Romantic Fake–Real Turn

"It's a fake marriage with real feelings. It's almost comical."

— Dominik Vertov, Shadow and Bone

When a person or couple fake a romantic relationship and then fall in love.

There are two major variants, depending on who is in on the deception. In the solo deceiver variant, one of the couple is trying to fool the other about their feelings. A classic example is when a Gold Digger falls in love with their mark. This can resolve in various ways — the deception is undiscovered and we end with a loving couple; the deception is discovered and the deceiver has to reestablish trust to achieve the happy ending; or the deceiver is discovered and rejected and suffers a romantic failure as well as the failure of their initial plan.

In the two deceiver variant, both participants know the relationship to be fake. They might pretend to be dating, or announce an engagement with no intention to actually marry, or marry without intending to live as a married couple. There must be an element of deception — the couple intend at least one person to believe the relationship is real. Common motives are for one of the couple to gain legal status (citizenship, health insurance coverage, freedom from a parent) or because one of the couple has lied about being in a relationship and now needs a stand-in for the fictional partner. This variation usually ends happily for the couple.

This trope is the intersection of Fake Relationship (a fake romantic relationship) and Becoming the Mask (what started as a facade becomes real). Overlaps with The Beard if the Fake Relationship began for the purpose of perpetrating a deception about one or both participants' sexuality.

The two deceiver variant overlaps with Marriage Before Romance, and Marriage of Convenience. Marriage Before Romance does not require deception (e.g. people understand that in an arranged marriage, the couple do not necessarily initially love each other) and this trope allows relationships other than marriage. A Marriage of Convenience usually involves deception, and so becomes this trope if the couple fall in love.

The single deceiver variant is a subset of In Love with the Mark, when the mark was to be targeted romantically rather than, for example, targeted for assassination. The romantic option of The Bet frequently leads to this trope. There is also overlap with Sex–Face Turn, but this trope does not require sex, and that trope does not require deception.

Not to be confused with Fake–Real Turn, where it is some sort of organization that is faked. Compare It Meant Something to Me.

As an ending trope, spoilers marked and unmarked are abundant on this page. You Have Been Warned.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Inverted in a way in Ichaicha Suru to Okane ga Waichau Futari no Hanashi: Aki Hojo and Hanasaki Haru are neighbors who each secretly like the other, but they're Twice Shy. Strangely, whenever they show affection to each other, money appears out of thin air. They take advantage of this, "acting" like they like each other (at least in private), but worry that the other one thinks they're only interested in the money. Eventually, they do admit their feelings, but they haven't told anyone else yet.
• I Married My Female Friend stars Kurumi Sera, who married her best friend Ruriko Aizawa as part of a promise they made- if neither of them had a boyfriend five years after coming of age, they would get married. While the marriage is considered a temporary arrangement, and one of the house rules is that they can go back to being friends if one of them finds someone she likes, Kurumi grows closer to Ruriko over time. The final chapter has the two hold an actual wedding ceremony, with a modified version of the house rules as their vows.
• Marmalade Boy: Ginta and Arimi pretended to be dating to get Miki (Ginta's crush and best friend) and Yuu (Arimi's ex-boyfriend) back, respectively.
• Flay Allster from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED initially seduces Kira to manipulate him into killing the people who murdered her father, but when they are separated by circumstances later on, she realizes that she has fallen in love with him for real.
• Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: Suletta and Miorine's relationship as groom and bride was initially transactional, with Suletta agreeing to it to make up for messing up Miorine's escape and Miorine seeing Suletta as a convenient shield to keep away suitors while she plotted her next escape. Neither expect to actually have to tie the knot. By the time they are meant to get married, Suletta fully embraces the idea and Miorine visibly struggles to carry out her plan to drive Suletta away for her own good when she hears how enthusiastic Suletta is about their wedding. After going through a series of hardships and separations, the two end up married by the time of the epilogue.
• Nisekoi basically revolves around this trope, with the main characters — Raku and Chitoge — paired off by their fathers, good friends and yakuza bosses, to prevent a bloody feud between their gangs (the rank-and-file gang members are not in on this deception). And that was after both teens got off to a bad start when Chitoge accidentally bumped onto Raku, causing him to (temporarily) lose his precious pendant, given to him by a long-forgotten childhood love. As much as they openly claim to hate each other's guts, they soon discover that their fake romance is slowly becoming real.
• Oreshura also revolves around this. Masuzu and Eita both hate the very concept of romantic love, seeing it as shallow and destructive based on the terrible relationships of each of their parents. Masuzu, the most popular girl in their school, blackmails Eita into pretending to be her boyfriend so that boys will stop confessing to her. And then they start falling in love for real.
• In Please Teacher!, due to a mishap involving Mizuho's teleporter putting her and Kei in a very compromising situation, Kei and Mizuho end up having to pretend they're married, which eventually grows into a genuine romance.
• Princess Jellyfish: Shoko Inari pretends an (aggressive) romantic interest in Shu, to use his political influence to advance a real estate project. She realizes (after he's seen through her wiles) that she has fallen for him. By this point, Shu distrusts her completely, so no relationship ensues.
• The whole premise of Rent-A-Girlfriend. After being dumped by his girlfriend, Kazuya uses an online app to rent a girlfriend named Chizuru. Things get complicated by their friends and family assuming they're dating for real, and in the middle of the resulting shenanigans, the two inevitably start falling in love for real.
• SPY×FAMILY: Loid and Yor are a fake couple who only agreed to get married to suit the purposes of their alternate lives- Yor to deflect suspicion to help maintain from her job as an assassin, Loid because he needs a fake family to complete his secret spy mission to get close to a dangerous politician. This hasn't kept the two from developing genuine romantic tension— though when Loid wants to keep emotionally distant and Yor is horribly shy, it's not exactly happening quickly.
• Summer Wars: Natsuki has lied to her family about having an awesome boyfriend, and recruits Kenji to play the role when attending an extended family gathering. By the end, their relationship has become real.
• The Summer You Were There starts when Kaori finds a manuscript of a novel by her classmate Shizuku, only to learn that Shizuku has no plans to write another novel, since she is planning on killing herself. Kaori, aware of what Shizuku has in mind, proposes starting a fake relationship so she can write a love story based on the two of them, although she appears to have had feelings for Shizuku all along. Shizuku reluctantly goes along with it at first, but gradually realizes she has genuine feelings for Kaori. Just before Kaori passes away of her illness, Shizuku sends the final line of her novel, in which Shizuku's character tells Kaori's character, "I love you," and Kaori texts back, "Me too." In Kaori's final letter to Shizuku, she admits that she wanted a real relationship with Shizuku, but was afraid that if they'd made their relationship real, Shizuku would have committed suicide after Kaori's death.
• Wolf Girl and Black Prince has this as the central plot. Erika and Kyouya pretend to date because the former has boasted to her friends that she already has a boyfriend and shown them Kyouya's photo as evidence. Eventually, however, love blossoms between the two and they begin dating for real.

Comic Books

• In an early crossover with Batman, Deadman ends up possessing a criminal and going on a couple of dates with his girlfriend to keep his cover. Unfortunately, having gone years without human affection, Deadman eventually falls for the girl and abandons Batman's operation in hopes that he can convince her to go straight. The problem is, she finds out he was working with the cops and she tries to kill him and Bruce, forcing Deadman to pull the trigger on her. Angsting ensues.
• Roadqueen: Eternal Roadtrip To Love revolves around Leo and Vega "fake-dating" for a week. It starts as a way for Leo to prove she can be a great girlfriend and "decent lesbian" so Vega will return her beloved motorcycle, but as the week goes on, it becomes clear that they're developing real feelings for one another.
• In Runaways, Karolina and Xavin's relationship initially began as a ruse to try and end the war between their respective species, but over time, they grew to care about each other.
• Zig-zagged in X-Statix, where Phat and Vivisector initially became a couple as a desperate ploy to raise their popularity and discourage their publicity-hungry bosses from killing one of them for drama, but after the death of Edie Sawyer, they decided to pursue a genuine relationship... only to figure out that while they are both gay men, they're not actually attracted to each other.

Fan Works

• The Tangled Web starts with Mara pretending to be Luke's girlfriend to keep away a Fangirl with a highly influential father. Luke lasts about a day before it becomes real.
• In Refiner's Fire, Harry asks Ginny to be his pretend girlfriend to keep away a crowd of... interested... schoolgirls. After a couple of weeks, he asks her out for real.
• Foobar137's works:
  • In "Storm Warning", Vanessa asks Ferb to pretend to be her boyfriend in an attempt to avoid a Stalker with a Crush; after they get snowed in together, a real relationship develops.
  • In "Tactical Considerations", Steve and Darcy are sick of blind dates. They decide to pretend to date to convince their friends to leave them alone for a while, only to find themselves caring when they promised they wouldn't.
• Freedom For The Hellhound: When a random guy, Caleb, who helped Loona with some chores gets harassed by his Alpha Bitch bully, Loona impulsively lies about Caleb asking him out on a date in order to get the bully off their backs. This leads them to going on a fake date at a social gathering to spare them further heckling when she calls Loona's bluff. However, Loona grows genuinely fond of Caleb during the date and the feeling is mutual, much to Blitzo's chagrin.
• In Girlfrenemies, future destined enemies Apple White and Raven Queen pretend to be girlfriends in order to ease tensions between the royals and rebels at their school. As it turns out, Raven is secretly in love with Apple. Apple also likes Raven but hasn't even realized she's a lesbian yet. Duchess is the only character who knows that Raven and Apple are faking their relationship, but no one believes her because it's so obvious that the two are in love. At the end of the fic, Apple and Raven officially become a legit couple.
• Guys Being Dudes: Arlo initially claims that he's only going on the date with Spark to get back at Candela and fulfill Sierra's assignment. That quickly evaporates after their first date and a revealing video chat.
• Judgement Day (Dragon Ball): Goku and Vegeta have to pretend to be soul-bonded in order to avoid being sent to Hell by the gods. Over time, the two realize they have feelings for each other, and their relationship becomes genuine.
• Luminosity depicts Edward's fascination with Bella as a permanent magical bond comparable to werewolf imprinting — so Bella realises that if she becomes a vampire, she'll feel the same way about him, which she's initially uncertain about. However, once she decides that becoming a vampire is worthwhile regardless, she lays out a plan for them to pretend to be "the showiest, most sickeningly inseparable couple in the universe," for the rest of the school year, so that when she turns into a vampire and it becomes real, their elopement will seem in-character. For Edward, of course, it's real all along — and as their sort-of-fake relationship proceeds, Bella finds that she rather likes it.
  With as little history experiencing and labeling romantic emotions as I had, I might not even be able to tell when I stopped pretending.
• A Marriage Plot uses the two-deceiver variant, and The Bet, in order to bring the main couple together. What makes it stand out however is that the Fake–Real Turn in the relationship hinges on a Gender Reveal: because the characters initially believe they have IncompatibleOrientations. Celebhir, using the pseudonym Amroth, kisses Elrond on a dare: but Elrond falls hopelessly in love. Later, Elrond proposes that they pretend to be courting in order to satisfy Celebhir's overbearing mother Galadriel. During all of this however, Gilgalad is also helping Elrond come to terms with his gender identity: which turns out to be a little more complicated than it would first appear. After Elrond very dramatically comes out as genderfluid, Celebhir starts to show sexual interest and the relationship very quickly becomes definitely real. Also, because this is the canonical couple Elrond and Celebrian: the reader knows that they are going to get together at the end, even though the beginning of the story presents it as an impossibility.
• The Stargate SG-1 "A Pretense of Romance" sees Daniel suggest that he pretend to date Sam to inspire Jack O'Neill to ask her out after she's been discharged from the Air Force and SG-1 but allowed to remain in the SGC (Sam resigned as she refused to obey the orders of General Bauer- "Chain Reaction"- and was unable to re-enlist as certain parties argued that she might disagree with other orders in future). The plan was to get Jack jealous to acknowledge his feelings for Sam and then she and Daniel would amicably break it off, but things take a different turn when Daniel finds himself developing genuine feelings for Sam.
• The Saga of the Last Two Saiyans: Goku and Vegeta start off pretending to be married to prevent themselves from being destroyed by the gods. Over time, the two start to realize they do have romantic feelings for each other.

Film — Live-Action

• 10 Things I Hate About You has Heath Ledger being paid to date Julia Stiles so that her father will allow her younger sister to date Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Again, the plot is found out and recriminations and reconciliation ensues. Based on The Taming of the Shrew, which also notably differs from the film's plot in having the suitor be genuine from the start.
• In Beau Jest, Sarah is dating Chris, but she's keeping it a secret from her parents, who she believes don't like Chris because he's a gentile. So, she hires an actor named Bob to pretend to be her boyfriend at a dinner with her parents. There's just one thing: Bob isn't Jewish either (it turns out, not every guy named Bob Schroeder is automatically Jewish), but he did take part in a production of Fiddler on the Roof once, so he's able to fake his way through the dinner. Her parents like Bob so much, they keep pressuring Sarah to bring him again. Naturally, Sarah and Bob eventually develop feelings for one another, to the point where Bob even considers converting to Judaism. And it turns out that Sarah's parents didn't care for Chris because he looked like a cousin they didn't like, not because he wasn't Jewish.
• Can't Buy Me Love: Ronald, an unpopular nerd, helps a popular girl/cheerleader Cindy. In return, she pretends to be his girlfriend, so he can become more popular.
• A Christmas Proposal: The Diaz family mistake Maria for Julian Diaz's new girlfriend. They play along and wind up falling in love.
• Get Married If You Can: Dani and Gustavo pretend to date to keep his sisters from teasing him, but the romance soon becomes real for both (Dani had already been in love with him for years).
• Green Card: Georges and Bronte marry for residency (green card) and an apartment respectively.
• Hold Back the Dawn: George cons innocent schoolteacher Emmy into a quickie marriage so he can get a green card. Naturally he falls in love with her; Emmy being played by Olivia de Havilland doesn't hurt.
• How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: Women's mag reporter Andie has to write an article showing how she can destroy a relationship in 10 days, while advertising guy Ben has to make someone fall in love with them in 10 days to win a contract.
• Love Hard: When Josh, the online dating profile the protagonist Natalie falls in love with, turns out to be a nerdy Basement-Dweller with an interest in candle-making rather than the rugged, outdoorsy East Coaster she thought he was, he brokers a deal with her to pretend to be his girlfriend to impress his family in exchange for setting her up with his childhood friend (the outdoorsy man in question). Natalie eventually realizes that not only can she not be a suitable girlfriend for the person whose looks she liked because their personalities clashed too much, but Josh, who is nothing but kind and supportive to her, is a much better match for the kind of man she likes despite his low self-esteem. After she convinces him to be more honest with himself and to step out of the shadow of his family, they fall in love for real.
• Muriel's Wedding Features Muriel marrying the South African swimmer, so he can compete in the Olympics. While the whole affair is one of convenience, and the relationship doesn't resolve into romantic love, there is genuine affection, and he 'likes having her around'.
• My Fake Fiancé runs on this idea. Jennifer recently got a new place, only for most of her belongings to get stolen by con men. Meanwhile, Vince is a gambler who owes to a debt collector. Since they both once joked about how so many marrying couples get tons of gifts and money, they decide to fake a wedding to get their problems solved. Over time though, they catch real feelings.
• In Office Romance, Anatoly Efremovich, on the advice of his careerist friend, tries to woo his Ice Queen boss to curry favor for a desired promotion. However, they eventually develop romantic feelings for each other.
• Plan B: Bruno pretends to be interested in his ex-girlfriend Laura's bisexual boyfriend Pablo to get him to fall in love with him and leave Laura free to be stolen back by him, only to genuinely fall in love with Pablo in return and ultimately choose him over Laura.
• In The Proposal, Margaret and Andrew pretend to be a couple so that Margaret can get a Citizenship Marriage and avoid being deported to Canada. They become a real couple by the end of the film.
• Shadowlands: Jack (better known as C. S. Lewis) marries Joy to allow her to stay in England (also a Real Life example.)
• The premise of Shall We Dance? is that Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers are rumored to be secretly married. To defuse this situation, they legally marry with the intent to legally divorce so that they can prove that they aren't married. By the end of the film, they decide not to go through with the divorce.
• She's All That has Freddie Prinze Jr. trying to get Rachael Leigh Cook to go out with him and set her up as Prom Queen on a bet, but eventually falling for her, with the consequent trust-breaking and relationship repair that entails. It is slightly played with since in the early half of the film it's not clear how much he's "faking" his pursuit of Laney as opposed to genuinely pursuing a real friendship but with ulterior motives. Based on My Fair Lady, which notably doesn't involve the romantic deception.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog 2, it's revealed halfway through the film that Tom's sister-in-law's wedding was a sham, as her fiance was an undercover G.U.N. agent trying to hunt down Sonic. However after the ruse is revealed, he confesses that while the wedding was a setup his love for her was real and the two reconcile.
• To All the Boys I've Loved Before has Lara Jean and Peter fake a relationship to deceive the student body before both develop nebulous real feelings for each other.
• In Trading Places, Ophelia was hired by Clarence Beeks to pretend to be Louis Winthorpe's lover in front of Louis' fiancée as part of a secret plot to ruin his life, only agreeing because Beeks paid her to. However, she pities Louis, so she starts taking care of him, and after a while, they actually fall in love.
• In The Wedding Date, Nick is a professional escort and is implied to have done this sort of thing before. Kat hires him mainly because she doesn't want to show up alone to her sister's wedding since the best man is her ex-fiancé. Their fake relationship evolves into a real one, and Nick quits his job for Kat.
• Wedding Season: Ravi and Asha fake a relationship to avoid their parents meddling with their love lives before developing genuine feelings for each other.

Literature

• Captain Vorpatril's Alliance: Ivan hurriedly marries Tej to give her Barrayaran citizenship and immunity to arrest by Komarran police. They intend a quickie divorce, but the judge (a relative of Ivan's) determines that no grounds for divorce in Barrayaran law are met and refuses. (In a society where arranged marriages are common, not being in love is not a ground for divorce.)
• Cotillion by Georgette Heyer: Kitty needs a fiance due to family and inheritance pressures and to enable her to travel to London. She bullies Freddy into the role.
• In Parker Pyne Investigates by Agatha Christie,
  • In "Problem at Pollensa Bay", a young man comes to Parker Pyne for help with his overbearing mother who refuses to accept the man's fiance. Parker Pyne plans a complicated Operation: Jealousy that involves the man being seen with (and acting pathetically devoted to) a stunningly beautiful woman who's sure to irritate the mother even worse than the first girl, causing her to sympathize with the fiance. The plan goes off without a hitch, although the man does end up getting a crush on the woman (Parker Pyne's assistant).
  • In "The Case of the Discontented Husband", this plot goes completely wrong as the man falls head over heels in love with Parker Pyne's assistant and says so in front of everyone (she herself has no feelings for him, since it's just another job to her).
• Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating: Hani and Ishu fake a relationship for different reasons, while over time they fall in love then become a couple
• This is how Katniss and Peeta of The Hunger Games trilogy ended up together: at first they were pretending to be in love with each other to be appealing to the Capitol audiences, then Katniss gradually developed real feelings for Peeta (who didn't need the ruse to fall for her, as he'd already been in love with her for a long time).
• The Love Hypothesis: Olive wants to convince her best friend Ahn that it's okay to date her ex Jeremy and to this end fake-dates Adam. The ruse is useful for Adam as well, because he needs to show his superiors that he is creating roots in order to access his grant money. Although Olive at first doesn't like Adam much due to his reputation for being aloof and harsh, they end up falling in love for real.

Live-Action TV

• As the World Turns: Simon and Katie entered a Citizenship Marriage so that he could stay close to Lily and eventually fell in love.
• Bridgerton: Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings, to avoid unwanted suitors enters a fake romance with Daphne Bridgerton, who expects the relationship to raise her reputation in the marriage market once it is over. "Over" doesn't happen.
• Cinderella and the Four Knights: Hyun-min recruits Ha-won to act as his fiancee for the wedding, and continues to teasingly refer to her as such after she moves in with him and his cousins. A third of the way through the show, he admits that he wants to try dating her for real.
• Crash Landing on You: In order to protect the South Korean Se-ri, the North Korean Jung-hyuk lies to the villagers, telling her that she's his superspy fiancee. They eventually fall in love for real. Also discussed: when Jung-hyuk's K-drama fan subordinate Joo-muk learns of that cover story, he says that fake dating is a surefire way to fall in love in dramas.
• Chuck has this as the core romantic storyline of its first 2 seasons, with Chuck and Sarah acting as a couple publicly despite knowing they're only in it as a cover story. Of course, their attraction to each other starts immediately, and only Sarah tries very hard to hide her true feelings.
• Grey's Anatomy: Teddy marries a patient because he has a chronic illness and cannot afford surgery so that he will be covered under her insurance. She originally has no romantic interest in him, but they fall in love, though he unfortunately dies shortly after.
• High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: E.J. Caswell and Gina Porter fake dated twice before they official start dating in the Season 2 finale "Second Chances". In Season 1, they go to Homecoming together and pretended they are dating. In Season 2, in "The Field Trip" when E.J. sees a North High Student hit on Gina asking her for her Snapchat he pretends to be Gina's boyfriend to get the North High Student to leave Gina alone.
• In The Americans, Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings were initially paired off by the Centre to pose as a couple so that they could work closely together without arousing suspicion among their American neighbors. After so many years together, they have grown to genuinely love each other. In the fifth season, they even decide to marry each other for real, in the traditional Russian fashion.
• Subverted in Malcolm in the Middle: A girl who has been focusing on maintaining a high GPA at the expense of all else hires Reese to be her prom date so she can experience some social interaction. Over the course of the episode, Reese is a perfectly charming gentleman, apologetically going off-script to defend and compliment the girl, and even talking about how something that starts fake can lead to something real... but it turns out all the stuff about it no longer being an act was just part of the act, and he abandons her when her time is up.
• A big part of Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024)'s premise. The titular pair are brought together by a spy agency to take on new identities and be in a fake marriage as part of their main cover story, although John is more interested in it becoming a real relationship from the start. Discussed a few different times because neither of them can figure out why the agency put them together or why they created multiple Smith pairs.
  John: Do you think the company wants us to…?
  Jane: To have sex?
  John: No. Well, yeah, part of it. To get together.
• The Musketeers: It's implied Milady de Winter was originally after Athos for his title and money, but she definitely came to love him. Unfortunately, when he finds out she used to be a thief, he can't believe she ever loved him, ignores her claim that she only killed his brother in self-defense, and has her executed for what she's done. He immediately regrets it, even before he finds out it was all true.
• In The First Shop of Coffee Prince, Han Kyul mistakes Eun Chan for a boy and hires her to pretend to be his boyfriend so that his family will stop trying to get him to settle down with a woman. He falls in love with her (and vice versa) even before he learns that she's not actually a boy.
• In The Good Place, the titular Good Place pairs everyone up with their soulmate. Because of this, Eleanor, who was accidentally sent there instead of the Bad Place, has to pretend to be soulmates with Chidi to prevent others from finding out that she doesn't belong in the Good Place. Despite constantly getting on each other's nerves at first, the two eventually develop genuine feelings for each other that persist even after countless memory wipes and attempts from Michael to keep the two of them apart or assign Eleanor a different soulmate who won't lead her towards realizing that they're actually in the Bad Place.
• Dorothy and Lucas in The Golden Girls finale. They start out pretending to fall in love to get back at Blanche for setting them up on a date, and ultimately fall in love for real.
• The Last Man on Earth: Phil "Tandy" Miller marries Carol under the belief that she is the last Woman on Earth. She isn't, and while at first he curses being stuck with the quirky, needy Carol, and not the beautiful, glamorous Melissa, after proving her loyalty towards him Tandy eventually does begin to fall in love with Carol, and becomes the most loyal and loving, if harebrained husband, on the face of the newly barren Earth.
• Lucifer: When Lucifer breaks up with Eve, Eve begs Maze to pretend to be her girlfriend in order to make Lucifer jealous. Unfortunately, Maze catches real feelings for Eve, but Eve thinks Maze's Big Damn Kiss and Anguished Declaration of Love (through Wonderwall) are all part of the act.
• Shtisel: Racheli marries Akiva when his daughter is taken away by the welfare board, as the committee is more likely to believe a family with two parents provides a stable environment for a child than one with only a single father. They plan to divorce after getting her back, but eventually fall in love and decide to stay married.
• Shadow and Bone: Nikolai and Alina pretend to be engaged (because Nikolai knows Alina is in love with Mal) to give the Grisha support and legitimize the fight against Kirigan. By the end of the season, Nikolai's old friend Dominik comments that it's "almost comical" that Nikolai has started to fall for her.

Myth and Religion

• In Hindu Mythology, the god Indra sends the beautiful apsara Menaka as a Honey Trap to seduce the ascetic Vishvamitra before he reaches supreme spiritual power. Menaka is successful, but she and Vishvamitra fall in love for real and have a child. Unfortunately, the relationship ends shortly after (in a version, she is forced to return to the heaven with her mission accomplished, while in another version, Vishvamitra finds out about the whole plan and curses Menaka to drive her away). Later Indra sends another apsara, Rambha, but this time Vishvamitra just tells her to get lost.

Video Games

• Basically the premise of Astarion's romance in Baldur's Gate III. He is the only companion who is flirtatious with the player from day one, and if the player goes along with it, they will end up sleeping with him at least once (unless playing as Karlach) and are ostensibly in a casual romantic/sexual relationship from then on. By act II, however, he will reveal that his seduction was less out of genuine interest and more an attempt to guarantee his protection if his vampiric Master ever came looking for him. He openly admits to this and apologizes, having begun to feel guilty for his deception because he actually started falling in love earnestly.
• Can happen twice in Persona 5
  • In the Priestess Confidant, Makoto notices that her new friend is dating a host, and becomes suspicious of the boyfriend. She asks the player character to pose as her boyfriend on a double date, which is helped by her friend being convinced that they're a couple. After the host reveals his true colors, and there's no longer any need for the act, the player character can offer to be Makoto's "study partner" in romance, resulting in their relationship becoming real. In Makoto's Rank 7 event, she responds well to expressing an interest in marrying her, and to being enthusiastic about playing her boyfriend.
  • In the Devil Confidant, Ohya claims that the player character is her boyfriend to get her boss (who doesn't want her to investigate her partner's disappearance) off her case. In her penultimate event, you can get into a relationship with her by saying that that you "took it seriously" while pretending to be her boyfriend.

Webcomics

• Til Debt Do Us Part: Subin and Yejun pretend to be a lovey-dovey couple early in their Marriage of Convenience but later develop real feelings. The impetus for their fake coupling, Subin's large debt to Yejun, is not even brought up in later chapters as the main conflict becomes coming to terms with their feelings for each other.

Western Animation

• Final Space: Sheryl Goodspeed was originally a member of a rival faction of the Infinity Guard, and was assigned to get close to Captain John Goodspeed in order to gain information about the Infinity Guard's new weapon. However, Sheryl ended up falling for John for real, marrying and having a child with him while she repeatedly came up with excuses to prolong her mission. Unfortunately, John found out about the deception anyway when he walked in on Sheryl telling her superiors about his plans to make an anti-matter bomb. Despite Sheryl explaining that her feelings for him became genuine, John becomes extremely upset about the betrayal, and when Sheryl snaps at an infant Gary to shut up (it was Gary's crying that made John walk into the room), he kicks his wife out of their house.
• South Park has a double deceiver variant that becomes real at some point off-screen. In "Tweek x Craig", the town becomes convinced the eponymous two are a couple after fanart of them by some Asian girls start circulating. At the end of the episode, the two decide to humour the town's delusions and pretend to be together after seeing how upset their staged break-up made everyone. However, that episode is the last time the idea of the relationship being fake is even brought up; by the time South Park: The Fractured but Whole comes around, the relationship is official enough for the two to have a Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario of the romantic kind and a side quest where the player character takes them to relationship counseling to help with the make-up part of said scenario.

Real Life

• C. S. Lewis and Joy Gresham, as dramatized in the film Shadowlands.
• Sofia Kovalevkaya (Korvin-Krukovskaya) couldn't follow her passion for mathematics in Russia, so she married Vladimir Kovalevskij to be able to leave Russia and study mathematics in Berlin, becoming the first woman to be awarded a doctorate in mathematics, and a prominent mathematician of her day. Their marriage became real enough that they had a daughter, although they later separated.
• In her memoir, Maria von Trapp admitted that unlike the happy sequence in The Sound of Music, on her wedding day with the real Captain Georg von Trapp, she was actually depressed and angry with the Mother Abbess, the Captain, and God. While she was fond of Captain, she didn't love him, and ultimately still wanted to be a nun, and married him mostly out of her devotion and love for the children. She later remarked, however, that "I learned to love him more than I had ever loved before or after."
• Cole Porter and his wife Linda Lee are well known for their Lavender Marriage arrangement nowadays, as he was well known to be a closeted homosexual. But many who knew them also don't deny that he did genuinely come to love her in the purest sense of the word, as after her death, his friends recount how he began to diminish both emotionally and physically in the preceding years afterwards.

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