Basic Trope: An older family friend who is not related to the character is addressed as "Uncle" or "Aunt".
- Straight: Bob is the best friend of Charlie's parents, Mike and Heather. Charlie calls him Uncle Bob and his wife Aunt Alice.
- Exaggerated: Every family friend is addressed as such.
- Downplayed:
- Charlie calls Bob "Uncle" but doesn't call Alice "Aunt", because Bob has married her only recently.
- Bob is actually Charlie's much older cousin, but due to their vast difference in age, Charlie calls Bob his uncle.
- Justified:
- Bob is such a close friend that he is practically family.
- The culture basically treats family friends as family, for example in Filipino Culture.
- Inverted: Charlie's real uncle Bob has quarrelled and cut his ties with the rest of the family, so Charlie doesn't call him "Uncle".
- Invoked: "Charlie's parents are old, dear friends, but they can't parent worth a damn. The kid's going to need an 'uncle' to keep an eye on him."
- Exploited: Charlie gets a lot of favours out of Bob by reminding him of their "relationship."
- Subverted:
- Bob turns out to be Charlie's real uncle because he and Mike were Separated at Birth.
- Bob turns out to be Charlie's real father.
- Double Subverted: ... So they were told, but that information was inaccurate.
- Lampshaded: Mike: "That's my best friend Bob. All my kids call him Uncle."
- Discussed: Heather: "I suppose I'll become an aunt anyway, that is, when my best friend Mary has kids."
- Conversed: "I'm a bit lost in all the relationships. Whose sister is Aunt Alice?" "No one's, she went to the same school with the kids' mother."
- Averted: Charlie doesn't refer to Alice and Bob as Aunt Alice and Uncle Bob.
- Parodied:
- Charlie attaches the "Aunt" and "Uncle" titles to Alice and Bob but doesn't call any of his actual uncles or aunts such.
- Mike and Heather like Bob but not Alice, but Charlie refers to "Aunt Alice" and "Bob."
- Zig-Zagged: Charlie alternates calling Alice and Bob "Aunt" and "Uncle" and not doing so.
- Enforced: ???
- Defied: Charlie's parents explain to him that, as much as Bob looks and acts like Mike, they are emphatically Not Blood Siblings and so he shouldn't call him Uncle Bob.
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