Basic Trope: The Official Couple's romantic false leads are given other love interests to get them out of the main couple's way.
- Straight: Bob and Alice are the main couple. Charlie, who had a crush on Alice, and Carol, who had an unrequited love for Bob, are paired with each other.
- Exaggerated: Bob has an Unwanted Harem of 25 girls. When he finally chooses Alice, all the other 24 are shown to hook up with other side characters and/or each other. The final few episodes are even dedicated to introducing new characters to pair up with the left out girls.
- Downplayed: Bob and Alice hooks up. Charlie and Carol starts noticing each other, but is still too hung up on their previous heart break to immediately hook up with each other.
- Justified:
- Charlie used to date Carol before he fell for Alice, and wants to see if he and Carol can make their relationship work again now that Alice is out of the question.
- Or, depending on setting, Charlie and Carol enter into a Marriage of Convenience given how Charlie wants a son to carry on the family line, Carol isn't getting any younger, and they get on well enough to tolerate each other.
- Inverted: Charlie and Carol start off as a happy Beta Couple, but break up when they meet Alice and Bob, and remain single for the rest of the story.
- Subverted:
- After Bob and Alice get together, Charlie and Carol go out on one date and realize they have nothing in common.
- Charlie and Carol have this suggested to them at the end of the series, but we don't see if they follow up.
- Double Subverted:
- Charlie and Carol don't work out, but then Carol meets Dave and Charlie meets Danielle.
- Charlie and Carol are still together in a Distant Finale.
- Parodied: Bob is a polygamist.
- Zig Zagged: Rejects from the Love Dodecahedron regularly get together and become happy Beta Couples. Meanwhile, Alice and Bob break up and getting into another Love Dodecahedron, only to get back together in the end.
- Averted:
- The couples were all together to begin with.
- Some characters remain single.
- Enforced: The Grand Finale or Season Finale is approaching and all that UST has to get resolved!
- Lampshaded: "So...Bob and Alice are together. I was wondering, Carol, if you'd like to..." "Go out with you once I get over him? Why not?"
- Invoked: To eliminate the competition, Alice or Bob used mind control or love potions on the spares to put them together.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob suggests that Charlie asks Carol out. Charlie is disgusted and says, "Not that desperate, pal! I barely talk to her."
- Discussed: "Sorry, Charlie. You can't win by default just because Bob chose Alice."
- Conversed: "Ugh! Just because he didn't get Alice doesn't mean you have to pair him with someone he rarely even interacts with!"
- Implied: The Distant Finale shows some side characters together, while the rest are not shown. However, Bob tells Alice that "everyone [they] know" is now married.
- Deconstructed: Charlie and Carol get together, but neither are completely over their former loves.
- Reconstructed: In a Distant Finale set twenty years later, Charlie and Carol are shown to be a happy family with three kids. Time proved them a good match.
- Played For Laughs: Bob and Alice date Carol and Charlie, then Bob and Carol date Charlie and Alice, then Bob and Charlie date Alice and Carol, and when the madness ends, they're all completely monogamous and satisfied.
- Played For Drama: All of the Love Dodecahedron and Unwanted Harem end up happily paired with each other once Alice and Bob are spoken for. Then Alice and Bob break up, but now there's no one left for them to turn to.
- Untwisted: Several episodes are dedicated to pairing the remaining spares from a Love Dodecahedron with each other but no match really works until the end.
Back to Pair the Spares
