Basic Trope: Two characters are in love with the same person, who has to choose between them.
- Straight: Bob is torn between two potential love interests, Alice and Charlotte.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob gets a lot of Ship Tease with Alice and Charlotte. But Danny is also interested in Charlotte, and Ethan has taken a liking to Alice...
- Bob and Danny are both torn between Alice and Charlotte, forming a "love square".
- Bob loves every woman (or, even better, every person) in town.
- Downplayed:
- Alice and Bob are the Official Couple, but most fanfics pair Bob with Charlotte anyway.
- Alice and Bob are the Official Couple, but Charlotte is still in love with Bob.
- Justified: Bob has always been a bit on the indecisive side, and Alice and Charlotte both have wildly different traits he likes in a girl.
- Inverted: Alice and Charlotte both hate Bob, who has to choose who gets to be his Arch-Enemy.
- Subverted:
- Alice finds out Bob and Charlotte aren't romantically interested in each other at all.
- Charlotte dies.
- Third-Option Love Interest.
- Bob decides to Marry Them All.
- Bob and Alice are in a relationship but they started having problems, Bob is suspicious of how close Alice and Charlie are and fears that she will dump him for Charlie or they will break up over an affair. After an argument, Bob goes for a drink and ends up having an affair in a moment of drunken vulnerability. Alice finds out (either by catching him in the act or by a guilty Bob telling her) and she angrily reveals that she and Charlie were only friends. They break up because of Bob's affair and paranoia.
- Double Subverted:
- But then it turns out the reason Charlotte's always hanging out with Bob is so she can get closer to Alice.
- Alice reveals that she is also in love with Danny.
- Bob breaks up with his Third-Option Love Interest and is in a Love Triangle once again.
- Parodied:
- Each of the three is attracted to the other two and Wangsts ludicrously over it. When someone suggests a threesome, each invariably responds "That's just silly." So they each take a third option.
- Bob is a polygamist.
- The love triangle also involves actual triangles.
- Zig Zagged: Alice and Bob are happily together. Suddenly, Amber comes back to town and reminds him of their promise to get together when their older. Bob also realizes how She Is All Grown Up and decides to give her another chance, kicking Alice to the curb and crushing their relationship.
- Averted:
- Bob only gets Ship Tease with one of the girls throughout the series.
- Bob is a Celibate Hero, Asexual, or Gay.
- Enforced: "We can't have Alice and Bob get together too easily, we need some drama. How about another girl who likes Bob?"
- Lampshaded: Alice: "Things were going so well with Bob. I was sure he was interested in me. So I guess I should have expected some new girl to appear out of nowhere and capture his attention..."
- Invoked: Bob likes having two women after him, so he leads both of them on.
- Exploited: Danielle sees that Bob is indecisive, and becomes his Third-Option Love Interest.
- Defied:
- Bob decides he doesn't have time for love.
- Charlotte snaps and murders Alice, or vice versa.
- Bob chooses to have a relationship with both Alice and Charlotte.
- Alice balks at the idea of competing with Charlotte and leaves early in the story.
- Discussed: Bob: "You'd expect a hero like myself to be in a Love Triangle, right? Well, I'm lucky enough to only love Alice."
- Conversed: "Is Bob ever gonna make his mind up? Alice/Charlotte is obviously the correct choice!"
- Implied: Bob is shown flirting with both Alice and Charlotte, but never with the other female characters.
- Deconstructed:
- Once they realize how fickle and indecisive Bob is, Alice and Charlotte both lose interest in him.
- The girls' quest for Bob's heart makes it look like they're treating him as the prize for their happiness. Bob essentially tells them both Did You Think I Can't Feel? and stops pursuing them both.
- Alice and Charlotte kill each other in a Murder-Suicide, and Bob is Driven to Suicide over this.
- Bob strings both of them along, impregnates Charlotte, and sleeps around with every other girl he comes across, too. Eventually Charlotte kills Bob in rage, leading Alice to kill Charlotte and escape with Bob’s head in a nice boat.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob finds two new love interests who don't care that he's indecisive.
- Alice balks at the idea of competing with Charlotte and leaves, but Bob realizes later that this was an indicator that she was actually the love interest worth keeping and tries to make up with her.
- Played For Laughs: Bob and Alice are Happily Married, but that doesn't stop Charlotte from pining for him.
- Played For Drama:
- The Love Triangle is completely dramatic, with no jokes made of it, as in the average Soap Opera.
- Or Bob, who is entangled in a Love Triangle between his two friends, is fed up with the constant Lover Tug of War and cockfights, and because he does not want to lose their friendship he lies and tells them he is interested in someone else instead.
See, I met this other Troper, but I still like you as well!
