Basic Trope: A girl falls in love with the most popular boy in her given area.
- Straight: Alice, a shy, insecure teenage girl, finds herself attracted to Ben, the handsome Big Man on Campus and school prince.
- Exaggerated: All of Alice's past crushes have been the top choice of men wherever she went.
- Downplayed: Alice thinks Ben is attractive, but her feelings towards him never go further than that.
- Justified:
- Ben is a genuinely good person, and Alice finds herself attracted not to his status, but his personality.
- Alice thinks Ben is the key to moving up from her lowly status in school, and winning over him might make others look at her more positively.
- Inverted:
- Ben, the school prince, finds himself in love with mousy, out-of-the-limelight Alice.
- Alice isn't interested in anyone, yet the school prince Bob falls hard for her.
- Gender-Inverted: Aaron, a shy, insecure teenage boy, finds himself attracted to Belle, the beautiful and confident school princess.
- Subverted:
- Alice encounters Ben, only to find him surprisingly conceited and rude, which turns her off from him.
- Ben being popular has nothing to do with her feelings. She's known Ben for a long time, and her feelings for him were budding before he even became the School Idol.
- Double Subverted: ...And against all odds, she finds him cute anyway.
- Parodied: Alice keeps a ranking chart of all of the most popular men in school. When her current crush starts to fall off even a little, she loses interest and turns her attention to the new number one boy.
- Zig Zagged: Alice is enamored with Ben until she has to meet him in person, although still finding him attractive. Over the course of their encounters, it's Ben who falls in love with Alice, and he works at himself in order to make himself more appealing to her. Only after he's cleaned up his act does she fall in love with him, body and mind.
- Averted: Ben is popular and Alice is single, but the two don't encounter each other and she doesn't even consider him as a romantic prospect.
- Enforced: "Alice's love interest doesn't just have to be attractive, he needs to be objectively desirable in-universe. Why have her fall for a boy nobody wants?"
- Lampshaded: "You're crushing on Ben too?" "What do you mean, too?" "Girl, everyone loves Ben. You're not the first."
- Invoked: Claire likes the idea of "Alice x Ben" because Alice fits the "dorky heroine" to a tee and Ben is the Big Man on Campus, so she becomes a Shipper on Deck to get the two together.
- Exploited: Ben knows he's the best catch in school, and he decides to enjoy the company of the girls who he ordinarily wouldn't talk to, simply because he can and they would allow it.
- Defied: When asked if Alice likes Ben, she replies no. She's not interested in men that high profile and wants to look for someone around her status.
- Discussed: "Of course she falls in love with Mr. Popular. Compared to the other men in the school, there's just no contest."
- Conversed: "Wow, is it me, or does every lead female and lead male always happens to be unpopular girl and popular guy? I mean, I don't really hate it, but I just find it a really bizarre coincidence."
- Deconstructed:
- Ben questions Alice's love, as well as everyone else's, in any amount. After all, he is the most popular guy in school— girls and boys might not love him so much as lust for him, look to him like some kind of god, or only see him for his status and nothing else.
- Alternatively, the narrative takes time to examine Alice's feelings and ask if she likes the Popular Guy because of his personality, or if she likes the Popular Guy because he is a popular guy. Alternatively, she comes to the realization that she wasn't actually attracted to him—everyone else likes him, so she should too, and so she unconsciously went with the social flow.
- Reconstructed: Over the course of Alice's relationship with Ben, she slowly starts putting his insecurities aside and makes it clear that she loves him for him, not for what his status is.
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