up for the dating service, he does so under the assumption that if "losers" like Danny and Tucker can get hot girlfriends, he can easily do so, only to get rejected for having nothing going for him besides being a popular high school quarterback, alongside the fact that he's content with peaking in high school.
• TMDDF: What If?:
  • After Sakura defends herself and Danny from Dash, the latter asks why Sakura is going out with a "wimp" like Danny. Sakura responds by saying that Danny is a good guy who treats her with respect, isn't intimidated by her strength, and refused to look up her skirt when he had the opportunity to do so.
  • During Danny's date with Bloom, some of the people around him claim that she's only going out with him either because she lost a bet or Danny won a bet.

Films — Animated

• Beauty and the Beast: When Belle turns down Gaston, the Bimbettes, who all admire him, think Belle is crazy because Gaston is "gorgeous", not understanding that Belle rejected Gaston because of his boorish personality and sexism rather than his looks.
• The Pebble and the Penguin: The other female penguins don't see why Marina is interested in Hubie due to him being a wimp, when compared to the villainous Drake, who is considered by the other females to be a hunk, with none of them realizing that Marina likes him for his personality, and isn't interested in Drake, despite his many efforts to try and get her to be his mate.

Literature

• Confessions of Georgia Nicolson: Georgia's superficial, vain, and obsessed with boys based on their popularity, coolness, and attractiveness. Thus, she cannot understand what her mother saw in her father. Her mother says she fell for him because he made her laugh, which Georgia finds ludicrous. Ironically, the guy she ends up with, Dave, is noted to be a catch largely because he's extremely funny.
• In Everything Is Wrong by Alexandra Marinina, most people, but especially vain, shallow, and vindictive Brainless Beauty Yulia, are befuddled that Yulia's drop-dead gorgeous uncle Volodya is Happily Married to ugly Muza. Almost everyone is convinced he has an affair on the side (it's revealed that he does, but it's with a much older woman and likewise not for superficial reasons, and in the end, he confesses that Muza is the one dearest to him in the world).
• In The Expanse novel Nemesis Games, Naomi Nagata confronts her ex-boyfriend —the incredibly charismatic yet horribly antisocial Marco Inaros— asking him what he thinks is the reason she chose James Holden over him. All he can mumble in response is that Jim is a handsome "Inner"^note I.e. born on Earth, home to powerful corporations that treat Belters like Naomi as cheap disposable labour that can be crushed with the might of UNN whenever they demand better treatment. fellow; Naomi responds to that with a well-aimed "He IS what you PRETEND to be."
• In The Posthumous Image by Alexandra Marinina, Andrey can never understand why a handsome, smart (and later wealthy) guy like him is unlucky in love (many girls are attracted to him at first but all lose interest after a date or two), while his ugly classmate Mikhail who gets average to poor marks and grows up to become a poor dentist is a Kavorka Man. Eventually, Andrey's own wife Galina leaves him for Mikhail who dumps her soon afterwards, but Galina still views him as the better of the two, telling Andrey she was fed up with his selfishness and fell in love with Mikhail due to the latter's genuinely warm and friendly nature. Andrey still doesn't understand it, and it's one of the many factors that build up his resentment that culminates in him killing Mikhail.
• In The Sorcerer's Daughter, Gottwald is power-hungry and vain, so he believes Odette will agree to marry him because he is very handsome and because their marriage would unite two principalities into a kingdom again. He is rather annoyed when she is adamant in her rejection (him trying to frame the man she does love for sorcery and setting a dragon on neighboring villages to blackmail her was pretty much the deal-breaker for Odette's decision).

Live-Action TV

• Key & Peele: In "Pizza Order", Wendell, a Basement-Dweller who doesn't want to admit he's ordering multiple pizzas all for himself, makes a phone call to a pizza place but pretends his various action figures are actually party guests at his home. The pizza clerk taking the order, Carlo, falls for his lie and tries to ask out "Claire", so Wendell tries to discourage him by coming up with shallow reasons for not dating her such as "her body is a 4" or "she's used goods". However, none of this deters Carlo, who launches into a heartfelt speech about how passionate he is for "Claire", so Wendell, realizing Carlo is genuinely in love with her, resorts to faking "Claire"'s death instead.

Music

• Cookin On 3 Burners' "This Girl" (and its more famous remix by Kungs) is from the viewpoint of a woman who has to keep repeatedly telling her would-be rich beau that money can't buy her love, and she eventually leaves when it's clear that he keeps assuming if he tries harder.
  Will you realise when I'm gone
  That I dance to a different song?
  It's a shame but I've got to go
• Fleming & John's "Ugly Girl" is from the perspective of a shallow woman who's baffled that her ex-boyfriend left her for someone she considers less attractive. She speculates about what he sees in the new woman—maybe she shares his interests, or she's "so nice that it makes up for her face", or the sex is really good as long as they keep the lights down low—but keeps circling back to "She's an ugly girl" like that ought to be a deal-breaker.
• Joe Jackson's "Is She Really Going Out With Him?" is a song about a shallow man who's baffled and angered by all the women he sees going out with "unattractive" men instead of him.

Web Animation

• AoHaru Manga Library: One of the recurring themes in these stories that forms the characterization of the antagonists.
  • The male antagonist will be the type of guy who only sees girls based on their superficial looks therefore has a tendency to dump girls that they see as plain, dull, and ugly, and tells beautiful girls that fall for Keiichi's kindness that they're wasting their beauty on Keiichi's plain appearance.
  • Likewise, the female antagonist is usually a shallow Gold Digger who only sees men as how capable they are to give material wealth rather than true love obtained from getting to know and supporting each other even in hard times. In stories where Keiichi is already an accomplished and confident man, he makes it a point to avoid extravagant girls since they tend to be shallow. His preference mostly lies with plain, quiet, and down-to-earth girls since they're less likely to be shallow.
• ATTACK on MIKA:
  • Mote is a tall, athletic and shallow boy who openly admits to caring only about a girl's looks. When he sees that the Formerly Fat Makabe is now skinny and beautiful, he tries to steal her from Hiroki, her short and nerdy boyfriend who liked her before she became pretty, assuming that Makabe was only with him because she couldn't do better before. Makabe gives Mote a tongue-lashing for thinking she would be stupid enough to dump a good guy who liked her for who she was for a guy who literally admitted to only liking her after she became pretty.
  • In "My sick and coddled sister said she wanted my boyfriend..." after Ren sees right through Kasumi's "sickly girl" facade and refuses to dump her sister Masumi for her while proclaiming the latter is more beautiful than the former, both inside and out. Moreover, when he calls her out for being a coward and demands proof of her sickness, Kasumi loses it and demands he shut up and fall for her since she was the prettier one while calling him an idiot for not doing so.
    Kasumi: Shut up already, you talk too much! Taking advantage of me… A pretty girl like me is asking you to go out with me! Just be quiet and be mine! I'm more attractive than her! You really are an idiot if you don't realize that!
• Etra chan saw it!:
  • Yuri is a beautiful woman married to the ugly Tachibana, whose brother Tokusa is an attractive man. Yuri is pregnant and Tokusa's wife Yuzuriha assumes that the child is Tokusa's. Her "logic" for this assumption? Since Tachibana is ugly and Tokusa isn't, the only reason why Yuri married Tachibana is to get close to Tokusa and either steal him from Yuzuriha or have his baby.
    • Karin and Akamatsu, Tachibana's parents, had similar experiences, with people assuming that the only reason why Karin would marry the ugly Akamatsu is money. Karin's response?
      Karin: What money!?
  • Back in middle school, Tokusa had a crush on Yuzuriha, who rejected and mocked him for his childlike appearance. Tokusa eventually moved on and started dating Tsutsuji, who was kind to him and was also bullied for being unusually tall. During the middle school reunion, Yuzuriha learns that Tokusa has become handsome and rich, and tries to seduce him, assuming he still has a crush on her. When Tokusa rejects her and reveals he's engaged to Tsutsuji, Yuzuriha is confused and asks how he could like a "useless tree", failing to understand that Tokusa chose Tsutsuji because of her personality rather than her looks.
• lovekoi manga: Hayate is a handsome and extroverted bully who looks down on the gloomy and introverted Tsuwano. He invites Tsuwano to a matchmaking party in order to make himself look good, assuming that the girls will naturally be attracted to him and look down on Tsuwano. The exact opposite happens, with the girls being charmed by Tsuwano's good nature and being disgusted at Hayato's egotistical and bullying behavior. Even after being told this, Hayato insists that he is the better man because he has better looks and works at a prestigious company, and later loses it and attacks the girls when they decide to leave with Tsuwano, failing to understand that some girls care more about personality rather than looks or status.
• Refreshing Stories: Kaminoke is a Narcissistic Jerk Jock who dares the nerdy Hiroshi to ask out Sakura, the most popular girl girl in school; Kaminoke's plan is for Sakura to be embarrassed by being asked out by Hiroshi so that he can swoop in a woo her. His plan goes wrong when Sakura accepts Hiroshi's confession. When Kaminoke asks how Sakura thinks that a "gloomy otaku" is better than him, Sakura states that Hiroshi is one million times better than Kaminoke because while Kaminoke is rude to everyone around him, including elderly people and pregnant women, Hiroshi is a good guy who takes time out of his day to do good deeds such as volunteering at elderly homes.
• Revenge Films:
  • Ali's sister was favored by their parents because of her beauty, which caused her to become an awful person, cheating on Bob, her husband, with multiple men, and, after getting divorced, slept with and stole Ali's husband, which their parents actually supported. Two years later, Ali and Bob get married, and Bob starts a successful company and even owns a mansion. When Ali's sister and parents learn of this, they demand that Bob get re-married to Ali's sister, which Bob refuses. Ali's sister and parents don't understand why, since Ali isn't as pretty as her sister, not understanding that Bob wouldn't want to dump his faithful wife for a woman who cheated on him multiple times and who only wants him back now that he's rich.
  • "My sister stole all of my boyfriends and I was really hurt but then": When Erin used her looks to steal Ariel's latest boyfriend, Sean, who was the heartthrob back in high school, he was disgusted by her shamelessness and raked her over the coals for using her body to get views. While Erin is dumbfounded that Sean would pick a plain girl like Ariel over her, she keeps boasting about how Sean will regret choosing Ariel over her, but he reminds her that her viewers only care about her looks and thus she fears dating because they'll realize how shallow she really is. When Erin tries one last time, Sean has none of it and tells her he'd rather die than date her, which causes her to run off crying.
  • "My older sister always liked stealing my boyfriends. At my wedding, she attacked me, and…": After Nancy lost weight despite Ashley's attempts to sabotage her efforts, the latter shows up at the bar where the former booked her date with Thomas. She's baffled when Thomas rejects her advances because he overheard her picking on Nancy's looks, proclaiming the latter as the attractive one. Ashley tries to show off her best angles but Thomas ignores her, causing her to decry he has bad taste. However, Ashley escalates her harassment to make Thomas dump her and eventually shows up at Nancy and Thomas' wedding in an extravagant dress to accuse Nancy of getting plastic surgery before projecting a photo of the bride before losing weight. When Ashley asks Thomas if he still wants to marry someone as ugly as Nancy, he laughs at her and reveals he always liked Nancy even when she was chubby since she was kind to everyone. Ashley finally snaps and throws orange juice at the bride before scrubbing the makeup off her face in a last bid to make Thomas dump her. However, the sisters' relatives kicked Ashley out of the venue for her childish behavior. In a twist of irony, the stress of being disowned and forced to pay the damages to Nancy's dress caused Ashley to overeat until she gained weight, rendering her undateable.
• Sekai no Fushigi: Nonomura is a handsome but obnoxious man who used his good looks and sense of humor to steal his coworker Riku's girlfriend Miki. Later, when Nonomura sees that Riku is dating Judy, who's much more beautiful than Miki, he becomes envious and tries to steal her, assuming that he'll succeed because he's a "better man." Nonomura finds out the hard way that Judy, unlike Miki, isn't shallow or unfaithful when she responds to his cheap pick-up lines with disgust rather than flattery.
• Trouble Busters: Luke is the son of a powerful and wealthy politician who tries to use his money and status to woo Hilary. Hilary responds by telling him that not every girl he meets is gonna want him just because he's rich and powerful.

Web Videos

• Apple Texts:
  • In stories involving a Love Triangle between an ugly protagonist and a good-looking antagonist, if the protagonist's lover chooses the protagonist over the antagonist, the latter will become confused that someone would choose to be with an ugly person when more attractive options are available. The protagonist or the lover then typically explains that not everyone chooses people based on their looks.
  • If the protagonist's lover is wealthy, then the Gold Digger antagonist will accuse the protagonist of being after the money when in actuality the protagonist is genuinely in love with their partner.
• Center Texts: Carter is a Gold Digger who stole his brother Steven's fiance Tara because he thinks she's rich. Carter accused Steven of dating Tara for the same reason when that couldn't be furthest from the truth, as Steven knew that Tara wasn't rich, as she only worked part-time as a waitress, but still wanted to be with her.