Basic Trope: A character complains that they can't seem to get a date, but is regularly seen with a Love Interest.
- Straight: Bob complains that he's been single too long. Over the course of the series, however, he's dated Alice, Betty, and Carol.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob says that he Cannot Talk to Women, much less ask them out, but he's somehow managed to date women from all kinds of race, ethnicity and socioeconomic background, including the Green-Skinned Space Babe.
- Bob is bisexual, wants to date men and women, and says he can't get a date with anybody, yet he's dated everyone in the recurring and main cast.
- Downplayed: Bob has dated Betty and Alice, but he only wants to be with Carol, so he's disappointed that she won't date him.
- Justified:
- Bob can't stand being single, so he would complain about his lack of love life whenever his girlfriend leaves him.
- Bob is a Casanova Wannabe, and having one or two girlfriends in a year isn't enough for him. He wants at least a hundred.
- Bob's only reference to a normal dating life is his older brother Alex, who is The Charmer and a Chick Magnet and has at least three dates a week. Bob's love life is nothing compared to Alex.
- Bob specifically complains about being unable to get a girlfriend - despite being attractive, his ability to blow dates is legendary.
- Inverted:
- Subverted: Bob complains about being dateless, but is frequently seen hanging out with beautiful women. Turns out they are his sisters.
- Double Subverted: Well, three out of the ten women he hangs out with are his sisters. The other seven are his love interests.
- Parodied: Bob complains about being dateless just after coming back from an amazing date with the School Idol Alice. Or worse, he complains during the date with her.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob bemoans his lack of love life despite being surrounded by gorgeous girls most of the time. But then the audience finds out the girls he hangs out with are his sisters ... or, at least, half of them are. The rest are actually robots. But the robot girls he has are sentient, and they willingly hang out with him because of his good looks and personality.
- Averted:
- Bob is Happily Married.
- Bob doesn't date.
- Bob doesn't complain about his datelessness, nor does he has a reputation of being unable to snag a partner.
- Enforced: Bob is presented as a romantic failure because he's meant to be a Loser Protagonist. But he's the protagonist of a Rom Com, and the show can't go on without having him involved in a few romantic hijinks.
- Lampshaded: "Stop complaining about your lack of love life, Bob. You had a date with Alice last weekend."
- Invoked: Bob complains about his miserable loneliness so that women would pity him and go out with him.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob works on himself first. He learns to be happy and content right where he is, works on his Geek Physique, takes up hobbies and goes places, lowers his standards just a little bit, gets into therapy, and works on his social skills. Eventually, one of two things happens: either he realizes he doesn't need a girlfriend to be happy, or he actually gets a date and manages to keep her around.
- Discussed: "I think you've been watching too many romcoms, Bob. Having two girlfriends in a month isn't pathetic."
- Conversed: "Bob has had three girlfriends within three months. Why is people still saying he's an inexperienced dweeb?"
- Implied: Bob is never seen dating any women, but we're told he has after every time he says he can't get a date.
- Deconstructed: Bob's whininess about never being able to get a date turns off women and makes him become genuinely dateless.
- Reconstructed: Bob's unjustified anxiety about being dateless leads him to become an incredible charmer and he maintains his underappreciated dating life this way.
You're not Allegedly Dateless. You're definitely dateless and all the time you spend on TV Tropes isn't helping change that.
