Basic Trope: One character hangs around with a couple.
- Straight: Alice and Bob are dating while Charlie is hanging out with them.
- Exaggerated: Charlie is a fifth wheel for Alice/Bob and Dave/Ella.
- Downplayed: ???
- Justified:
- Charlie wants to hang with Alice and Bob since they're his close friends.
- Alice and Bob want Charlie to come along with them much to his reluctance.
- Charlie is Alice's little brother and she has to look after him because their parents are always busy.
- Inverted: Alice, Bob, and Charlie are a Polyamorous throuple.
- Subverted: Alice and Bob and Charlie get stuck in a video game and Charlie has to be around them till they win the game and get out, however, Charlie is the first one to exit and now it's only Alice and Bob in the game...
- Double Subverted: Even though Charlie won the game it won't let him exit, so he's still trapped with Alice and Bob until they finish the game and figure out how to get back to the real world together.
- Parodied: Alice and Bob are unable to do anything without Charlie tagging along that people mistake Charlie for their child or think they are all in a threesome even though they aren't.
- Zig Zagged: Charlie hangs out with the couple Alice and Bob from time to time but he also has his own single friends whom he hangs out with just as much.
- Averted: Alice and Bob have no third wheel.
- Enforced: The author wants to find a way to shoehorn Charlie in an episode, so he decides to have him be the third wheel to Alice and Bob.
- Lampshaded:
- "Bringing Charlie with us is such a bad idea."
- "Boy, how I'm enjoying my time with you lovebirds who wanted me to come with you guys against my will."
- Invoked:
- "I'll be your third wheel, guys!"
- "Charlie, think you can be our third wheel?"
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: "The two of you can love on each other all you like. I've got better things to do."
- Discussed: "Do you think the constant third wheeling that Charlie does affects him mentally? I mean if I had to third wheel a couple all the time I'd grow sick and tired of it and also feel very lonely."
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed:
- Being the third wheel causes Charlie to grow jealous of Bob while he develops feelings towards Alice.
- Charlie begins longing for a relationship with a girl the longer he is Alice and Bob's third wheel.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob and Alice reassure Charlie that they love his presence with them and that excluding him from things they do feels wrong; he's irreplaceable regardless of what it may look like to others.
- Charlie is content with being single and hanging around the couple, because he's that secure and self-confident, besides if he wanted to get a partner he could but he's fine with the way things are.
- Played For Laughs:
- Alice and Bob act like Sickening Sweethearts towards each other much to Charlie's annoyance.
- Alice and Bob are so used to Charlie hanging out with them all the time even during sex that they can't get in the mood unless he's with them.
- Played For Drama: Charlie feels that his constant hanging around Bob and Alice is the cause for their relationship falling apart and that he makes things awkward for the two so he leaves to a place far away from them.
Back to Third Wheel.
