No Sparks: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Danny:''' ''Does he make you laugh?''<br />

 

Alice and Bob are friends, or Bob has a crush on Alice. They go on a date and kiss, and Alice finds that she does not feel anything for Bob, as much as she tries. He is a great guy, but that special something is just not there.

 

 

A more explicit version of this trope is when someone is unhappy in a current relationship, and we see them having unfulfilling sex or no sex. Kisses with the soon-to-be-dumped significant other are perfunctory and short.

This can be a method of [[Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends]]. [[All Love Is Unrequited|Or creating them]].

 

 

{{examples}}

 

== [[Film]] ==

* In ''[[Back to The Future]]'', Lorraine pursues Marty with a passion, to the point where his attempt to turn her off by coming on too strong fails because she jumps him first. But when she kisses him, she suddenly feels like she's kissing her brother. Understandable of course, given that Marty happens to be her son from the Future.

* In ''[[Enchanted]]'', the failed kiss from Prince Edward might count.

* This has to come up in ''[[The Notebook]]'' at some point.

* In ''[[The Princess Diaries]]'' movie, the failure to [[Foot Popping|foot-pop]] while kissing is shown as an indication of a lack of sparks.

** This trope is resurrected in the sequel when Mia's fiance fails to get her going.

* In ''[[The Wedding Singer]]'', Julia's lack of chemistry with her fiancee is played up, [[Film/Funny|most hilariously]] in the scene where she's trying out her wedded name-to-be ("Julia Guglia") and finding it... less than satisfactory.

* Nicely played in [[Bringing Up Baby]] when Cary Grant's character is engaged to his coworker who basically says that she will not have sex with him when they are married and their marriage's purpose is to solidify their working relationship. The next few scenes include [[Cary Grant]] experiencing [[Meet Cute]] with [[Katharine Hepburn]], so when Cary's fiance is shown again the lack of sparks becomes even more apparent.

* Mal and Zoe at the end of the ''[[Firefly]]'' episode "War Stories," when Mal proposes that they sleep together due to the argument that he and her husband Wash had during Niska's torture. Zoe's deadpan response: "Take me, sir. Take me hard." The utter lack of chemistry between them is enough to unnerve Jayne, who is normally the most lecherous of the crew. It doesn't get too far due to Wash intervening and dragging off Zoe to their bunk.

* In ''[[Friends]]'', Joey and Rachel almost have sex, but it turns out Joey is completely unable to unhook Rachel's bra. This qualifies as "not feeling it" for Joey, who once made a girl's bra come off just by looking at it. (And as we find out later, said girl was Monica.)

* A chronic version of the trope could be Pam and Roy in early seasons of ''[[The Office]]''.

** Also implied later on with Jim and Karen.

* ''[[Gossip Girl]]'': Chuck tells Blair that she has no sparks with Lord Marcus, and also says the same about Nate ''twice''. Much later, to test whether she has sparks with {{spoiler|Dan}}, she does a [[Test Kiss]] and concludes (though slightly doubtfully) that there's nothing there. [[All Love Is Unrequited|He disagrees]].

* Occurs between Eddie and Raven in an episode of ''[[That's So Raven]]''.

** Actually, there were sparks, they just denied it to eachother.

'''[[Ethical Slut|Blanche]]:''' "Oh I know what you mean Sophia. I would never date a man without that spark."<br />

'''Dorothy:''' "Fortunately you carry flints in your bra." }}

* This is a [[Running Gag]] on ''[[Ned's Declassified]]'', when Moze gets with the hot foreign exchange student [[Romantic False Lead|Faymen]] for a long time, and only feels sparks kissing her best friend Ned.

* On ''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]'', Mary and Lou Grant always had a undercurrent of sexual attraction running through their relationship, but only at the very end of the series do they actually attempt to kiss one another.. and break into helpless giggles.

 

== Webcomics ==

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==