Basic Trope: A character Really Gets Around but doesn't ever have sex with this one other character.
- Straight: Alice has sex with many, many other people but never has sex with Bob.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice can't even contemplate having sexual relations with Bob.
- Alice has sex with everything in the universe except Bob and perhaps the parasites in Bob's body.
- Alice is the Anthropomorphic Personification of procreation and, in a way, is constantly having sex with existence itself. The exception is Bob, of course.
- Downplayed:
- Alice has kissed pretty much everyone, but she is sickened by the idea of kissing Bob.
- Alice attempts to have sex with multiple people, all of whom reject her. In turn, she rejects Bob, the only guy to actually be interested in her.
- Justified:
- Bob is totally incompatible with Alice for some reason.
- Alice doesn't slept with Bob because someone she cares about (either a friend of Alice or a member of her family) is in love with him. Sleeping with Bob isn't worth destroying that.
- Bob is asexual but still able to fall in love with someone. He is in an open relationship with Alice.
- Bob has a Virgin Power. The universe is trying to retain this.
- Alice cares about Bob as more than a conquest.
- Alice has sex for reasons other than what you would expect. Her not sleeping with Bob is something similar to values dissonance.
- Bob is in love with Alice. But Alice is an aromantic individual or simply just doesn't want a serious relationship or likes the idea of a serious relationship just not with him. She wants to avoid doing something that might make him think she reciprocates his feelings.
- Bob is just that repugnant, he even turns Alice off.
- Alice has a particular personal grudge against Bob.
- Bob has an STD.
- Bob is Alice's brother.
- Inverted:
- Alice and Bob are in a monogamous relationship.
- Single-Target Sexuality
- Alice normally has success with her sexual conquests, with Bob being the one person to consistently reject her.
- Subverted: Bob spends most of the story being the one guy Alice won't sleep with, but thanks to a surprise plot twist, they fall in love/have a fling.
- Double Subverted: ...But maybe Alice decides she's better off as just friends with Bob anyway before they can do anything "intimate".
- Parodied: Alice is contractually obligated to never sleep with Bob during the story.
- Zig Zagged: Sometimes it looks like Alice is about to sleep with Bob, but it turns out she's just teasing him.
- Averted:
- Alice sleeps with everyone, including Bob.
- Alice sleeps with nobody at all.
- Enforced: "Bob would make a great Butt-Monkey, wouldn't he?"
- Lampshaded: "It's almost as though Bob is the Butt-Monkey of a comedy show since he's the only person Alice won't sleep with."
- Invoked:
- Alice is doing an Operation: Jealousy thing on a large scale. Plus maybe she wants Bob to wonder what pretty much everyone else in the world has that he doesn't so he'll improve himself a bit.
- Bob acts like a total creep in order to scare Alice away since he doesn't like being infatuated.
- Exploited:
- Defied: Alice keeps a list of everyone in town, and decides to go through them alphabetically.
- Discussed:"I don't get it. She's slept with Albert, Basil, Charlie, Daniel, Edward, Freddie, Gerard, Hank, Ishmael, Joshua, Karl, Leonardo, Mason, Nathan, Oscar, Paul, Quincy, Rose, Sam, Tim, Ulysses, Victor, Walt, Xavier, Yolan, Zach, and you, but she won't sleep with me!"
"Has it ever occurred to you that she really doesn't like you?" - Conversed: "This isn't going to be one of those comedies where the village bicycles sleep with everyone but one person?"
- Deconstructed:
- Alice sleeps with everyone except Bob, who genuinely cares for her, because she can't form lasting romantic relationships because of past trauma.
- Because Alice Really Gets Around, EVERYONE gets STDs as a result. Except for Bob, who gleefully lampshades his continued virgin status as a Life Saving Misfortune.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice isn't looking for anything serious, so sleeping with Bob would actually end up hurting him more in the long run.
- Bob realizes how unhealthy it is to measure his self-worth to Alice just because he's the one person she hasn't slept with. The subsequent Heel Realization makes Bob a better and healthier person who eventually achieves happiness, whether he remains a virgin or not.
- Played For Laughs: Alice sleeps with literally everyone on the planet, but when Bob tries to put the moves on her, she says, "What kind of a whore do you think I am?!"
- Played For Drama:
- Bob is hopelessly in love with the one person who will never reciprocate his feelings.
- If she does this because she thinks her serious pursuit of Bob requires sexual restraint, prepare for it to backfire on her when Bob sees her controlled libido as the result of either her becoming a hypocrite, him not being attractive enough, or him not liking (formerly) promiscuous women.
Back to Sleeps with Everyone but You.
