Looking for Love In All the Wrong Places/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A (often female) character who believes that every (doomed) relationship will be The One.

  • Straight: Alice falls in love with men at the drop of a hat and has terrible taste in men, yet is convinced that every relationship she gets into is "The One".
  • Exaggerated: Alice falls in love every five seconds, and each man she falls for is more detestable than the last.
  • Justified: Alice really wants someone to care for her. So she's willing to look past a few (or several) flaws.
  • Inverted: Alice has nothing but the most impeccable standards for who dates her.
    • Alternatively, Alice gets into an incredibly long relationship who has all the hallmarks of "The One", but refuses to consider him as such.
  • Subverted: It seems like Alice has found the one.
  • Double Subverted: Oh wait, he was more of a jerk than the other guys.
  • Parodied: Bob is around - he's everything Alice wants, needs, and should look for in a man. He's handsome, has a great job, and is an all-around saint. However, Alice repeatedly ignores him to go after worse and worse men.
  • Deconstructed: Alice never finds the one because she's so busy dating around.
    • Alternatively, Alice gets into an incredibly unhappy relationship. But she's so exhausted from searching for men that she refuses to believe he's not The One.
      • Alice can't find The One because she's too desperate as a result of insecurity about her single status. Her blatantly obvious desperation and insecurity turn the good men off, and the Jerkasses use it to their advantage.
    • Alice has a tough time discerning "The Butterflies" from actual love; when "The Butterflies" feeling fades, she assumes that she has fallen out of love with the guy (and/or that he has fallen out of love with her), not realizing that real love takes time and effort, and is about far more than schmoopy feelings.
  • Reconstructed: Alice eventually finds her man after a great deal of searching, and puts work into the relationship.
  • Zig Zagged: She's found the one! Wait, he's a bigger jerk than usual. But that was just at first and she changed him into a better person.
  • Averted: Alice has regular standards.
  • Enforced: "We need a depressing character on this show. How about one of those women who's always trying - and failing - to find the One?"
  • Lampshaded: "Well, that's the twelfth guy I've dated that's not the one."
  • Invoked: Alice runs into Carol, who has found the love of her life. She starts thinking...
  • Defied: Alice decides that she might not find the one, but she'll be happy where she is.
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???

Mayby Looking for Love In All the Wrong Places is the one...