The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

What you do for a living is typically a big part of who you are, and when you start getting serious with a boyfriend or girlfriend, you probably like to talk about how your day went. But what if you spend your day saving the planet from alien invasions? Or hunting down vampire [[Serial Killer|serial killers]]? What if what you do for a living is so fantastical telling them about your [[Secret Identity]] will convince them you are a liar (in which case they dump you), convince them you are insane (in which case they try to have you committed and/or dump you), or horrify them to the point where they (guess what) dump you? Of course, the people you work for in this fantastical world may insist that should you ever tell your significant other, you'd have to immediately [[Killed to Uphold the Masquerade|kill them]].

Is it any surprise, then, that the [[Masquerade]] will (make you) kill your dating life?

 

 

# The strain is too much, and you break up.

# Your [[Love Interest]] is [[Down the Rabbit Hole|introduced]] into the [[Masquerade]]

# Your Love Interest is already part of the [[Masquerade]]

 

Usually, the [[Love Interest]] freaks out. Rarely... very rarely... the [[Love Interest]] [[Understanding Boyfriend|doesn't freak out at all]] and instead reacts with some variation of "Huh... well that explains a lot." Of course, adding a regular character who is in the know will remove a huge source of drama, so any girlfriends or boyfriends that find out about the Masquerade [[Status Quo Is God|have a life expectancy of a few hours]]. Compare [[It's Not You, It's My Enemies]]. May be because she or he [[Loves My Alter Ego]]. Often the cause of a character being [[Hollywood Dateless]]. A subtrope of [[Keeping Secrets Sucks]]. If your heroic job threatens your dating life for reasons other than its secrecy, see [[Duty First, Love Second]]. If letting the [[Love Interest]] in on the secret is what causes the break up, that falls under [[Love Cannot Overcome]].

** Gwen Stacy got murdered for dating Pete.

** Mary Jane and he ''did'' marry, but the number of times his crime fighting got in the way of dates, it's an exception.

* Happens to Billy Batson as [[Captain Marvel]] in [[Justice Society of America]]. Turns out having the alter-ego of a 30 year old man will destroy your chances with the 16 year old.

** To clarify: Stargirl knew that Billy was 16, and that Billy was Captain Marvel, and that it was still Billy's basic personality when he was in Captain Marvel mode. But the rest of the Justice Society, mostly made up of elder statesmen of the superhero crowd, did not know about Captain Marvel's secret teenaged identity, which made the relationship look highly improper. Jay Garrick, the Flash, flatly told Captain Marvel to break it off, and he did so rather than reveal his identity to the older members of the team.

* ''[[Batman|Bruce Wayne]], of all people'', admits this to Vicki Vale when he realizes this is why she's {{spoiler|deduced his secret identity, thus why Ra's al Ghul wants her dead.}}

** Tim Drake (3rd Robin) has a fondness of dating civilians (Arianna, Zoanne, Tam) compared to the other Robins. These relationships always end up going south, unsurprisingly. With Arianna and Zoanne, they have no clue of his secret identity, and with Tam, she managed to keep his secret AND dodge all death threats at her for being associated with him fairly well, but broke up anyways. Even with his longest relationship, Stephanie Brown (Spoiler), they were dating as superheroes and not civilians because he couldn't give away his real identity. They had problems due to Robin's secretiveness and only patched things up when Batman forcefully revealed Robin's real name to her.

 

== Film ==

* Straker's marriage in ''[[UFO]]'' was destroyed by keeping SHADO secret from his wife. It didn't help when she caught him meeting with one of the [[Bridge Bunnies]] and he was unable to tell her why.

* Has happened to both [[Superman|Clark]] and [[Green Arrow|Oliver]] in ''[[Smallville]]''.

* Starts with Sydney's fiancee in the pilot of ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'' and goes downhill from there. After the [[Time Skip]] between seasons 2 and 3, she barely interacts with anyone who's not in on the conspiracy or a target of her mission.

* In ''[[Chuck]]'', Chuck's few attempts to date someone who wasn't Sarah ended up going sour pretty much for this reason.

* In ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' Sam Carter's boyfriend Pete gets a little put out by her constant secrecy, but being a cop decides to do some digging rather than forcing a confrontation. He ends up stumbling into the crossfire of a fight with a Goa'uld and getting shot, although this does let Carter give him the whole story while he's in the hospital. Their relationship eventually founders for other reasons, (hey, we're talking Black Widow Carter here!)

** To those not aware: Every man Sam was involved in prior to this relationship was killed, usually in a rather off-hand manner. In one documentary she even asked the writers if she could get a boyfriend who didn't die.

* Just ask Cally Stone of ''[[Dark Oracle]]'' about this one. Every potential relationship she has (and most of her friendships) get torpedoed by her attempts at dealing with the comic book that has taken over her life. Conversely, her brother [[Cool Loser|Lance]], and his best friend [[Butt Monkey|Dizzy]], probably wouldn't have dating lives if the comic had forced them together with their respective girlfriends.

** Cleo and Lewis's troubles have little to do with the masquerade, and are more mundane in nature. He's a little too involved in helping that it makes him a poor boyfriend.

** Emma's boyfriends become pushy over the secret and Emma pushes them away over it (or it causes a huge fight). She only reveals her secret to her second love interest in the last episode.

** Rikki starts out with the problem of being a mermaid in love with a guy (Zane) whose made it his only mission to prove Mermaids exist. Later he feels that mermaid stuff is coming before him in in their relationship. Incidentally Rikki's closeness to her mermaid sisters is strained when she lets Zane know she is, but doesn't tell them, and forbids him from telling them he knows. So we have a Masquerade in a Masquerade. Bella's initial problems with Will are much along these lines, as he's sure weird stuff is going on and wants the truth (which Rikki, Cleo, Bella, and Lewis don't want him to know).

* In [[Power Rangers Zeo]] Tommy tries to go out on a date with someone outside the masquerade only to be called away by preparations for the next monster attack. Later he actually gets to the date, only to be called away by an actual monster attack.

 

== Video Games ==