Basic Trope: A character mistakenly believes another is flirting with them.
- Straight: Alice compliments Bob on his clothes. He thinks she's calling him attractive and politely rejects her, but she clarifies that she didn't mean it in that way.
- Exaggerated: Bob thinks literally everything Alice says to him is romantic, when she actually hates him.
- Downplayed: Alice and Bob are a married couple, and Alice asks Bob to go to bed. He thinks she's inviting him to have sex, but really she just thinks he needs some sleep.
- Justified:
- Bob has a crush on Alice, so he's more prone to reading her actions and comments as romantic.
- In Bob's culture, complimenting the clothes of someone whose orientation aligns with yours is seen as exclusively romantic.
- Bob has had unwanted attention from women before.
- Alice is known for being flirty.
- Alice has No Sense of Personal Space and was standing close to Bob when she complimented him.
- Inverted: Alice is flirting with Bob, but he doesn't realise.
- Subverted:
- It later turns out that Alice did mean it romantically, but lied out of shyness.
- It turns out that Bob was just teasing Alice and knew she didn't mean it that way.
- Double Subverted:
- Parodied:
- Zigzagged: Bob assumes Alice was flirting, but it's unclear whether she was.
- Averted: Bob never mistakes Alice for flirting.
- Enforced:
- Lampshaded: "Good Lord, he thinks I was coming on to him! That's so embarrassing!"
- Invoked:
- Exploited:
- Defied: Alice decides not to compliment Bob for fear of him thinking she was flirting.
- Discussed: "But what if he thinks I'm flirting with him or something?"
- Conversed: "Why was that 'Bob' character so quick to assume Alice was coming on to him?!"
- Implied: Bob looks embarrassed when Alice compliments him, but Alice doesn't seem like she has chemistry with Bob.
- Deconstructed: Alice constantly gets this from the men she deals with at her day job. As a result, Alice deliberately acts cold and bitchy in the vain hope that men won't think she's flirting with them, which only serves to make her miserable and fatigued in the long run.
- Reconstructed: Alice realizes that she doesn't have to put up with infatuated idiots, and makes it clear to them that she has no interest in them. Most of them understand and move on with their lives.
- Played for Laughs: This proves embarrassing for both Alice and Bob, resulting in Cringe Comedy.
- Played for Drama: Bob is a stalker who takes Alice's behavior as flirtatious, and later abducts her a la The Collector. Things proceed to get much, much worse for Alice as Bob tries everything in his power to make her love him.
- Played for Horror: Alice is a vampire and wants to bite Bob, but he thinks she's trying to seduce him.
Back to Mistaken for Flirting.
