History Main / OperationJealousy

** After Marshall confesses that a coworker jumped him at work, Lily thinks he's just trying to invoke this trope and doesn't believe him. However, when the coworker drops by to apologize to Lily and confirms that it did happen, Lily beats the snot out of her in a jealous fury.

!!By Author:
* Creator/LMMontgomery loved to use this trope.
** ''Literature/AnneOfGreenGables'' has the idea of hurrying along a couple by having the woman pretend to be dating somebody else. This forces the guy to propose. This is made all the better by the fact that the patsy brought in to pretend to court the woman hints that he fell in love with her, too.

* ''Literature/JaneEyre'':
** Mr. Rochester pretends to be in love with RichBitch Miss Ingram because he knows that Jane is emotionless and placid on the outside but fiery on the inside, and that jealousy will be the best way to bring her feelings for him to the surface.
** Jane later snaps Rochester out of his melancholy self-pity by arousing his jealousy of St John Rivers. It enables him to finally [[CannotSpitItOut spit out]] that he still loves her and wants to marry her.

!!By Title:
* Tom and Becky try to overdo each other in ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfTomSawyer''. They got engaged, but Becky breaks it over when Tom blabbled about having been engaged before. When he returns from the island as ''the'' hero, Becky refuses to reconcile. Tom flirts with Amy and Becky suffers, but strikes back and flirts with Tom's mortal enemy Alfred Temple.
-->''Tom fled home at noon. His conscience could not endure any more of Amy's grateful happiness, and his jealousy could bear no more of the other distress. Becky resumed her picture inspections with Alfred, but as the minutes dragged along and no Tom came to suffer, her triumph began to cloud and she lost interest; gravity and absentmindedness followed, and then melancholy; two or three times she pricked up her ear at a footstep, but it was a false hope; no Tom came.''

* ''WebComic/SluggyFreelance'': In "The Isle of Dr. Steve -- A Spooky Kind of Love", Gwynn contemplates dating Torg to get Riff interested in her again. She talks about it out loud, and Zoë sardonically points out "the jealousy ploy is just plain evil," and Gwynn isn't too keen on having to go out on a date with Torg either, until he drives into the yard with a Corvette (which she stole to escape after the MadScientist [[ItMakesSenseInContext who owned it blew up]]). Torg agrees to go out with Gwynn because he doesn't think it's a date at first, and the date kind of establishes the BelligerentSexualTension between Torg and Gwynn. Riff does become jealous... but it fizzles out because when he goes to confront Torg, it turns out Torg just bought a [[UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast Dreamcast]]. After playing video games frantically, Torg and Riff both agree they don't want to date Gwynn.

* In ''Manhua/GoddessCreationSystem'', seeing that Mingyi isn't as simply as his brother Mingluan, Xiaxi instead takes the opposite approach and raves about how wonderful Mingluan is. Since Mingluan himself is clearly in love with her, it succeeds in wounding Mingyi's ego that this servant girl could completely overlook him for his seemingly inferior brother.

* In another episode, when Timmy wishes away his emotions, Trixie Tang becomes irate when Timmy is no longer attracted to her, so she takes Chester (Unwilling on his part) as her boyfriend just to get his attention.

Hopefully, the operation succeeds. Hopefully, Charlie isn't ''too'' insufferable or bland and doesn't drive Alice insane first. Hopefully, he won't be [[WomanScorned heartbroken and furious]] when he finds out Alice was just using him. Hopefully, Bob doesn't take this as a sign that he doesn't have a chance with Alice. Hopefully, Bob doesn't [[IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy just want his beloved to be happy]]. Hopefully, Bob doesn't fail to notice because he has [[ObliviousToLove the awareness of a brick]]. Hopefully, Bob and Charlie don't turn out to get along really well -- and possibly even better with each other than with Alice herself. Hopefully, Bob doesn't fall for it so thoroughly that he pulls a CounterZany that Alice thoroughly falls for! And hopefully, Alice doesn't [[BecomingTheMask actually fall for Charlie...]]

[[HilarityEnsues Yeah, right...]]

* Inverted in ''Manga/{{FAKE}}'', where Diana and Berkeley tag team to separate Dee and Ryo this way instead of bringing them together. This backfires, however, as it only serves to strengthen their bond as Ryo [[GreenEyedEpiphany realizes]] that he really doesn't like Dee smooching on anyone else but him.

---> '''Ranma:''' Akane, you idiot. You're doing this just to torture me, aren't you?
** [[SomebodyDoesntLoveRaymond When Shampoo starts acting like she despises him,]] an upset Ranma acts cozy with Akane to make Shampoo jealous.

A specific type of ZanyScheme: Two characters, AliceAndBob, are an OfficialCouple... or they would be, if Bob wasn't [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend so mired in the river of denial]] that he insists that the water flowing all around him is solid ground. Alice, who is not in denial and ''very'' aware of Bob's feelings, gets fed up with his refusal to [[CanNotSpitItOut spit them out]] and takes matters into her own hands. Confronting him directly with the [[{{Subtext}} evidence]] might cause him to run for the hills, so Alice decides to {{invoke|dTrope}} GreenEyedEpiphany: She gets into a faked or temporary relationship with Convenient Charlie, to make Bob insanely [[GreenEyedMonster jealous]] enough to come clean first.

** April tries to use Operation Jealousy AGAINST Andy too, by flirting with Jean-Ralphio, and later with her new boyfriend Eduardo. The first fails because Jean-Ralphio is a [[CasanovaWannabe douche]], the second because Eduardo and Andy actually get along really well.

A specific type of ZanyScheme: Two characters, AliceAndBob, are an OfficialCouple... or they would be, if Bob wasn't [[SheIsNotMyGirlfriend so mired in the river of denial]] that he insists that the water flowing all around him is solid ground. Alice, who is not in denial and ''very'' aware of Bob's feelings, gets fed up with his refusal to [[CanNotSpitItOut spit them out]] and takes matters into her own hands. Confronting him directly with the [[{{Subtext}} evidence]] might cause him to run for the hills, so Alice decides to {{invoke|dTrope}} GreenEyedEpiphany: She gets into a faked or temporary relationship with [[TheBeard Convenient Charlie]], to make Bob insanely [[GreenEyedMonster jealous]] enough to come clean first.

* In Creator/PGWodehouse' ''Literature/JeevesAndWooster'' books, Bertie Wooster would often use this technique to speed up marriages, although they were never meant to be his own. He himself would play TheBeard, usually without asking anyone's permission first.

* On an episode of ''Series/TheGoldenGirls'', Blanche tries this to make her boyfriend Floyd (who just stood her up) jealous, TheBeard being Rose's foreign cousin Sven. At first, it seems like Sven is taking this wrong and falling for Blanche (being rather naïve) but as it turns out, he knew what she was up to - he himself wanted to scare his fiancé away. (It's an ArrangedMarriage, and he's ''very'' nervous about it.)