Basic Trope: A straight woman finds a guy she likes, but it turns out he's homosexual.
- Straight: Alice finds Bob attractive, but Alice's hopes of a relationship with him are shot down once Bob tells her he's gay.
- Exaggerated:
- Literally all the men Alice is attracted to turn out to be gay.
- All men in the cast are gay but all women in the cast are straight and frequently smitten toward men.
- Downplayed:
- Bob is bisexual, But Not Too Bi, and Alice isn't his type of women.
- Bob is gay, But Not Too Gay.
- Justified:
- Alice is a character in a Lifetime Movie of the Week where all the straight men are evil.
- Alice is a Fag Hag.
- Inverted:
- Alice is a lesbian who finds that all the women she liked are straight.
- Bob is a gay man who finds that all the men he liked are straight.
- Alice sees Bob's sexual aggression towards Men, and is glad it's not directed at her.
- Gender-Inverted: Bob is a heterosexual man who's trying to win over Alice, but Alice tells him she's a lesbian.
- Subverted:
- Alice falls for Bob, whom she later finds out is gay. However, Bob reciprocates anyway; Alice is his sole exception.
- Alice falls for Bob, and gets nervous when he displays some gay mannerisms, but he turns out to be Camp Straight.
- Bob turns out to be bisexual.
- Alice falls for Bob, but Bob isn't interested in Alice at all, not because he is gay, but because Alice just isn't his type.
- Doubly Subverted:
- ...But Bob was only pretending to love her back to avoid upsetting her.
- Bob realizes he is gay after all and his mannerisms were reflecting his true self.
- Bob isn't interested in women at the moment despite being bisexual.
- Parodied: Bob is in a Transparent Closet or maybe even openly gay, but Alice still tries to get close to him.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice falls for Bob, who is homosexual. Bob reciprocates anyway, since Alice is his sole exception. However, Bob is only pretending to love Alice back to avoid making her upset. Somewhere down the line, Bob develops a legitimate attraction towards Alice, but Alice dumps Bob once she finds out that he's gay.
- Averted:
- No Hugging, No Kissing.
- Bob is hetero- or bisexual and ends up with Alice.
- Alice doesn't attract to anyone.
- Enforced: The writers want to show that Alice is open to a relationship, but Bob is gay as not to distrupt the show's status quo.
- Lampshaded: "Argh! Why do all the good men have to be gay?!"
- Invoked:
- Exploited:
- An anti-gay activist convinces Alice to join her cause because of her annoyance at having no chance at Bob.
- Charlie is aware that women view gay men in a better light than straight men, and readily takes advantage of the fact by pretending to be gay himself to score ladies.
- Alice disguises herself as a guy in the hope that Bob will take an interest in her male persona.
- Defied: Alice is careful not to become too fixated on the guys she dates in case they happen to fall under this trope.
- Discussed:Alice: Argh! Why do all the guys I like have to be gay?Eve: It's okay, Alice. You'll find another one.
- Conversed: "Of course Bob is gay. In these types of shows, all the desirable men are either gay or taken."
- Deconstructed: Alice is madly in love with Bob. When she finds out he's gay, she stops pursuing him and pretends to be over her feelings for him, but Alice is still hopelessly in love with him and becomes depressed because of it.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice comes to peace with her feelings for Bob and learns to move past them. Alice and Bob remain close platonic friends.
- Despite her Incompatible Orientation toward Bob, Alice steps back, learns that this is the way that makes Bob happy, accepts his orientation, and even decides to go the Yaoi Fangirl route to pleasurably watch Bob and his partner make out instead.
- Implied: Bob declines Alice's attempt to kiss him. He's not seen for a while afterward until he's shown with Mike and getting along apparently romantically. Alice sees them together and shrugs.
- Played For Laughs: Alice is a Lovable Sex Maniac and running into the one man in the cast she truly desires (and we mean a whole lot more than usual) having Incompatible Orientation is represented as Laser-Guided Karma.
- Played For Drama: For a variety of reasons, Alice is The Woobie and Bob was her one last chance to find something that resembled true love. The (often completely out-of-nowhere) revelation that he is gay (and that is gay, No Bisexuals exist, apparently) is portrayed as more evidence of an uncaring, sadistic universe pulling out all the stops to screw Alice over.
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