Sex Changes Everything/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Basic Trope: A couple that used to be Just Friends gets a Relationship Upgrade, and things don't exactly work out.
  • Played Straight: Alice and Bob become an Official Couple, and they're happy for awhile, but then start fighting.
  • Exaggerated: Alice and Bob declare their undying love for one another, then two minutes later, they're fighting.
  • Justified: Bad qualities that Alice and/or Bob overlooked are now beginning to surface.
    • Alice and Bob really weren't suited for one another, since they have different goals and ideals.
    • Alice and Bob have been friends for a long time, and while they are good friends, there's no chemistry because of the Westermarck effect, and trying to force coupliness ends up causing more misery than happiness.
    • The mystery of another person that makes the early stages of a relationship exciting never happened because Alice and Bob spent so much time together that there was no real mystery.
    • Alice and Bob started spending too much time together and neglecting everyone and everything else they once cared about, and are now feeling it.
    • Really, any reason for hitting the Relationship Ceiling.
  • Inverted: Alice and Bob break up and decide that they are Better as Friends. (They can either be happier that way or not so much.)
  • Subverted: Alice and Bob are happy together.
  • Double Subverted: But then some months later, they decide to "take a break", and finally to just drop the Official Couple status altogether, for whatever reason(s).
  • Deconstructed: Alice and Bob are miserable when they thought they'd be happy, because they are starting to notice qualities that didn't matter so much when they were friends, but now pose a threat to their coupledom or just annoy each other. They may have been spending too much time together, or maybe the timing of the Relationship Upgrade was off. If they stay together, they will continue to be unhappy; if they don't, they may resent one another.
  • Reconstructed: Alice and Bob work through their problems and either become a stronger couple, or part ways without being resentful.
  • Parodied: Alice and Bob argue about who loves the other more, or do a No, You Hang Up First routine a la XKCD.
  • Zig Zagged: Alice and Bob keep breaking up and getting back together.
  • Lampshaded: "Ever since you two got together, all you do is fight over the littlest things!"
  • Averted: Alice and Bob get together, but don't seem to have any major problems or fight.
  • Enforced: Rule of Drama
  • Invoked: Alice and Bob have their first "sleepover", and Bob is messy in Alice's apartment.
  • Defied: Alice decides not to let it bother her too much and just reminds Bob nicely to please tidy up after himself.
  • Discussed:
  • Conversed:
  • Played For Laughs: Toilet Seat Divorce, Awful Wedded Life
  • Played For Drama: Almost always is.
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