Basic Trope: A character stalks a person they love.
- Straight: Alice loves Bob, so she follows him, hoping for him to one day love her.
- Exaggerated: Alice is a Yandere, and has followed Bob since grade school.
- Downplayed:
- Alice occasionally watches Bob whenever they happen to be in the same place at the same time, but she doesn't deliberately follow him, and her feelings toward him are more like mild infatuation than an overobsessive crush.
- Alice stalks Bob because she loves him (in a platonic way).
- Justified:
- Alice is a teenager who just can't muster up the courage to actually talk to Bob.
- Alice is watching Bob to try and protect him from the resident Big Bad out of love.
- Alice's superiors at the Government Agency of Fiction or the enforcers of The Masquerade won't let her talk to Bob despite her feelings.
- Alice has literally No Social Skills. She can't even talk to Bob, let alone know that stalking is inappropriate and creepy.
- Alice is a crazy yandere who wants to know what Bob is doing all the time.
- Alice has cripplingly low self-of-esteem and thinks that this is the closest she'll get to being Bob's girlfriend.
- Alice was hired to find some dirt on him by spying on him and it turns out he's really not that bad of a guy. But she is aware that if he know she was stalking him, he'd be freaked out. So she doesn't bother asking him out, but still wants to get to know him better. So she keeps to stalking even though it just makes the idea of her dating Bob more improbable.
- Alice has limerence and stalks Bob because she constantly thinks about him and wants to be with him all the time.
- Inverted:
- Alice is a Stalker without a Crush and it turns out Bob loves her.
- Alice is a stalker with a grudge and is following Bob looking for an opportunity to get some payback.
- Alice has a crush on Bob and makes him follow her around.
- Alice's crush on Bob makes her hide and run away from him.
- Subverted:
- Alice appears to be stalking Bob out of love, but it turns out she's a Spy only using love as a fake justification for her keeping an eye on the time.
- Alice tells Bob she was his girlfriend before his mind was wiped.
- It looks like Alice is stalking Bob at first, from what Bob can see of her, but it turns out to be a string of unlucky coincidences because she lives near him. She is thought quite madly in love with him.
- Alice decides to ditch the stalking idea.
- Double Subverted:
- Alice managed to fall in love with Bob for real while spying on him.
- Alice lied.
- Parodied:
- Bob stalks Alice, but she instantly falls in love with him the moment Bob pretends he's a vampire while doing it.
- Alice has stalked Bob all her life, at the same time Bob starts stalking a different girl and instantly gets shunned for it, as a stab at the Double Standards of this trope.
- Alice and Bob are stalking each other, and end up sitting still for hours wondering why the other hasn't moved or put down his or her binoculars.
- Alice follows Bob around in the most unsubtle way possible. Bob thinks it's all a string of coincidences that have them winding up in the same place over and over.
- Zig Zagged: Bob and Alice managed to stalk each other. But it turns out they were both spies of opposite organizations, meant to keep tabs on each other, using love as a ploy. When their cover starts to slip, they both start Becoming the Mask and falling in love with each other for real, but it tuns out they were both just faking that and they're really not in love with each other at all, without the other one knowing.
- Averted:
- Alice does not stalk Bob at any point.
- Stalker without a Crush
- Enforced: Stalking is Love
- Lampshaded:Alice: You shall be mine, Bob! And "no" is NOT an answer!
- "Oh, come on, we already go everywhere together. Why should things change between us just because you know about it now?"
- Invoked:
- Alice is a Stalker without a Crush and mercenary hired to kill Bob. He gets her to fall in love with him, thinking it'll lessen her intrusive and homicidal behavior towards him. But it actually makes things worse.
- Knowing that Alice has unrequited feelings for Bob, Joe gets her to stalk him for information by convincing her that more she knows about him, the closer they will be.
- Exploited: Bob finds out about it, and decides to have a bit of fun by messing with Alice, giving her Hope Spots, and making her do things for him.
- Defied:
- Alice is obsessed and hopelessly in love with Bob and is a very possessive and controlling person. But she refuses to sink as low as stalking because she feels it will lower her chances with Bob.
- Bob tries to get Alice to learn a lesson or two about stalking.
- Bob: "Alice, either tell me your feelings or stop following me everywhere."
- Discussed:Bob: Now that I think of it, Alice has been stalking me.
- Conversed: "Why do people in these shows always think stalking is a form of true love?"
- Implied: Alice has a crush on Bob and knows a lot about him. However, Bob is never seen interacting with Alice.
- Deconstructed:
- Bob is disturbed by Alice's consistent stalking, and this not only destroys any chance of Bob and Alice having a relationship, but Bob also tries to avoid Alice as much as he can.
- Alice is arrested, charged for stalking, and sentenced for 5 years in prison
.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob starts to miss Alice's stalkerish ways, even if they were a bit creepy.
- Alice realizes that a distant, one-sided relationship is no match for a genuine one. The extensive familiarity she has with Bob's life and daily routine gives her the confidence to approach him normally, and they form a happy relationship, although Alice carries guilt forever.
- Alice isn't arrested because she is an evil mastermind and supreme ruler who uses her status and propaganda to get special treatment.
- Played For Laughs:
- Alice knows everything about Bob, his family, his favorite food, what color underwear he wears, and even his routine for getting up in the morning. And she can recite all of it from memory.
- Bob's favourite songs are Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me" and The Police's "Every Breath You Take".
- Played For Drama:
- Alice is stalking Bob, who has known for some time and has actually taken quite a shine to her. But his brother Charlie, who knows nothing of the situation, discovers her stalking him and attacks, killing her in the process. Bob, not realizing who did it, vows revenge for Alice...
- Alice is creepily obsessive, and not in a funny way.
Back to Stalker with a Crush, so I can covet you in the worst way!!!
