Basic Trope: A child gets a crush on an older person, usually an adult or adolescent.
- Straight: 8-year-old Bob gets a crush on Alice, who is 18.
- Exaggerated: 4-year-old Bob fervently wants to marry Alice, who is 85.
- Downplayed: 15-year-old Bob gets a crush on Alice, who is 18.
- Justified:
- Bob is at the age where puberty starts, and Alice is very attractive.
- Being an Adorably Precocious Child, he doesn't get any crushes on girls his age because they're not on his mental wavelength. However, Alice and girls her age are, so he finds it easier to fall for them.
- Alice saved Bob's life, triggering his crush.
- Inverted: 18-year-old Alice has a crush on Bob, the 10-year-old son of her neighbor.
- Subverted:
- Bob proves to everyone he doesn't have a crush on Alice.
- Bob is Older Than He Looks.
- Double Subverted:
- But as he goes through the hoops trying to prove he doesn't have a crush, he falls in love with Alice for real.
- Bob lied about his age to improve his chances.
- Parodied: Bob's one and only goal in life is to get married to Miss Alice, the old lady across the street. Any other girl that approaches him is instantly ignored.
- Zig Zagged: Bob likes hanging out with Alice, and everyone likes to point it out. Eventually, he reveals that he and Alice really are Just Friends, but he starts to feel something for her along the way... which was nothing more than growing admiration he confused for a crush.
- Averted:
- Bob does not get a crush on Alice.
- Bob only has an interest in girls his own age.
- Enforced: The writer has Bob based on him as a kid, as Alice is based off of a teenage girl that the writer had a crush on as a kid.
- Lampshaded:
- "Bob, I don't know if you realize this, but isn't Alice… I don't know, fifteen years older than you?"
- Or:
Charlie: Isn't she a little too old for you?
Bob: So what? She's beautiful, she's smart, and I'm gonna marry her one day!
Charlie: Whatever you say, buddy... - Invoked: Charlie suggests to Bob that he should pursue older girls, leading him to meet Alice.
- Exploited: Alice knows how Bob feels about her, so she makes him do things for her with the promise of giving him "something special" if he does it.
- Defied: Bob finds Alice attractive but thinks about the reality of the situation and decides to not show his feelings for Alice.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "So Bob's in love with Alice, huh? Can't imagine he wouldn't be. She's got all of those curves that girls his age just wouldn't have."
- Implied: Alice and Bob are pretty close, and she notices that Bob likes to hang out with her more than he would other girls his age.
- Played For Drama:
- Bob is Wise Beyond His Years, and knows he's not supposed to get this kind of crush. Much Angst results.
- Alice and Bob's lives are much too different for each other, being a teen/adult and a kid. When Bob figures out that Alice just sees him as Just a Kid instead of a serious contender for her heart, he starts getting upset about it.
- Deconstructed: Alice has to reject Bob because of the age gap, and Bob is too immature to take the rejection gracefully.
Back to Precocious Crush
