One of the Boys/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A female character who prefers to socialize with male characters.

  • Played Straight: Alice has more male friends than female friends. (She may or may not be a Tomboy.)
  • Exaggerated: Alice has no female friends whatsoever.
  • Inverted: Alice has many more female friends than male.
  • Gender Inverted: Bob has more female friends than male friends.
  • Justified: Alice prefers to be around men because they have (theoretically) less drama than women.
  • Subverted: Alice spends time socializing with both men and women in-story.
  • Double Subverted: But her closest friend that she spends the most time with is Bob.
  • Deconstructed: The guys may resent Alice encroaching on their male-bonding time; now they have to class it up more than perhaps they want to (or so they think.)
    • One of the guys may have feelings for Alice but Cannot Spit It Out because they spend all their time rough housing. Alternatively, Alice has feelings for one of them but he sees her as one of his buddies, not as girlfriend material.
  • Reconstructed: Alice accepts her male friends and their conversations at face value, fart jokes and all. She also doesn't "cling" to them. In turn, they don't resent her, even enjoying her company...and her advice on how to relate to women better if she has any. And everyone knows where they stand with Alice relationship wise.
  • Parodied: Alice looks and acts so much like one of her male friends that everyone is surprised to learn that she's a girl.
  • Lampshaded: "And these are my bros...and Alice."
  • Averted: Alice has few male friends, or no male friends.
    • Alice has no friends, period.
  • Enforced: "We need a believable circle of friends for our Tomboy character."
  • Invoked: Alice, tired of "girl drama" starts spending more time with Bob.
  • Defied: Alice decides that she wants bonding with other women who understand her feelings better, and decides to give her girlfriends another chance.
  • Discussed: "Don't you think Alice is too much of a tomboy- I mean...she doesn't have any female friends."
  • Conversed:
  • Played For Laughs: Alice becomes a "relationship advice" go-to, even though she just wants to watch football. Instead of the guys telling her to hold conversations over until the commercial break, she ends up telling them that.
  • Played For Drama: Bob falls in love with Alice, but she is Oblivious to Love. (Or vice versa.)

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