History Main / LovingAShadow

* Priss Asagiri, the Knight Saber's singing biker, has some of this towards Nigel Kirkland in ''Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040'', much of it, as Mackey observes, seems to be based on how they're both very quiet, very reserved individuals who say much by saying very little. She's hurt later on to learn that he's with her boss Sylia Stingray (more or less), after which she finally begins to bond more with the hulking roughneck AD Police officer Leon McNichol.

* In ''VisionOfEscaflowne'',

* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}''

* In ''OuranHighSchoolHostClub'':

* Cyclops seems to have this for the missing Jean Grey in ''Wolverine and the X-Men'', not helped by her lack of characterization.
* Kid Flash's constant flirting with Miss Martian on ''Young Justice'' had shades of this, as did Miss Martian's own relationship with Superboy (on both ends).

* Creator/JaneAusten's ''Literature/SenseAndSensibility'': thirty-five year old Colonel Brandon falls deeply in love with seventeen year old Marianne Dashwood because she reminds him of both his tragic first love and his beloved adoptive daughter (who was seduced and abandoned by Marianne's first suitor, Willoughby). While this seems to be the classic set-up for LovingAShadow, this is portrayed as the ideal happy ending for both Marianne and Colonel Brandon. (The age difference was even more glaring in the 1995 movie when the 50 year old Alan Rickman played Colonel Brandon while 20 year old Kate Winslet played Marianne Dashwood. Then again, as his fantastic portrayal of Severus Snape in the ''HarryPotter'' films shows us, he has a knack for seeming perfect for roles a [[AgeLift couple decades too young]] for him).

** Harry's crush on Cho Chang, which throughout the fifth book comes off as Harry being desperate for someone other than [[HeterosexualLifePartners Ron]] and [[PlatonicLifePartners Hermione]] who believes and understands his angst and frustration over the Cedric, Ministry, and Voldemort issues. His crush on Cho was mostly based in an idealised view coming from how pretty, popular and Quidditch-adept Cho was, aside of how she treated him kindly in a constant manner. In the meantime, the emotionally crushed Cho is trying to wrap herself up in the memories of her tragically-finished relationship with Cedric Diggory, by latching onto the person who was closest to him when he died. However, they had barely shared anything to real conversations.
** Hermione says that Rodmilla Vane is only interested in Harry because he's TheChosenOne.

* In ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' in the episode "Booby Trap", Geordi creates a simulation of one of the engine designers, Dr. Leah Brahms. While working with her to solve the problem, he falls in love with the simulation. This produces very awkward moments when, in "Galaxy's Child" he meets the real woman, and finds she is nothing like her projection.

* Wonder Woman's infatuation with Batman on ''Justice League/Justice League Unlimited'' may count.

** This is one of the reasons that [[ComicBook/{{Batman}} Nightwing and Oracle]] fell apart. She was in love with Robin and he was in love with Batgirl — Nightwing and Oracle's ''former'' secret identities.

* Bruce Wayne/Batman spends much of Christopher Nolan's ''Dark Knight'' trilogy being stubbornly infatuated with Rachel Dawes, his childhood friend. The two actually have very little in common as adults - outside of wanting Gotham City to be a better place of course - and even though Rachel promised Bruce she would wait for him to finish his work as Batman at the end of ''Batman Begins'', they have even less in the way of chemistry, romantic or otherwise. But Bruce just can't seem to let go of his fixation with Rachel, having put her on too high a pedestal, even after she starts dating Harvey Dent. By the end of ''The Dark Knight'' Rachel herself realizes that she probably had a little bit of this towards Bruce as well and finally realizes that she really doesn't love Bruce while her heart truly belongs to Dent ([[spoiler:which ends tragically for all involved]]). In ''The Dark Knight Rises'' Bruce gets into this again with Miranda Tate, who reminds him of Rachel [[spoiler:until the end when she reveals herself to be Talia and tries to kill him along with the rest of Gotham]]. In the end, Bruce finally finds something real with [[spoiler:Selina Kyle and starts a new life with her in Italy]].

* The ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirates_of_Dark_Water Pirates of Dark Water]]'' episode "A Drop of Darkness" had the older [[http://piratesofdarkwater.wikia.com/wiki/Cray Cray]], who had once dated Ren's father. She threw a fit and left him when she caught him ''having a picnic'' with another woman. Ren looks like his father, so when Cray regains her youth, she tries to recapture how happy she remembers being. [[spoiler:Either Ren marries her, or his friends meet messy ends.]]

** Well, that and the simple fact that and DanDiDio just hated them being together for some reason, probably because he just doesn't like Nightwing for some reason.

* ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} gets this ''all the time.''

* Amora the Enchantress's on again/off again fixation with the Mighty Thor showed signs of this.
* Namor the Sub-Mariner's infatuation with Susan Storm-Richards/The Invisible Woman had a little bit of this on both ends.
* Cyclops unfortunate involvement with Madelyn Pryor (AKA: [[spoiler:the clone of Jean Grey]]) was very much this.

* In ''{{Naruto}}''

** All of the [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys girls that crush on Sasuke]] fall under this trope. [[spoiler: Karin gets a good look at the real Sasuke as he punches a hole in her to kill Danzo, which ends her affection definitely.]]

* Doughy in ''MoralOrel'' develops a [[PrecociousCrush crush]] [[HotForTeacher on his teacher]] Miss Sculptham after she calls him "son," something his [[Parental Neglect actual parents]] don't. Aside from her clearly not being interested in a child, she just takes advantage of him to get free expensive gifts. When he realizes that their relationship is not mutual, he stops giving.

** Well, that and the simple fact that DanDiDio just hated them being together for some reason.

The trope name and quote refer to Eowyn's unrequited love for Aragorn from the ''LordOfTheRings'' trilogy. Accordingly, compare and contrast with AllLoveIsUnrequited. Not to be confused with FightingAShadow.

* In Creator/JRRTolkien's ''LordOfTheRings'', Eowyn hates her confined life. She meets Aragorn and convinces herself she's in love because he's life outside. (When Aragon heals her in ''The Return of the King'', she doesn't respond to his calling her, but instantly reacts when her brother Éomer, whom she loves as a real person rather than a shadow, does.) Aragorn spots the trope as soon as the event happens, and gives Éomer the quote above.

** Sometimes Asuna gets conflicting feelings about Negi. She had had a dream about confessing her love to Takahata and then he turned into an older Negi.
** There's also a slightly more literal version involving a student falling in love with Negi's "cousin", who's actually Negi magically aged up. The results are disastrous (and [[AvertedTrope not]] in the [[HilarityEnsues good way]]).
* On ''FushigiYuugi'',

* CyranoDeBergerac: One of the core points of the play is that Roxane doesn’t love Christian nor Cyrano, she is in love with their ShadowArchetype: An entity who has all the positive traits of both suitors, but none of their defects, a true shadow.

* ''VidgeoGame/FinalFantasyVII'': Aerith latches onto Cloud so quickly because he reminds her of her first boyfriend, Zack. [[spoiler: Zack was Cloud's friend and Cloud took up his biggest traits. It's very, VERY complicated.]]

* ''SilentHillShatteredMemories'', [[spoiler: Harry's been dead for years and Cheryl is the patient. The Harry you've been playing as is the shadow in this equation, either physically manifested by Cheryl or it all took place only in her mind. Probably (hopefully) not a romantic version of this.]]

* In ''MahouSenseiNegima'',
** the girl [[{{Shotacon}} most overtly fond of Negi]], ClassRepresentative Ayaka, had a younger brother who died at birth the same year Negi was born. In many ways, Negi really ''is'' the "shadow" Ayaka wanted her baby brother to be.

A form of WishfulProjection. The nature of emotional relationships often overlaps in confusing complications ranging from the simple crush to Freudian oddness. If this causes the writers to accidentally build things like [[UnwantedHarem harems]], the easy way to get around this is reveal the basal nature of a relationship.

* In ''VisionOfEscaflowne'', everyone assumes Allan Schezar is attracted to slender young ingenues (borderline-legal in Japan, criminal almost everywhere else). In fact, hints that are revealed later indicate that they are all ReplacementGoldfish - specifically, replacements for his little sister [[FailureKnight whom he was unable to rescue in his youth]].
** And let's not forget that Hitomi's attraction to Allen Schezar was partly caused by his ''extreme'' similarity (both physical and personality-wise) to her beloved Amano-sempai, her long-time crush in school.

* A particularly painful example occurs in ''FruitsBasket''. After volumes of what seemed like romantic buildup, in order to [[CleaningUpRomanticLooseEnds solve the love triangle]] [[FanPreferredCouple Yuki and Tohru]] are involved in, it's revealed that [[spoiler: Yuki never truly loved Tohru romantically, but was looking for a mother figure in her after years of ParentalAbandonment.]]
** [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Another way to look at it]] is that [[spoiler: Yuki did love Tohru, but she fell in love with Kyo instead. Yuki gave up and invented the above excuse to feel better about not being chosen.]]
** [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Or maybe]] he fell for her in part due to her [[spoiler: maternal personality traits, then shied away and said what he did because he was feeling shades of Oedipus Rex]].

* In ''{{Naruto}}'', all of the [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys girls that crush on]] [[IneffectualLoner Sasuke]] fall under this trope. [[spoiler: Karin gets a good look at the real Sasuke as he punches a hole in her to kill Danzo, which ends her affection pretty definitely.]]
** Sakura subverts this trope. She starts out like any other Sasuke-admirer, but later learns what he's really like and legitimately falls in love with him. At present, she knows exactly what kind of person he is and what he's capable of, but she believes that Naruto can rescue him from himself.
* In ''SailorMoon'', it's speculated that [[spoiler: Seiya's crush on Usagi may have come from how similar she was to the Starlight's leader, Princess Kakyuu.]]
** Makoto begins the series constantly falling in love with any new guy she meets because they remind her of her old sempai, whom she had a huge crush on. Luckily, she seems to grow out of it.

* In the ''OuranHighSchoolHostClub'' anime, a French young girl was the [[IntergenerationalFriendship confidant of an older lady]] who worked at her BigFancyHouse as a part of the staff. The lady told the girl many times that her estranged son was a gorgeous, gentle person, pretty much a living PrincelyYoungMan. The naîve and unexperienced girl was completely smitten with such a dream image, logically, therefore she went to Japan to meet him... [[spoiler: And she tried to fulfill her girlish dream by promising said son, Tamaki, to help him re-meet his MissingMom if he agreed to go to France with her and leave the Host Club. Thankfully, [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy she realized it, and backed off in the nick of time]].]]

* May Chang in ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' has a HUGE crush on Ed when she's introduced (with dream sequences no doubt reminding some of ''Ouran'' above). She inevitably finds out what he's really like...but shortly afterwards she gets to know Al and the squeefest starts all over again. [[spoiler:Not even seeing Al's true emaciated body once he's restored to his original form puts her off, and it's implied that by the time Ed and Winry are already married with kids, they may be either already together or in their way to get hitched]].
* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' has this going on because apparently it's not in enough Tropes already. Misato at one point openly admits in her narration she loved Kaji at least somewhat because he reminded him of her father, who died in the Second Impact.

* Pretty much the reason why [[AlphaBitch Otome Katou]] loved [[JerkAss Makoto Itou]] in ''VisualNovel/SchoolDays'', since she's the UnluckyChildhoodFriend in the UnwantedHarem surrounding him. [[spoiler: She's [[BrokenPedestal heartbroken]] when it '''finally''' sinks in that [[UsedToBeASweetKid the kind Makoto she once loved]] [[TookALevelInJerkAss doesn't exist anymore]], so she decides to [[WhatTheHellHero call him out on it to his very face]] right before the... [[DownerEnding very special]] GrandFinale.]]
* Tadase from ShugoChara. 'Nuff said.
* A positive subversion of this trope occurs in ''Presents''. An artist falls in love with the daughter of a gallery owner at first sight. The daughter is a RichBitch who says she'll only go out with him if he can paint a fabulous portrait of her and then give it to her as a present. The artist tries and fails repeatedly, until Kurumi tells him that he needs to put into the portrait what he felt when he saw her for the first time. The last portrait is hailed as a masterpiece and put on display in another gallery. When the rich girl reads about this, she greedily decides to remind the artist that he owes his success to her and his promise about the painting. The artist, surprisingly, turns her down, because he realizes she's not who he fell in love with. The girl he fell in love with is the girl he saw that day, the girl who is immortalized in that portrait, and for all his hard work and everything he put into it, he gets his dream girl. [[spoiler: The girl in the portrait steps out from the frame and becomes real. The artist receives a happy ending with his love, the rich girl, on the other hand...]]

* ComicBook/{{Raven}} feels this way for Nightwing for an arc in ComicBook/TeenTitans when she's permitted to feel emotions for the first time. Starfire has to pull her aside and explain that there are different kinds of love. At first it looks like they're headed to a [[OT3 different solution]], but they end up working things out in a relatively mundane way.
** Of course, Nightwing gets this ''all the time.'' At one point he had upwards of six love interests, all of whom were infatuated with different shadows.
* This is one of the reasons that [[ComicBook/{{Batman}} Nightwing and Oracle]] fell apart. She was in love with Robin and he was in love with Batgirl — Nightwing and Oracle's ''former'' secret identities.

* The Black Cat was in love with SpiderMan. And only Spider-Man; she had no interest in the man under the mask when Peter revealed his identity to her. She eventually grew to love Peter for himself, but by that time their relationship was long over and Peter was HappilyMarried to Mary Jane.
* In the {{New 52}}, Mr. Freeze's origin is given this unsettling twist. When Victor Fries was a child he became fascinated with freezing things when his mother almost died after falling through thin ice. As an adult, he became fascinated with Nora Fields, a woman who was cryogenically frozen at age 23 in 1943 when she was diagnosed with a fatal heart condition. At the time she was in the care of Wayne Industries, so Fries applied for a job there just so he could have a chance to study her. He eventually became delusionally obsessed with her and started thinking she was his wife -- a nasty subversion of his more sympathetic DCAU origin. Batman calls out Freeze on his delusional "love" of a woman he doesn't even know who is old enough to be his grandmother.

* One of the waitresses in ''IReallyHateMyJob'' wonders if her crush on Danny Huston is just this. But then she shrugs it off with wondering if he'd fall in love with her.
* Actually subverted in ''{{Laura}}''. When it turns out she is alive, she is basically what the detective hoped she would be.

* Somewhat subverted in Creator/JaneAusten's ''Literature/SenseAndSensibility'': thirty-five year old Colonel Brandon falls deeply in love with seventeen year old Marianne Dashwood because she reminds him of both his tragic first love and his beloved adoptive daughter (who was seduced and abandoned by Marianne's first suitor, Willoughby). While this seems to be the classic set-up for LovingAShadow, this is portrayed as the ideal happy ending for both Marianne and Colonel Brandon. (The age difference was even more glaring in the 1995 movie when the 50 year old Alan Rickman played Colonel Brandon while 20 year old Kate Winslet played Marianne Dashwood. Then again, as his fantastic portrayal of Severus Snape in the ''HarryPotter'' films shows us, he has a knack for seeming perfect for roles a [[AgeLift couple decades too young]] for him).
** Not to mention the fact that May-December romances of this nature weren't exactly unheard when Austen was writing.
** And whatever his actual age, when he smiled at their wedding he looked ''ten years younger'' than he had throughout the rest of the movie.

* In the DragonLance Legends series, warlord Kitiara and Elf wizard Dalamar hook up. Kitiara is the half sister of Dalamar's master, and still not over [[HalfHumanHybrid Tanis Half-Elven]]. Am I the only one {{Squick}}ed by this?
** OurElvesAreBetter? Maybe the elves' trees aren't the only thing they have that are huge? Either way, Dalamar is much more similar to Kitiara personality-wise than Tanis ever was; it was only due to [[SpannerInTheWorks Lord Soth]] convincing each that the other had betrayed them that their lusty plans of conquest didn't work out.

* A variation from the StarWarsExpandedUniverse novel ''[[XWingSeries Wraith Squadron]]''. Kell thinks he's in love with another pilot, who tells him in no uncertain terms, after asking a few tough questions, that he doesn't love her but his mental image of her. Later, using the criteria she set out earlier, he finds that he's in love with the "real" her... which prompts her to tackle him to the floor in his quarters, as she was smitten almost from the start and was just waiting.
** ''OutboundFlight'' has [[WideEyedIdealist Maris]], who falls for the idealistic image she has of Commander Thrawn. Thrawn... well, he's not exactly a villain [[StartOfDarkness yet]], but he's not quite as nice as she imagines. He's aware of this and keeps some distance from her, but also does not disillusion her when they part.

** Daphne Prime reveals that, in the BackStory, she approached Phaethon to get to Helion because she was in love the idea of a man who preserved the life of the sun, and when she actually met Helion, did not like him at all.
* In Creator/JRRTolkien's ''LordOfTheRings'', Eowyn hates her confined life. She meets Aragorn and convinces herself she's in love because he's life outside. (When Aragon heals her in ''The Return of the King'', she doesn't respond to his calling her, but instantly reacts when her brother Éomer, whom she actually loves as a real person rather than a shadow, does.) Aragorn spots the trope as soon as the event above happens, and gives Éomer the quote above.

* Quite a lot of fans who [[DerailingLoveInterests dislike the canon Harry/Ginny pairing]] consider Ginny Weasley to be in love with The Boy Who Lived, not HarryPotter.
** Harry's crush on Cho Chang, which throughout the fifth book comes off as Harry being desperate for someone other than [[HeterosexualLifePartners Ron]] and [[PlatonicLifePartners Hermione]] who believes and understands his angst and frustration over the Cedric, Ministry, and Voldemort issues. In the meantime, the emotionally crushed Cho is trying to wrap herself up in the memories of her tragically-finished relationship with Cedric Diggory, by latching onto the person who was closest to him when he died.
*** It doesn't help that, before Cedric's death, Harry's crush on Cho was mostly based in an idealised view coming from how pretty, popular and Quidditch-adept Cho was, aside of how she treated him kindly in a constant manner. However, they had barely shared anything to real conversations.

* In Diane Hoh's ''Guilty'', Katie Sullivan believes that somebody is stalking her and plans to kill her because they blame her for the death of her boyfriend, Brownie. [[spoiler: It turns out that Katie is actually being stalked by one of her friends, and that he was the one responsible for Brownie's death. He was trying to kill Katie because, in actuality, Katie went through a massive personality overhaul as a result of Brownie's death. She wasn't "guilty" for Brownie's death, she was "guilty" for killing the old her, whom everyone used to refer to as Kit.]]
* It is quite probable that Desdemona's love for ''Othello'' is of this nature and he suspects it making him an easy target for Iago's manipulation.
* In ''LookingForAlaska'', Alaska pretty much [[DiscussedTrope discusses this trope]] when she tells Pudge that he doesn't love ''her''; he loves the version of her that he imagines her to be.

* In ''{{Smallville}}'', this is heavily implied to be the basis of both Lana's love for Clark (dead parents) and Lex's love for Helen, his string of failed romances, and his eventual obsession with Lana (dead mother Lillian). In addition, Lana calls Clark out for loving the image he's built up of her over the years to the point where he was blaming himself for her very illegal, very felonious activity (kidnapping and torture, and eventually felony murder).

*** Also, Lex's love for Lana and Helen aren't the only things that are placed in this light; many of Lex's relationships take this form. His fascination with Kara is likely due to wanting Clark to be honest with him about his alien heritage. Also, his idolization of his mother came from the years of physical and emotional abuse from his father; however, while his mother was probably too sickly to physically abuse him, she definitely could be just as vicious as Lionel was, emotionally.

* In the BBC's version of ''Series/RobinHood'', after [[spoiler:Marian's death]] Robin begins a relationship with Isabella who bears a slight resemblance to Marian. Likewise, Kate's feelings for Robin seemed to be based more on hero-worship than any particular regard for him personally, and had the show not been cancelled, it's likely that she would have been paired up with newcomer Archer instead.
** There's also Much, who falls for Kate despite the fact she treats him rather poorly. Fan speculation is that she simply reminds him of Eve, his Season 1 love interest, who also had distinctive blonde hair.

* This is a theory in ''Series/{{Charmed}}'' that Phoebe loved Coop because he's like the safer version of her ex Cole. Coop acted like Cole only he's good because he's a cupid and not a demon.

* "The One You Really Love" by The Magnetic Fields.

** "Vixen in my dreams, of great surprise to me; in the midst I see your face the way it used to be"

* Subverted with ''Theatre/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet''; at one point, Todd starts wondering what his daughter Johanna (whom he has not seen in 15 years since she was a baby) is actually like, and ultimately concludes that he can't really care about her. Played disturbingly straight with Anthony for Johanna ([[InLoveWithLove he seems mostly enamoured of the idea of rescuing her from her evil guardian]]); possibly also [[MadLove Mrs. Lovett for Todd]].
* Played straight with ''RomeoAndJuliet''. Romeo begins the story utterly heartbroken that his one true love Rosalind has dumped him. The minute he sees Juliet, he is utterly infatuated with his new one true love. Some interpret this to mean he, being very HotBlooded and brimming with all kinds of intense emotions (he ''is'' 16 after all), is too needy or in love with the idea of being in love. However, such an interpretation is not popular because it destroys the notion that the play [[MisaimedFandom depicts love at its most ideal]].

* An interesting variation occurs in ''TalesOfSymphoniaDawnOfTheNewWorld''. Marta falls head-over-heels in love with what she falsely believes Emil to be, clearly ignoring Emil's actual personality. When he calls her out on this in a moment of frustration, she draws back and realizes that, no, Emil really isn't like her fantasy. Then she ends up falling for Emil ''for real''.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea|Hour of Darkness}}'', [[Characters/DisgaeaHourOfDarkness Etna's]] [[{{Tsundere}} rather]] [[ReliableTraitor contradictory]] [[SlapSlapKiss relationship]] with Laharl is the result of this: she [[PrecociousCrush adored his father]], but ''hated'' his mother. She admits in her diary that when Laharl came along, she had no idea whether to love him or hate him because of it.
** Laharl himself seems to be attracted to Flonne, and it's mentioned that she reminds him of his deceased mother.

* [[FinalFantasyVII Aerith]] latches onto [[TomatoInTheMirror Cloud]] so quickly because he reminds her of her first boyfriend, Zack. [[spoiler: Who was Cloud's friend, and whose biggest traits he took up on. It's very, VERY complicated.]]
* If she's paired up with HorseArcher Midayle, PirateGirl Briggid from ''FireEmblemJugdral'' will straightforwardly tell him that she's not sure if he loves her for herself or because she is the twin older sister of Adean, the WhiteMagicianGirl he used to love, and Midayle will have to disabuse her of such a belief.
** She exhibits a similar fear if she's paired up with archer Jamuka, whom Adean helped to have a HeelFaceTurn. Again, Jamuka will reply via saying that he loves only her now.

* ''VisualNovel/LittleBusters'': Late in Haruka's route, [[spoiler:she becomes very worried that she doesn't actually love Riki, she just thinks she does because she's so broken and insecure that she'd be reacting this way to anyone who showed genuine affection towards her. [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming Riki says that he doesn't care and loves her anyway.]]]]

* Haruna sees Onii-san as a replacement for her dead fiance Mamoru in ''[[TsunamiChannel Experimental Comic Kotone]]''.
** However, later strips show that, while she may have originally felt that way, as time went on she fell for Onii-san for real.
* This turns out to be the major source of conflict between Misho and Marena in ''KeychainOfCreation''. Misho refuses to have casual sex with Marena. He wants more than that. Marena actually wants that too, but won't commit to anything more until she's sure that Misho [[spoiler: sees her as she is now, not [[ReincarnationRomance as she was a millenium ago]], when she was Misho's First Age Lunar consort.]]

* Some fans suggest that [[DrHorriblesSingAlongBlog Dr. Horrible]] may have only been in love with Penny's shadow, since [[spoiler: he never got to know her for who she really was before she died]].
** Penny herself was certainly attracted only to Captain Hammer's persona, as he is in fact a huge Hammer (No pun intended, and [[spoiler: The Hammer is his penis, ergo, call him Captain Dick, because he is one.]] ). I should've listened when they told me " DontExplainTheJoke ."

* Fans, whether fangirls or fanboys. Many fans of both genders who are into animated/illustrated media become so fixated with their favorite characters that they openly reject the idea of being romantically involved with real people.

* People who are addicted to pornography. You love the pictures, but the pictures don't love you back. This can lead to a condition known as 'porn creep', in which people (generally men) are not attracted to real persons of either gender (generally women) because they become so fixated on the images.
* One could argue that all crushes and cases of unrequited love are an example of this, because the ones who are "in love" have never experienced the object of their affection as they truly are, but instead cling to a built up fantasy created as a solution to the true problem of loneliness.
** Though if the person is a close friend it's not really the case, as one knows their close friends.
*** Not necessarily, you may know your friends as friends, but they may act completely differently as potential lovers.

In the character's mind, one type of relationship was simply confused with another. This has some basis in reality, where some potentially romantic relationships are actually people seeking "figures". (Hell, [[TruthInTelevision who ''hasn't'' done this at some point]]?) They spend time with a person because he or she [[ReplacementGoldfish reminds]] them of someone ''else''. For example, some characters attracted to older characters often have an absent parent or older sibling or their dead little sister. This situation is often the inherent role of an Unwanted Harem's UnluckyEverydude.

In some other cases, it turns out that the character was only [[InLoveWithLove in love with the ''idea'' of being in love]] and applied it to the first suitable person they met.

* ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' has this going on because apparently it's not in enough Tropes already. Misato at one point openly admits in her narration she loved Kaji at least somewhat because he reminded him of her father, who died in the Second Impact.

* In ''MahouSenseiNegima'', the girl [[{{Shotacon}} most overtly fond of Negi]], ClassRepresentative Ayaka, had a younger brother who died at birth the same year Negi was born. It's a bit of an inversion, however, because in many ways, Negi really ''is'' the "shadow" Ayaka wanted her baby brother to be.
** An arrow-straight, although arguably [[{{Squick}} warped]] version of this is the oddly flirtatious relationship the resident NobleDemon OldMaster Evangeline has with Negi. It seems she had a crush on his ''father'' and ''(cough)'' [[StalkerWithACrush followed him halfway around the world]] before he defeated her through trickery and sealed her away on campus... and no, she did not look any older then.
*** Let's not forget one of the few times Asuna gets conflicting feelings about Negi. She had just had a dream about Negi. Whom it seems she rather liked.
** There's also a slightly more literal version involving a student falling in love with Negi's "cousin", who's actually Negi magically aged up. The results are rather disastrous (and [[AvertedTrope not]] in the [[HilarityEnsues good way]]).
* On ''FushigiYuugi'', WholesomeCrossdresser Nuriko's habits were handwaved by the explanation that he was taking the place of his dead little sister Kourin.