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Basic Trope: Two characters work well together because they're diametric opposites.

  • Straight: Alice and Bob are a couple who clash more often than not. Despite that, they're also attracted to each other.
  • Exaggerated:
  • Downplayed: Bob loves dogs while Alice prefers cats. Despite this tiny difference, they become great friends.
  • Justified: Bob and Alice feel that they complement each other very well.
  • Inverted:
    • Bob and Alice have extremely similar tastes — but they hate each other's guts.
    • Alternatively, Birds of a Feather.
    • They're different and hate each other's guts.
  • Subverted: Bob and Alice clash frequently, and when someone suggests that they are secretly in love with each other, they laugh it off.
  • Double Subverted: ...That's because they secretly are attracted to each other.
  • Parodied: A dating service matches compatible couples based on how vitriolic their interaction is with each other.
  • Zig-Zagged: Alice and Bob are an Official Couple despite their mutually exclusive interests, while Pete and Sarah want nothing to do with each other for the same reason. Mike and Heidi are basically gender-swapped versions of each other and Happily Married, whereas Emily and Gilbert hate each other despite being so alike.
  • Averted: They're not very good partners; or they have similar interests.
  • Enforced: The author wants the relationship to add to a character by having a Foil as the Love Interest.
  • Lampshaded: Alice and Bob both note that they can't believe how madly in love they are given how different they are.
  • Invoked: Alice and Bob choose each other hoping to moderate their personalities.
  • Exploited: Either or both of them has a Stalker with a Crush who tells them they chose very wrong in love.
  • Defied: Alice and Bob take every precaution to avoid each other.
  • Discussed: On their honeymoon, Bob and Alice exchange this dialogue:
    Bob: This can't happen that often. If it did, there would be far fewer families.
    Alice: Speaking from personal experience, it does. My parents have the same inexplicable attraction as you and I.
  • Conversed: "I give it till the last Sweeps next season."
  • Implied: Alice and Bob often sit next to each other at outings.
  • Deconstructed: Bob and Alice are initially attracted to each other because of their differences, and decide to get together because they think they complement each other. However, once in a committed relationship their disagreements start to wear on them, they begin to find each other's differing traits annoying or bothersome, and the relationship ultimately fails painfully.
  • Reconstructed: Bob and Alice are usually very different people who bicker and have conflicting opinions. However, when together, they bring out the best out of each other by forcing them to go out of their way to appeal to each other's sensibilities, and the fact that they bother to better themselves for each other in the first place is a sign of their relationship going somewhere.

Back to Opposites Attract. What's that? You say you hate that trope? Well, seems like we'll get on just fine.

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