Single Woman Seeks Good Man/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A woman finds a man attractive for his virtues.

  • Straight: After a fire where Jack bravely helped save people from the flames and then volunteered food and shelter for them, Jill concludes he is the right one for her.
  • Exaggerated: Jack gives a beggar a penny. Jill falls in love.
  • Justified: She wants someone reliable.
    • Jill has a good head on her shoulders and actually wants someone who will be good to her.
  • Inverted: All Girls Want Bad Boys
  • Subverted: Jill dates Jack but is secretly trying to make her ex-boyfriend, a bad boy, jealous so her ex will return to her.
  • Double Subverted: Until Jill falls in love with Jack for his incredible kindness.
  • Parodied: Men recklessly paraded heroics and give everything away to charity because it's the only way to attract Jill.
  • Deconstructed: Jill foolishly does not consider what the hero is like in day to day life, and finds out the hard way.
    • Jill looks only for goodness and does not consider whether she finds him attractive, has interests in common with him, or can stand the tension of his dangerous occupation.
  • Reconstructed: Jill just didn't look deeply enough; she considers whether he reliably acts honorable on a day to day basis.
    • Jill looks for goodness as well as other attractive traits.
  • Zig Zagged: Sometimes Jill is attracted to sweet guys, other times to Jerk Asses.
  • Averted: Jill is single and happy.
    • Jill is a lesbian, celibate or asexual.
      • Jill is the Big Bad's consort and she likes her men just as evil as she is.
  • Enforced: The Moral Guardians will hit the roof if she ends up with the villain.
  • Lampshaded: "Yes, bad boys are Hotter and Sexier, but good guys make much better husbands in the long run."
  • Invoked: Jill puts Single Woman Seeks Good Man in a personals ad in the paper or on the Web.
  • Defied: Jill deliberately seeks out bad boys.
  • Discussed: "Aooww! All the good men are gay, taken, priests, too old, too young, fictional characters, or any combination thereof!"
  • Conversed: "Well, not all of them. But many are. It's just Murphy's Law."

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