Playing With / Students Playing Matchmaker

Basic Trope: One or more students attempt to get their teacher a boyfriend or girlfriend.

• Straight:
  • Gina learns that her teacher Mr. Harrison is single and sets out to find him a girlfriend.
  • Gina tries to set her teacher Mr. Harrison up with Isabel from down the street.

• Exaggerated:
  • Gina attempts to arrange a marriage for Mr. Harrison.
  • Gina attempts to find romantic partners for all of her single teachers.
  • Gina tries to set Mr. Harrison up with an existing couple to create a threesome.

• Downplayed:
  • Gina shows Mr. Harrison how Tinder works and gives him a few suggestions, but otherwise lets him choose his own partner.
  • Gina searches for someone go with Mr. Harrison on a one-time date.

• Justified:
  • Gina likes Mr. Harrison and wants to show her appreciation by helping him find love.
  • Mr. Harrison is a Sadist Teacher, and Gina thinks that finding him someone to love will make him change his ways.
  • Gina is a Shipper on Deck for Mr. Harrison and Isabel, simply because she thinks the two would make a cute couple.
  • Gina is a Shipper with an Agenda to keep her mother from seeing Mr. Harrison by setting him up with someone else.
  • Gina has a Precocious Crush on Mr. Harrison and wants her beloved to be happy since she can't date him herself.

• Inverted:
  • Gina sets out to find Mr. Harrison an Arch-Enemy.
  • Gina tries to make Mr. Harrison break up with his current girlfriend.
  • Mr. Harrison attempts to find a boyfriend for his student Gina.

• Subverted:
  • Gina regularly walks into Mr. Harrison's classroom after school with beautiful women in tow, but it turns out that they're not potential girlfriends — they're Enthusiastic Newbie Teachers looking to shadow a class.
  • Gina writes a fake Love Letter to Isabel using the name “Hector Harrison”, but it turns out that she was trying to set her up with a different Hector Harrison, who works as a mechanic.

• Double Subverted:
  • The newbie teachers were personally selected by Gina based on Mr. Harrison's type on the hope that he'll ask out one of them.
  • Gina claims that her letter was from Mr. Harrison the Mechanic when Mr. Harrison the Teacher catches her writing it. Once she finishes the letter and gives it to Isabel, she says it's from Mr. Harrison the Teacher.

• Parodied: Gina goes into business as a professional matchmaker and relationship counselor for teachers, advising her clients on how to hold playground weddings and reminding them to be cautious for cooties.

• Zig-Zagged:
  • Gina has a habit of pairing Mr. Harrison up with different women out of genuine kindness, and then destroying those relationships out of jealousy.
  • Gina writes a fake Love Letter to Isabel from “Hector Harrison” in order to set the two up together. Her teacher, Mr. Harrison, catches Gina in the act and attempts to throw the letter away, but Gina explains to him that the letter is meant to be from a completely different person of the same name. Mr. Harrison buys the story, and Gina successfully gives the letter to Isabel saying it's from her teacher. Isabel and Mr. Harrison meet and hit it off, but when is looks like he might ask her out, Gina changes her mind about them and sabotages the relationship.

• Averted:
  • No student attempts to ship their teacher with someone.
  • Mr. Harrison's not a teacher, and if he is, he's not Gina's teacher.

• Enforced:
  • The writers want to give Mr. Harrison a Morality Pet, but having him seek or initiate a relationship himself would be Out of Character for him.
  • The writers want to give Mr. Harrison a reason to dislike Gina without making her a troublemaker or otherwise invokedderailing her character.

• Lampshaded: “Mr. Harrison was set up by one of his students? That's... kinda sad, actually.”

• Invoked:
  • Isabel has a crush on Mr. Harrison and offers Gina fudge brownies in exchange for being set up with him.
  • Mr. Harrison has a crush on Isabel but is too shy to confess his feelings to her. He asks Gina to help him woo Isabel and ask her on a date.

• Exploited:
  • Gina tends to stay inside Mr. Harrison's classroom during recess when she has nothing better to do because she has no friends. Mr. Harrison occasionally reminds her of her quest to find him a girlfriend so she can leave the classroom and he can eat lunch alone.
  • Isabel manipulates Gina into running errands and doing favors for her by saying that she'll go on a date with Mr. Harrison if she does them.

• Defied:
  • Although it's tempting, Gina refuses to find a date for Mr. Harrison because she believes he doesn't deserve to be rewarded for being a Sadist Teacher.
  • Mr. Harrison tells Gina that he already has a Girlfriend in Canada so that she gives up the search.

• Discussed:
  Gina: I bet if we show Mr. Harrison the power of true love, we can make him happy and he'll be nice to us!
  Jeanette: And you wonder why none of your classmates like you.

• Conversed: “I wonder why the kids in these shows always want to ship their teacher with the kind neighbor lady.”

• Implied:
  • When Mr. Harrison's class finds out he has a new girlfriend, Gina smiles with a knowing expression on her face, as though she planned out the entire thing from beginning to end.
  • After Gina befriends Mr. Harrison, there's a Time Skip to when Mr. Harrison finds himself a girlfriend, who also happens to know Gina very well.

• Deconstructed: Kids don't really have a full understanding on how romantic relationships actually work, so Gina keeps selecting women who would make good girlfriends from the perspective of a child (is pretty, is nice, does nice things for kids) rather than the perspective of an adult (has a compatible personality, chemistry exists, is financially responsible, is good in bed, etc.). Mr. Harrison becomes fed up with having so many bad matches thrown at him and tells Gina he already found a girlfriend just so he can be left alone forever.

• Reconstructed: Gina takes the time to find out exactly what Mr. Harrison does and doesn't like in a romantic partner, as well as anyone he might be attracted to already before making a list of potential matches. Eventually, she introduces him to Isabel, the two bond over their love of books and their mutual desire to start a family, and they fall in love.

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Hi, Troper! My teacher really, really likes you and wants to take you back to Students Playing Matchmaker.

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