- Basic Trope: Women take forever getting ready for a date, party, or other event.
- Straight: Alice and Bob are going out on a date. Bob waits downstairs while Alice finishes putting on her makeup and getting dressed.
- Exaggerated: Bob is left waiting there all night. They end up making it a night in.
- Downplayed:
- Bob only has to wait for a couple of minutes.
- Bob has to wait for Alice to finish her make-up, but she does so downstairs, chatting to him all the while.
- Justified: Alice is doing elaborate makeup (contouring, highlighting, etc.), straight out of a makeup tutorial from a beauty vlogger she saw. It takes a lot of time and effort.
- Women have been conditioned by societal expectations of beauty to fuss over their appearances, and invest much time and energy into them.
- Alice lost track of time, or forgot what day it was.
- Alice doesn't have very good time management skills.
- Inverted: Alice is ready. Bob is not.
- Gender Inverted: Alice waits downstairs while Bob fusses over his Guyliner.
- Subverted: Bob is waiting for Alice downstairs, not because she's fussing over her makeup/dress/hair/etc., but because she had a business call.
- Alice is all dressed, and Bob hasn't arrived yet.
- Alice and Bob are both waiting, because the babysitter is late.
- It's a casual date or party, and so Alice doesn't have to spend hours choosing a dress.
- Double Subverted: She's doing her makeup, curling her hair, etc. while she's on the phone with her boss/client/coworker/etc.
- She has extra time, and begins second-guessing the dress she chose to wear.
- The babysitter is fussing over her clothes.
- Alice can't decide between two different skirts.
- Parodied: Alice hasn't even showered yet! Bob turns on the TV, because he knows it will be a while.
- Bob is the one fussing over his clothes.
Bob: Should I wear the single-breasted suit or the double-breasted one? Or should I wear a tux? With tails or without? Is that too formal?- Alice is late to her own wedding because she was too busy fussing over and second-guessing her dress/makeup/hair/etc.
- By the time Alice is finally ready, Bob is dead, nothing more than a skeleton covered in cobwebs sitting on her couch.
- Zig Zagged: Sometimes Alice takes longer to get ready, sometimes Bob takes longer, and sometimes they're ready at about the same time.
- Averted: Alice doesn't fuss over her appearance.
- Women in this setting are not culturally expected to invest a lot of time and energy into how they look or dress.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: "Alice, are you ready yet? The show starts in half an hour!"
- Invoked: Alice receives an invitation to a party, or out on a date, and wants to impress.
- Exploited: Alice deliberately takes forever getting ready, because she doesn't really want to go out with Bob.
- Defied: Alice leaves enough time to do her hair and makeup, and picks out her outfit ahead of time.
- Alice doesn't care what others think, and doesn't spend a lot of time doing her hair and makeup. (This may or may not be used to show that Alice is Not Like Other Girls.)
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Alice takes so long that they end up not making it in time for their plans.
Go back to Wait for Your Date, but be warned: it could be a long wait.
