Basic Trope: A love interest who feels unworthy of their significant other's affection.
- Straight: Alice feels her significant other, Bob, deserves better than her.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice actively pushes for Bob to date someone else, feeling he'd be better off without her.
- Alice feels like she doesn't deserve to be in any relationship.
- Downplayed:
- Alice feels like a good match for Bob, but considers him the better of the two.
- Alice is attracted to Bob, but thinks he'd be happier with Charlie.
- Justified:
- Inverted: Entitled to Have You
- Subverted: Alice is playing up an act of feeling underserving to get Bob's attention.
- Double Subverted: However, after the fact, she feels awful about guilt tripping him, and the insecurity becomes real.
- Zig Zagged: Alice is insecure about Bob's affections, but only when she's having a rough time.
- Averted: Alice feels secure in her relationship with Bob.
- Enforced: Alice's insecurities were introduced to the plot to respond to fans thinking Bob could do better.
- Invoked: Dana, wanting Bob to herself, stirs doubts in Alice's mind about Bob deserving better.
- Exploited: Dana accelerates preexisting doubts in Alice to try and cause a breakup.
- Defied: Alice rejects the notion that she isn't good enough for Bob. If that were true, she reasons, they'd have broken up by now.
- Discussed: "Hey Bob, I know I'm not as good as you, and can be a downer sometimes, so if you'd rather break up, I understand."
- Conversed: (Directed at the TV) "No Alice! Why do you doubt yourself so much? Bob adores you, and I wish you'd see that more."
- Implied: Alice and Bob are a couple, but she frowns whenever they hug.
- Deconstructed: Alice's insecurities about Bob cause her to look on the inside. She analyses and deconstructs everything that's wrong with her; Looking at why she feels she's so inadequate for Bob. With this new information, she goes on a self improvement journey to become adequate for Bob.
- Reconstructed: And of course, whatever Alice does good, Charlie can do better, thus reinforcing and reconstructing those feelings of insecurity within Alice.
- Played For Laughs: Alice's insecurities cause her to make grand, albeit ineffective, gestures to show her love for Bob.
- Played For Drama: Alice's doubts about being good for Bob bring her a great deal of sorrow, and possibly drive a wedge in between them.
Go back to the unabridged version HERE, I don't deserve you...
