Fake dating

Fake dating is the romance trope in which two characters pretend to be in a romantic relationship for their mutual benefit: rebounding from an ex, appeasing family, surviving an event that demands a plus-one. Real feelings develop inside the performance, and the device travels across media; alongside romance novels it powers film comedies such as Holidate, manga, and musicals, with The Music Man named as a stage example.

The engine is the gap between performance and truth. One craft analysis puts it directly: "At its core, fake dating is a trope about performance. The characters are role-playing." Staged intimacy, the hand-holding and bed-sharing and rehearsed jealousy, lets each lead rehearse a relationship before admitting they want one, and the same analysis locates the best material in the fact that the relationship stops being fake emotionally long before it stops being fake publicly.

The documented failure modes are a premise one honest conversation could dissolve, a static middle that loops fake flirting and denial without escalation, and an arrangement that exists purely as a plot device and changes no one; named successes include The Love Hypothesis, Boyfriend Material and To All the Boys I've Loved Before. The fixes: genuine pressure (social, professional or emotional stakes that make pretending easier than the truth), a dynamic that keeps evolving, and a fake relationship that reveals something true about the characters. It pairs naturally with the slow burn and stacks with enemies to lovers; the named bookshelf runs from Emma Lord's The Break-Up Pact to Abby Jimenez's Yours Truly and Lana Ferguson's The Fake Mate.