Basic Trope: A character admits they experimented with the same gender in college.
- Straight: Alice tells her husband Bob that she fooled around with her roommate, Carol, in college.
- Exaggerated: Alice tells Bob that she fooled around with all of her female roommates in college.
- Downplayed: Alice tells Bob that she made out with Carol while in college.
- Justified:
- Both Alice and Carol wanted to try something different.
- Alice and Carol were in an all-girls dorm with strict rules about opposite-sex visitors. Certain urges don't go away just because a guy can't visit...
- Alice and Carol were drunk and one thing led to another.
- Inverted:
- Alice tells her wife Carol that she fooled around with her friend Bob while in college.
- Bob tells his wife Alice that he fooled around with his friend Dave while in college.
- Bob tells his husband Dave that he fooled around with his friend Alice while in college.
- Subverted: "Bob, I've gotta tell you something about Carol and I. We..." "...fooled around in college, right?" "What?! No!"
- Alice and Carol had a several-months (or even years) long relationship in college, not meaningless sex or making out.
- Double Subverted:
- "I did have sex with Emily, though."
- Not long after graduation, they broke up, and Alice exclusively dated men, ultimately marrying Bob.
- Parodied: Alice has been an out lesbian her whole life, but everyone reacts with shock at the reveal that she had sex with a girl in college.
- Alice's "experiments" are scientifically rigorous. There's a "control group," and large sample sizes.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- Alice and Carol didn't fool around in college. Or she doesn't tell Bob.
- Alice and Carol did not attend college.
- Alice and Carol went to different colleges.
- Alice is canonically bisexual, and her past relationship(s) with girls isn't treated any differently than her relationship(s) with guys.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: "Of course I fooled around with girls in college. Really, doesn't everyone?"
- Invoked: Emily, a bicurious high schooler, is motivated to go to college to fool around with girls.
- Exploited:
- Alice reveals her previous exploits, or makes up a story about such, knowing Bob's fantasy around two women, in an attempt to turn him on.
- Alice and Carol make out in order to score boyfriends, banking that they'll be turned on by their making out.
- Alice and Carol use this as a way to get their sexual jollies off while remaining Technical Virgins.
- Defied: Alice and Carol never once made out or did anything sexual together. (Even if one or both of them had feelings for the other.)
- Alice decides that (even if she wants to), "just experimenting" is more trouble than it's worth, what with all the drama and hurt feelings it can cause or exacerbate.
- Alice doesn't believe in casually hooking up with anyone of any gender; she believes sex (and even things like kissing or making out) should be reserved for actual relationships, or even for marriage.
- Discussed: Alice suggests fooling around with Carol in college.
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed:
- Bob refuses to accept that Alice had sex with a girl in college and breaks up with her.
- Alice is secretly a lesbian and breaks up with Bob because of it.
- Reconstructed:
- Alice gets back together with Carol.
- Alice is actually bisexual, and the relationship survives.
- Played For Laughs: Alice and Carol are both prime examples of Gonk, but Bob acts like them fooling around was the hottest thing ever.
- Played For Drama:
- Alice was secretly lesbian or bisexual, and this was the only way she could get away with exploring her desires.
- Carol had feelings for Alice, who decides that nope, she's straight after all, or that it was "just the alcohol talking," or that it really was "just a phase." Alice didn't make it clear what (if anything) this meant, and Carol feels used, hurt, manipulated, and betrayed. Taking this to its logical extreme, Carol becomes a Yandere or Woman Scorned towards Alice.
- Pictures of Alice and Carol making out at a frat party get out and it causes a lot of trouble for both of them and ruins their reputations.
- Bob views Alice as Defiled Forever.
- Alice is a Congressional candidate running on a conservative Heteronormative Crusader platform. Someone blackmails her with a photo of her and Carol. She has her blackmailer murdered.
Back to Experimented in College. Uh...that page and I used to fool around back when we were in a sorority, you know...
