Basic Trope: A zany girl makes The Everyman's life more interesting.
- Straight: Bob's life is pretty typical until he meets Alice, a happy-go-lucky artist with a wacky sense of humor, who embodies all the drive and structure his life has been missing.
- Exaggerated: Bob is a Ridiculously Average Guy and Alice is an outright Magical Girlfriend.
- Downplayed: Instead of a whirlwind girlfriend who sweeps Bob off his feet, Alice is a new friend who helps him think outside the box, and gives him a bit of help with his problems — and he can return the favor, because Alice has a life outside of Bob.
- Justified:
- Bob actually has Hidden Depths that Alice manages to detect and bring out.
- Alice has a zany personality because she's a child.
- Alice is a manic pixie dream girl, who often helps Bob out, but she does get her own story line and development so no one can say her character exists solely for Bob.
- Alice feels sorry for Bob and tries to help him out of sympathy. The feelings grow over time.
- Alice used to be like Bob and had people who brought her out of it, so she sees helping him as paying it forward.
- Inverted:
- Bob used to be a badass whose life was filled with adventure, until he fell in love with Alice and happily settled down into a more mundane life.
- Alice's life is pretty typical until she meets Bob, a Crazy Is Cool professional Free Runner with a quirky sense of humor.
- Bob is a wacky, happy-go-lucky artist, but when he meets the prim and focused Alice, he realizes she embodies all the drive and structure his life has been missing.
- Gender Inverted:
- Alice is an Emotionless Girl, probably an Unkempt Beauty, who has a hard time trusting people. In comes Fun Personified-Bob, who is all kinds of charming, and tears down her metaphorical emotional walls.
- Armoured Closet Gay Alice meets the loud and proud Lipstick Lesbian Claire, who helps her put down her defenses and helps her embrace her true self.
- Subverted:
- It turns out Bob doesn't want chaos and fun in his life; he's a content Creature of Habit, and wants Alice to just leave him alone.
- Alice is a con woman who's just stringing Bob along for all she can get.
- Alice seems happy and cheerful, but she's actually dead inside.
- Alice points out that if Bob wants to find meaning in his life, he should find it himself instead of using her.
- Bob is actually the one chasing Alice, thinking she'll help him and give his life meaning. Alice wants him and every other guy who thinks she can fix them to just leave her alone.
- Double Subverted:
- Except all that was just an act, and he eventually caves in.
- Alice is a con woman who plans to string Bob along for all she can get, but she falls in love with Bob instead.
- Spending time with Bob helps Alice overcome her past pain and she embraces her persona because it helped her feel alive again.
- Bob does something spontaneous of his own accord to liven up his life, and Alice reveals that was her goal all along.
- Parodied:
- Alice is a Chaotic Stupid literal pixie, and Bob is a Schedule Fanatic. They've been married for years.
- To Bob, Alice is a marvelous girl who's not afraid to take risks and always shows him something new. To Alice, Bob is a very easy accomplice.
Alice: Oh, no, it's terrible! I just met up with the guy who swindled me out of $5000, and I tried cutting off a loose string from his tuxedo with this knife, and now he's not moving! You've gotta help me move his body to that ditch over there so he can recover!
Bob: I dunno, Alice, ever since we had to flee Milton because you accidentally drew money from the bank vault instead of your account, I'm starting to think you might be roping me into something!
Alice: Why, that would just be unladylike! And I would never let someone walk around thinking of me as unladylike.
[Bob sighs endearingly, and turns to the camera.]
Bob: Ain't she an angel? - Zig Zagged: Alice shows perky, optimistic Bob that life isn't really all it's cracked up to be, but through this Bob re-defines his values and finds true happiness and has a stronger sense of self.
- Averted:
- Alice ends up dating the equally wacky Charlie, and/or Bob settles down with the demure, down-to-earth Girl Next Door.
- Bob realizes that Charlie set them up because he wanted him to let go of his crush and let him find someone. Bob realizes this and chases after him before he goes back to Minnesota in order to confess his love.
- Enforced: The author loves these types of girls, and isn't afraid of showing it.
- Lampshaded: "What did an ordinary guy like me do to deserve you?"
- Invoked: Charlie, hoping to make Bob's life more interesting, hooks him up with Alice.
- Exploited: Unknown to Alice, Bob is actually a thief. When he and Alice go around town, he provokes her into public stunts which distract his marks while he robs them.
- Defied: Soon after meeting, Bob and Alice end up despising each other; Bob considers Alice a loud, unpredictable pest, and Alice considers Bob unbearably dull. When somebody suggests they should date, it's hard to tell who is more disgusted.
- Discussed: Charlie is of two minds about a girl like this. His Uncle Bob tells him how he met Alice and she turned his life upside down in a good (or bad) way.
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed:
- Alice brings a lot of excitement into Bob's life. Unfortunately, this is because she is seriously mentally disturbed: a yandere, a Stepford Smiler, or otherwise in need of serious psychological help
. Bob is portrayed as either the poor bastard whose life goes to hell because of her, or a bastard who is taking advantage of her. - Alice tries to make Bob's life more interesting, but instead, he gradually wears her down until she becomes just as ordinary as he is.
- Alice and Bob start dating, but her wild personality proves too much for his Straight Man personality to handle and they break up.
- Bob becomes quite emotionally dependant on Alice, to the point he can't do anything without her. And when/if she leaves...
- Alice feels that she has to make Bob's life better, but Bob is just fine with his life and considers Alice an annoyance.
- Alice purposefully seeks out guys who have problems, brings them out of their slumps, and makes them totally dependent on her in a sick All Take and No Give relationship.
- Alice sees Bob as her latest "project" and dates him to "make him better" and gratify her hero complex.
- Alice tries to liven Bob's life up, but only ends up ruining it, causing him to hate her.
- Alice and Bob are just not compatible, and each tires of the others' crazy/reclusive behavior.
- Alice has dated several guys like Bob who use her to make their lives feel meaningful and dump her once they feel they have outgrown her. By the time Bob has come around, Alice is a Broken Bird who believes that love doesn't exist.
- Alice's childlike and immature personality quickly goes from novel to infuriating, and Bob realizes that the relationship has run its course and he feels more like an exasperated parent with an irresponsible child who refuses to grow up.
- Alice is "zany and different" because she is different, in a way Bob wouldn't actually tolerate. (Perhaps she's queer, or plural, or neurodivergent.) She makes sure only to present the "positive" qualities of being different, which ends up wearing her out.
- In spite of their differences, Alice and Bob get along well and she does help make his life better…but at the same time, Alice is also crazy. Not just in a harmless Cloud Cuckoolander kind of way, but genuinely crazy. She’s not evil, but she operates on borderline Blue-and-Orange Morality, and even Bob struggles to keep up with her sometimes, thus forcing Bob to often act as the Only Sane Man to balance out Alice’s antics. They’re good friends, but Alice’s loony personality is responsible for getting them both in as much trouble as it helps make their lives better. Thus, while Alice will help Bob improve his own life and become a better person, the catch is that he also has to look out for Alice as much as she looks out for him.
- Alice brings a lot of excitement into Bob's life. Unfortunately, this is because she is seriously mentally disturbed: a yandere, a Stepford Smiler, or otherwise in need of serious psychological help
- Reconstructed:
- Alice and Bob eventually develop as people, and reach an agreeable compromise; Bob breaks out of his shell and becomes more willing to try new things out, while Alice settles down and becomes a mature (but still fun-loving) woman.
- Alice and Bob still manage to become good friends in spite of their differences, and they both recognize and accept each other’s flaws. They also realize that they should stick together from now on, because they make up for each other’s flaws too. Bob helps Alice stay grounded when she goes too far off the rails, while Alice cheers up Bob whenever he feels down and she helps him think outside the box. They hang out a lot together, and they become a Cynic–Idealist Duo.
- Played For Drama:
- Alice acts like there's no tomorrow and does random crazy things on a whim... because she has 6 months to live and is trying to fulfill her bucket list.
- Alice wants to make Bob’s life better, but as it turns out, there’s a deeper reason for why her methods aren’t working. As it turns out, Alice and Bob are both nihilists who believes that life is meaningless and that existence is pointless. But the difference between them is that while Bob is a perpetually depressed Straw Nihilist Broken Bird, Alice is The Anti-Nihilist who wears a happy Mask of Sanity. On the inside, they’re both equally broken and empty, but the difference is that Alice uses the meaninglessness of life as an excuse to do whatever she wants and to be happy, Bob uses it as an excuse to always be sad and miserable. Eventually, they both figure out that they’re no different from each other and that they’re essentially cut from the same cloth, but this results in them confronting each other and getting into a massive argument over their respective viewpoints and life philosophies. Bob is trying to convince Alice that she’s wrong because idealism is for kids, while Alice wants to convince Bob that he’s wrong because cynicism is for losers. Their inherently incompatible existentialist views have a negative impact on their relationship, and out of stubbornness, neither of them wants to concede that the other might have a point, so their friendship ends up getting seriously strained. Basically, Alice accidentally made Bob become even more secluded and lonely than before, and she ends up blaming herself for it.
Back to Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
