Basic Trope: One character saves another from harassment by pretending to be their partner.
- Straight: Dracone is repeatedly pestering Alice to take a moonlight stroll with him, so her friend Bob walks up and tells Dracone to stop making moves on his girlfriend.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice has so many stalkers that Bob has to pretend to be her boyfriend almost constantly.
- Alice and Bob wear matching rings so they can convince others that they are actually married.
- Downplayed: Dracone is pestering Alice, so Bob walks up to her, calls her "Freckles" and mentions a rom-com they'd talked about seeing together, leaving Dracone to draw his own conclusions.
- Justified: Bob has met Dracone before and knows that Dracone may be an unwanted flirt, but still has some personal standards — specifically, that Dracone is repulsed by cheating and thus only flirts with single women. Therefore this strategy would have worked better than Alice simply telling him to back off.
- Inverted: Dracone is pestering Alice, so Bob fake-attacks them to scare Dracone away.
- Subverted: Dracone is pestering Alice to take a moonlight stroll with him, and Bob, who's been her best friend from the beginning of the show, walks up to him and tells him to quit messing with his girlfriend... But it turns out Bob and Alice have become romantically involved offscreen.
- Double Subverted: They become Amicable Exes later, and Bob still pretends to be Alice's boyfriend to scare off guys she doesn't want hanging around.
- Parodied: Bob attempts to pull this off... But Alice is so unattracted to him that she would honestly prefer Dracone and tells him as much. (She still rejects them both, though.)
- Zig-Zagged: Dracone is pestering Alice when Bob, her best friend since the show's beginning, walks up and tells him to stop messing with his girlfriend, which turns out to be true as they've become involved offscreen. The relationship shifts from platonic to romantic and back again multiple times, with Bob and Alice pulling or not pulling this bluff.
- Averted: No romantic interaction appears in the story.
- Enforced: The author wants to include a Rescue Romance.
- Lampshaded:Alice: Bob and I aren't together, but sometimes he's put on a show to scare off pushy guys.
- Invoked: Alice sees Bob and calls him "sweetie", hoping that he'll get the idea to pretend they're involved.
- Exploited: Eventually, Bob brings up the incident in an attempt to suggest that they make their relationship bluff real.
- Defied: Alice hints that she wants Bob to pull this off to defuse the situation, but Bob just shouts, "Hey! Just 'cause she's single doesn't mean she'll take anyone!" and punches Dracone.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied:Alice: Hey, Bob? Thanks for saving me from those creeps that one time. Kinda wish you could've used a less embarrassing nickname, though...
Hey, troper... How'd you like to go on a date to the main page?
Beat it, buster. I was here first.
Beat it, buster. I was here first.
