COME TO LENA!
She's my darkest nightmare
She chills me to the bone
With her tattoos and tracksuit
And cattle truck cologne
She was knocking back a schooner
With a bucket of KFC
She's pushing her way through the crowd, and she's coming for me!
She chills me to the bone
With her tattoos and tracksuit
And cattle truck cologne
She was knocking back a schooner
With a bucket of KFC
She's pushing her way through the crowd, and she's coming for me!
— Six & Out, "Cyclone Sally"
An ugly or overweight (usually) female character is noticeably attracted to a male protagonist. Perhaps she's not even hideous to begin with; she could in fact be a very gorgeous woman, but in cases like those, what will be unattractive about her is her personality. Either way, the protagonist realizes that this person is attracted to them and is profoundly uncomfortable with the whole idea, but the female character either doesn't realize he's not interested or is undeterred. Yet the character is not just uncomfortable; he's shocked, horrified, or disgusted. Even a wave and a smile from her will be treated as a fate worse than death for the recipient. Hilarity ensues.
In some cases, the point of the joke is that the protagonist is too nice to say anything, thus allowing the situation to come up repeatedly. In others, just portraying the protagonist's reaction — which may be closer to mortal terror than awkwardness — is considered enough of a punchline on its own. He might employ Please Dump Me tactics in hopes that it will get her to leave. Or the admirer may become a Self-Proclaimed Love Interest.
The Abhorrent Admirer differs from more sympathetic characters in one key respect: the audience is expected to find her both unattractive and extremely unsympathetic, and is supposed to feel sorry for the protagonist because she has him in her sights and just won't take a hint or proves resistant to the clue-by-four.
These characters tend strongly to be female rather than male, as a result of a few different gender stereotypes. For one thing, No Guy Wants to Be Chased means that the mere fact that a woman takes the initiative in courting a man is often portrayed as evidence that she must have something wrong with her. Another thing which leaves no doubt that the male protagonist's unattractive pursuer is viewed as more threatening (outside of Black Comedy Rape) because she's unattractive is the fact that he's much more likely to be the one getting laughed at if a sexually aggressive woman happens to be pretty; the idea is that the man must have "wanted it", and everyone knows that men only "want it" with women who are drop-dead gorgeous. Men who impose their attentions on obviously unwilling women are less likely to have their behavior portrayed lightheartedly, regardless of if the man is a Handsome Lech or if he's a schlubby Casanova Wannabe. However, with time, the male "undesirable suitor" became more common in comedies.
This trope is at least Older Than Print; an early version is the medieval legend of the "loathly lady", which is the basis of "The Wife of Bath's Tale" in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Loathly ladies also figure in several Child Ballads; they are usually under a curse, and may actually have been transformed into monsters. When the curse is broken, perhaps by True Love, they revert to their true form, as beautiful on the outside as on the inside. In fact, the trope may be as old as the realization that someone can be attracted to someone who doesn't love them back; a variant of sorts appears in The Epic of Gilgamesh, which is Older Than Dirt, when the goddess Ishtar offers the hero marriage but is rejected — though not because of her looks, but because bad things tend to happen to her lovers.
May or may not overlap with Stalker with a Crush, though that one usually isn't Played for Laughs. The Old Maid, Grande Dame, Brawn Hilda, and Lady Drunk are likely candidates to act out this trope, and they are very likely to have Delusions of Beauty. It's not unheard of for there to be more than one Abhorrent Admirer for the same character, either. Compare Beast and Beauty. Contrast Ugly Guy, Hot Wife and Hot Guy, Ugly Wife. For versions where only the personality is a problem, see No Guy Wants to Be Chased, Romantic Runner-Up, along with Casanova Wannabe, and Prince Charming Wannabe (the Spear Counterparts). Kavorka Man is an inversion... and overwhelmingly male.
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Advertising
- A commercial for Ax Body spray features a regular guy who bumps into someone who uses this spray and gets on an elevator. An attractive woman takes a whiff of him, emergency stops the elevator, and has sex with him off-camera. She gets off the elevator, and then the commercial has three different endings. In one of them, another attractive woman gets on, alluding to a repeat scenario. In another, an elderly, shrivelled-up woman gets on and wants him. She smiles at him and gets ready to strip. And in another, a woman who we don't see gets on with a large female Great Dane that has a pink bow on her head. The leashed dog barks at him once, signaling that she is about to rape him.
- Ali Landry played the Doritos Girl, a sexy woman who ate Doritos. Her ads were full of male abhorrent admirers. After an ad where she caught Doritos firing out of a laundry machine in her mouth, this bled into real life. Strangers would throw Doritos at Ali expecting her to catch them in her mouth, which of course she couldn't do in the real world.
- In a FreeCredit Score Report Dot Com ad, a band plays at a senior citizens gathering. At the end of the show, an elderly woman motions for the lead singer to call her. The much younger man smiles and waves at her uncomfortably.
- Toyed with in a 2013 Hot Pockets Pizza ad. A guy walks into his kitchen and introduces his roommate Jim to his incredibly attractive sister Lisa. Jim is busy eating his Hot Pocket Pizza and doesn't notice either of them. He talks about his meal, saying that it's "Mmmm so hot!" Lisa's brother thinks that he's flirting with his sister, saying that she's hot and being an abhorrent admirer. He asks Jim what is wrong with him, but Jim continues to comment on how hot his meal is. Lisa catches on that he is talking about his Hot Pocket and not her, tosses her keys in a sexual way, and approaches Jim as if she is about to jump his bones. She flirtingly takes a bite out of his Hot Pocket and says, "Mmmm that is hot!". Jim finally notices Lisa.
- One ad for Pretzel M&M's has the pretzel trying to convince the M&M to hook up with an attractive woman across the party. The M&M protests, but the pretzel points out that they exist to be eaten, "and I'd rather go with her than Hungry Eyes over here." The camera then pans back, showing a very unnerving man staring at them as "Hungry Eyes" plays.
- In a T-Mobile ad, a little boy arranges for him to be alone with the beautiful Catherine Zeta-Jones. He tries to seduce her with dim lights, an electric fireplace, and soft music. She urges him to call his parents and is not amused.
Ballads
- Allison Gross is a Child Ballad in which the eponymous witch, "the ugliest witch in the North Country", tries to coerce a man into becoming her lover.
- English folk-rock band Steeleye Span has a recording of the traditional ballad King Henry
, in which the king and his court, out on a hunt, are assailed by a dread Grendel's Mother kind of monster, who demands first food, then drink, then the sexual services of the King. However, in the morning the spell is removed and she reverts to a beautiful woman.
Comic Strips
- In the Scottish comic strip Angus Og, Angus was pursued, on and off, by Big Mairileen, who was an Apron Matron in training. Although given Angus's own nature, it can be said that it was probably Mairileen who had the lucky escape whenever Angus ran away.
- The Beano: Calamity James occasionally fell victim to one of these - usually either "Sweaty Betty" or her sister (depending on the issue) "Smelly Nelly", who were combinations of Gonk and The Pig-Pen.
- In the newspaper strip Curtis, the title character is this to Michelle. Curtis presses his suit despite Michelle doing everything short of calling the cops on him — up to and including repeatedly straight up telling him, "Go away. I don't like you."
- This was the original role of Gravel Gertie in the Dick Tracy comic strip; even grotesque villain the Brow was repulsed by Gertie's affections. She eventually met and married the equally grotesque B.O. Plenty, though B.O. was never used as an Abhorrent Admirer, just as a side villain and then a comic-relief hillbilly. Naturally B.O. and Gertie's daughter, Sparkle, is a stunner.
- FoxTrot:
- Mindy could count, however she is kind of an odd case in that she spends all of her time crushing after Peter but he remains more or less unaware of it (meanwhile, her friend keeps telling her that it's no good). It's not so much that she's unattractive, as that he already has a girlfriend. It all comes to an end after she winds up going to prom with Peter's friend Steve and both hit it off very well.
- Morton Goldthwait is a fairly straight example. He's a short, zit-faced, coke-bottle-lenses-wearing nerd who obsesses over Paige and won't be dissuaded no matter how violently she reacts to his advances. Although in one storyline he does move on and find someone who returns his advances. Paige even asks him if he forgot about her and all the times he kept hitting on her, and he replies: "The truth is, I remembered."
- Paige herself, along with her friend Nicole, sometimes are this, when they're stalking and shamelessly flirting with the various popular and good-looking guys.
- Heathcliff used to have one named Crazy Shirley, a white cat that was crazy about him and looked much goofier than his girlfriend Sonia. She even appears in one episode of the Ruby-Spears cartoon. Crazy Shirley eventually stopped appeared in the comic strip.
- Al Capp's Li'l Abner features many examples:
- First is Sadie Hawkins. A homely spinster at 35, she has a wealthy father who invented "Sadie Hawkins Day", on which women could propose to men. The character was so popular that the tradition caught on in real life, and outlived the strip character's fame entirely in the form of Sadie Hawkins dances. Also, the Sadie Hawkins strips always feature an abundance of abhorrent admirers, chasing their prospective husbands.
- Then there is former Trope Namer Lena the Hyena, who was described as "the ugliest woman in Lower Slobbovia" and initially left undepicted. Cartoonist Basil Wolverton famously won a contest to portray Lena.
- No matter how pretty Sally from Peanuts might be, Linus would like to remind you that he is not her "sweet babboo".
- Sea Hag is this to Wimpy in Thimble Theater, Popeye's original comic strip. Wimpy isn't attracted to her, but he'll have make-out sessions with her if it means free food. She can use magic to make herself look more attractive, but unless she's feeding Wimpy, he can't care less. In a comic book that depicts Popeye and Olive Oyl's wedding written decades later by Peter David, the Sea Hag catches the bouquet at the ceremony. When she turns to Wimpy so they can be the next to marry, he runs for the hills. She chases after him.
- Tumbleweeds: Hildegard Hamhocker is the only adult female in town. She is surrounded by bachelors for whom there is absolutely no competition. Yet nobody wants her. The title character, whom she keeps trying to rope into marriage, will not have any part of it.
- Viz occasionally featured a strip whose protagonist is cursed with the power of being a "Tranny Magnet". Women with facial hair (or men in drag) just won't leave him alone. He gets no attention at all from cisgender women.
- In Wallace The Brave, Spud really likes Amelia in a way she really doesn't like him.
- In Zits, Jeremy gets one of these in the form of Amber, a girl who obsesses about him for a week or so before she breaks up with him (via the Posse) and disappears. In a rare case, she is somewhat sympathetic and not the butt of the joke (one strip has Hector pondering why, of all people, she'd obsess over Jeremy).
Fairy Tales
- In "Brother and Sister", the stepsister insinuates herself into the queen's place after she and her mother kill the queen. She has only one eye.
- In "East of the Sun and West of the Moon", after the hero bungles the Curse Escape Clause, he must leave his love for:
"[...] a princess with a nose which is three eels long, and she now is the one whom I must marry."
- In "The Turnip Princess", an old crone is in love with the prince, but he can hardly stand her.
In the morning he awoke to find an old woman and a bear standing beside him. The old woman was strangely beautiful. She told the prince that she wanted him to stay and marry her. But the prince didn't like her at all. He could not endure her presence and tried to flee—- but he found he couldn't get out.
- Franz Xaver von Schönwerth's "The Enchanted Quill": One caretaker, a huntsman and a servant sneak into the cook's bedroom to try to sleep with her; though, the cook uses her magic feather to humiliate them and get them off her back.
Jokes
- Once a young man went to visit his pastor. He was very depressed because he was overweight. In particular, he felt doomed to never marry because he was so unattractive due to being overweight. The pastor listened, and then told the young man that he would take care of it. The next morning, the young man awoke to a knock on the door. There was this gorgeous single woman from the congregation. She said: "I don't know what this means, but the pastor told me to tell you that if you can catch me you can keep me," and then took off running. The young man ran after her, but could not catch her. This happened every morning for several months. The young man came closer and closer each day. Boy was he motivated. Then the day came, he knew he would catch her today. But when the knock came at his door, there was Lena Hyena. "I don't know what this means," she said, "but the pastor said that if I can catch you, I get to keep you." Immediately the young man began running. Boy was he motivated. Another version replaces the pastor with a gym trainer, and the woman with an attractive gym buddy and sexual favors... and also replaces Lena Hyena with a very large man, who is very intent on rape. And the French version of that version makes their first name rhyme with the sex act to boot.
The Indian version replaces the pastor with a weight loss program. It also goes into some Adaptation Expansion: The program provides three packages: Lose weight in six months, three months, three weeks or, bonus special package: in ONE DAY. The young man orders the three-month package, and a beautiful woman appears on the first week to be chased. He orders the second package right away to see what happens and gets a really hot chick on the second week. Catching on to the pattern, he orders the third package on the third week and gets a Sex Goddess. He trains with her for three weeks, becomes a pretty fast runner, and almost catches her. Excited, he orders the Special Package, ready and warmed up to catch the hottest chick of them all. The doorbell rings, and when he answers he finds a she-gorilla dropped off at his doorstep. There's a sign around her neck: "Meet Julie. She has been 'specially' trained to recognize you by both scent and sight. If she catches you, she will rape you. Have a nice day." - This joke is best told to a group of close friends that are okay with a little good-natured ribbing. It helps if one of your friends tends to be the designated Butt-Monkey in your circle. Let's call them Aaron, Bob, and (Butt-Monkey) Charles (feel free to Gender Flip the roles to suit the genders/sexual preferences of your friends). You tell these beloved friends of yours that one day, Aaron, Bob, and Charles died and went to Hell. the Devil walks up to Aaron and says: "Aaron! Welcome to Hell. I'd like you to meet your new wife!". At this, a door opens and out walks the most hideous woman either of them has ever seen. She grabs the helpless Aaron and drags him away screaming to her boudoir for an eternity of violent lovemaking. Then the Devil walks up to Bob and says: "Bob! Welcome to Hell. I'd like you to meet your new wife!". Another door opens and out walks an even more hideous woman than the first one. She grabs the helpless Bob and drags him away screaming to her boudoir for an eternity of violent lovemaking. Charlie is terrified, but then a door opens up and out steps Angelina Jolie. Charlie can't believe his eyes, and she's even more gorgeous in person than on film. As Charlie is fumbling for something to say, The Devil says: "Angelina! Welcome to Hell. I'd like you to meet your new husband!".
There's a similar joke about three women going to Heaven, and being warned not to step on the ducks. The first two women do so and get paired up with ugly men, while the last woman goes months without doing so, and gets a very handsome man paired up with her. When asked if he's her reward for doing well, he comments that "I have no clue — all I know is that I just stepped on a duck." - There is an anecdote about an event said to have happened in Poland, several centuries ago: When a man was about to be hanged, the oldest whore in town ran up to the gallows, and shouted, "He is mine!", invoking an ancient custom allowing for the man to go free on the condition that they will marry. The man looked at the whore, looked at the executioner, looked at the whore, then again looked at the executioner, and said, "Let's hang, master".
Literature
- Amelia Peabody: The titular character's husband Emerson manages to attract the attentions of a loathsome woman who is convinced that she and Emerson were lovers in Ancient Egypt. Being Emerson, he's as annoyed by the historical inaccuracies in her story of their past lives as he is by the lady herself.
- In A Brother's Price, Jerin is terrified of the prospect of having to marry the very ugly Brindle sisters, though not because they have expressed much interest in him, but more because Jerin's sisters are courting Balin Brindle, and in their culture, it is most likely that they will want to swap him for Balin. Subverted in that Jerin has reason to be terrified — he lives in a matriarchal society in which female rapists seem to exist in much higher numbers than in the real world, and since the sisters will have an advantage in numbers, trying to fight back would be futile.
- In J. R. R. Tolkien's Beren and Lúthien, Luthien did not find about it until she was told about Sauron trying to capture her and bring her to Morgoth, but the Dark Lord had been lusting after her for a long time. Similarly, Celegorm tried to force her into marriage, an act considered rape by according to Elven laws and customs.
- Bruce Coville's Book of... Nightmares: Nessie Crackman in Master of the Hunt is three hundred pounds and has warts and a hairy lip. No wonder Merlin doesn't want anything to do with her.
- Both used and subverted in Diana Wynne Jones's Castle in the Air, a sequel to Howl's Moving Castle. Abdullah is facing an arranged marriage to "two fat brides", and while he has the standard reaction, he frantically tries to justify marrying them anyway so they'll shut up and not cry. He eventually decides not to for different reasons. Subverted because the brides eventually find someone who finds them attractive (though he is a half-djinn, half-demon).
- Jenit Sulla of the Ciaphas Cain series is a non-romantic example; she considers Cain to be the ideal hero and constantly attempts to emulate (what she thinks) he would do on the battlefield. Cain is tactful enough to keep his true thoughts to himself, but privately considers Sulla a crazed Blood Knight whom he wants absolutely nothing to do with.
- A sympathetic example from The Circus of Doctor Lao; Mrs. Cassin is an older woman whose husband simply left her. Since she lost her looks and charm a long time ago, she has no luck in attracting men.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Third Wheel: Greg tries to be nice to a Fregley-like girl named Ruby Bird because he's terrified of her, but he worries that he's being too nice to her and is scared by the idea that she might develop a crush on him. We never get to find out her feelings on the matter.
- In The Elenium by David Eddings, The Hero gets sympathetic passage on a ship by claiming to be fleeing a wealthy but hideous heiress whom he accidentally offered to marry. He encounters the same ship in a later book; when the Captain asks what happened with the Ugly Heiress, he points to the young and beautiful Queen of Elenia and says "I married her."
- In the second Emberverse trilogy, a persistent and Scarily Competent Tracker successfully tracks Ritva and Mary Havel. In single combat with Ritva, he finds her ferocity and competence exciting and makes several very suggestive comments. For her part, she thinks he's weird and gangly and needs to make a closer acquaintance with bathing. Much later in the series they meet again; she's with her fiancé and he's on his home turf, and he shows much better manners (though he has no regrets for his earlier actions).note
- In Erebos, Brynne has a very obvious crush on protagonist Nick. The game forces him to go on a date with her, something Nick is less than happy about.
- A Gender Flipped version happens in Fablehaven, where Verl the satyr obsesses over (human and technically underage) Kendra. He does sort of realize the hopelessness, but that doesn't stop him from carving a marble statue of her likeness to give to her as a Christmas present.
- The Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures novel The Fall of Yquatine has Chivalrous Pervert Fitz deal with one of these as a coworker at a pub: a much older woman, who also has a "flat, predatory face" and a mouth so big as to scare him, who wears tacky, revealing clothing which wouldn't even really suit a younger woman. She has a crush on him, to the point of touching his arse on the sly and getting jealous when he chats up an attractive customer around his age. However, this trope is subverted in that he's obviously trying to make an effort to be nice to her as a coworker, and she's just "an ageing and lonely woman".
- The Final Cut has Claudia for Richard. While she's not particularly unattractive, she is completely psychotic. As in, she kills off his cast and crew, ruining his film, and eventually chases him and the handful of remaining crew who didn't either die or leave through the woods. Before that, she built a shrine in her closet. The people she kills? Either women who get too close/upset him or people who get in her way.
- Creepella Von Cacklefur is this to Geronimo Stilton, although she is actually acknowledged to be drop-dead gorgeous. What makes her so abhorrent to Geronimo, however, is that she is a Perky Goth Nightmare Fetishist who lives in a crypt, while Geronimo is a major Cowardly Lion known for fainting at least once a book.
- Harry Potter:
- Merope Gaunt. While we're meant to sympathize with her instead of the elder Tom Riddle, she otherwise fits the bill. She's a very ugly woman due to generations of incestuous inbreeding, mentally unstable, and obsessive over Tom Riddle Senior, the attractive young man who catches her eye. She even feeds him love potions to win him, since he won't have a thing to do with her otherwise.
- The aging, overweight Hepzibah Smith is this to Tom Riddle, future Big Bad, in a flashback in Half-Blood Prince. Tom plays up to this by flirting with her just enough to stay in her good graces until he can get what he wants. Then he poisons her. Unlike most of the other examples, we aren't supposed to sympathize with Tom. Also, the whole thing is Played for Drama, unlike most other examples.
- Each of the main trio has one, though none of them are physically unattractive; it is mainly their personalities. Harry has Romilda Vane, who stalks Harry and at one point gives him cauldron cakes laced with love potion, which Ron eats with tragic results. Ron, in a slight subversion, has an Abhorrent Admirer in his girlfriend, Lavender Brown. At first he returns her affection, but soon finds that he's becoming more and more frightened of her, and her displays of affection get more and more crazy. Hermione has the incredibly attractive and talented, but slightly deranged and quite egotistical Cormac McLaggen following her. Being a nerd, she isn't really blinded by his attractiveness and sees him as the horrible, arrogant person he is.
- James Potter was this to Lily Evans in their first six years at Hogwarts. Although James was a talented Quidditch player and well-liked by most, Lily considered him an arrogant bully and treated him with contempt. Eventually subverted, but it wasn't until their seventh year, when James matured, lost some of his arrogance, and stopped hexing other people just for fun, that Lily agreed to date him, eventually falling in love with and marrying him.
- Ron to Fleur Delacour at first. To hear Ron tell it, when he asked her out to the Yule Ball after getting charmed by her Veela magic when he was unfortunate enough to be near her attempting to charm Cedric, she looked at him like he was just a sea slug. Ron still nurses a crush even after she becomes engaged to his older brother Bill, but she is far more patient yet still annoyed with his antics.
- Claire François of I'm In Love With the Villainess has this opinion of the main protagonist, Rei Taylor, because of Claire's self-esteem issues at her being a very difficult person. More prominently, there's Rei's unabashedly confessing her love and affection to her constantly in spite of their world's very strict social norms and niceties, Rei's intentional trolling of her for her own amusement; and how Rei considers her rebukes and punishments rewards in and of themselves. She eventually reverses her stance.
- Charles from Jade Green happens to be one of these for Judith. Though forty years old (as well as her cousin), he tries to get her to kiss him anyway, even though she is clearly in love with the miller's son Zeke. It is later revealed that he also lusted for the title character as well in the past.
- Jaine Austen Mysteries: Walter Barnhardt in Killing Bridezilla, and Vladimir Ivan Trotsky in Death of a Trophy Wife, just to name a couple. Jaine says she has a habit of attracting life's weirdos.
- A variant in Tom Holt's J.W. Wells & Co. series: Rosie Tanner, who plays this kind of role to Paul Carpenter. She's a goblin. However, she does have the ability to shapeshift into a beautiful young human woman. It's just that Paul can't forget her real form, and she's also the mother of his sadistic boss.
- The Marvellous Land of Snergs: Sir Percival, a foppish and cowardly knight in oversized armor, is infatuated with Lady Gwendolyne, who does not reciprocate at all. With the purpose of getting rid of him, Lady Gwendolyne suggests he go out and commit some heroic deeds while wandering around the countryside.
- Annie Wilkes from Misery. Not just because she is described as a dumpy blob of a woman who stinks of dirt, spoiled food, and cheap makeup, but also because she is Ax-Crazy and, most unfortunately for the writer protagonist, an extremely obsessive fan of his work who isn't happy at all to find out that he's planning to kill off her favorite character and insists he come up with a new story... or else.
- Bill Crider's "My Heart Cries for You" has Ethel Ann, an overweight slob who exists chiefly on frozen food and beer and spends most of her time watching game shows. The narrator marries her in an attempt at her inheritance from her ailing millionaire father. Unfortunately, seeing his baby happy gives Daddy a new lease on life...
- Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby has several:
- Arthur Gride to Madeline Bray, since he's old, ugly, greedy and lecherous.
- Sir Mulberry Hawk to Kate, since he's an arrogant, disreputable cad.
- Fanny Squeers to Nicholas, because she's ugly, ill-tempered, and the daughter of Wackford Squeers, who abuses the children in his care.
- In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Collins. It can be played for comedy in that case because he wants to marry Elizabeth, and is portrayed as the sort of man who wouldn't rape a woman he isn't married to. (When he later settles for Charlotte Lucas, who in turn settles for him, it is implied that he is easily influenced by his wife and not really aggressive.)
- In A Princess of Landover, Princess Mistaya is proposed to by the odious Lord Laphroaig, who has been nicknamed "The Frog" for his habit of darting his tongue out of his lips when nervous and his squat body. Besides him being ugly, Laphroaig's wives and children have a habit of dying from "mysterious illnesses". Correctly, Mistaya assumes that Laphroaig only wishes to marry her in order to have access to Landover's throne. At the end of the book, the Big Bad forces Mistaya to marry Laphroaig through a Scarpia Ultimatum involving her current love interest.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Lysa Tully/Arren is this to Littlefinger. He plays along as long as she can aid him in his plot to build his own power, but drops her as soon as it's convenient to do so (after letting her know that she's been playing this role all along).
- In the fourth novel of the Soup series written by Robert Newton Peck, Soup's Drum, the protagonist Soup spends most of the book in love with a girl named Juliet Ransom, and he writes "LWV loves JR" on a tree (LWV is the initials of Soup's real name). Unfortunately, he only realizes too late that these are the same initials as Janice Riker, a heavyset girl who uses her Stout Strength to tie up unwilling boys. As a result, Janice falls in love with Soup and grabs him in front of the entire school, kissing him nonstop. Later, Soup rearrange the town fireworks to spell out a declaration of love from him to "Juliet". Unfortunately, as Janice is illiterate, she only recognizes the letter "J" and thinks once again that the declaration of love is for her. The book ends with her once again grabbing Soup and kissing him nonstop, much to his horror (while his best friend Robert decides to play with the situation further by throwing a drum that is covered only on one side on top of the couple, completely covering them from the rest of the city and giving them discretion to continue kissing).
- Gender-flipped with Mr. Boarham and Mr. Wilmot for Helen in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Mr. Boarham is a particularly interesting case, as he would probably have been a better husband for Helen than Huntingdon, but he's still entirely unappealing.
- Mary Carson to Father Ralph de Bricassart in The Thorn Birds, because of her looks and personality (she's cruel and so manipulative that she seeks to control his destiny from beyond the grave — willing the bulk of her fortune to him so that he'll advance in his career, but be permanently separated from the woman he loves). The night before she dies, she begs him to "kiss me as if we were lovers". He refuses, citing his priestly vows, but she knows — she can see it in his face — that he's repulsed by her old age.
- The narrator of the Vita Nuova spends nine years pining after a girl, only to have her refuse to greet him due to some Malicious Slander. The narrator works the rest of his lady's life, content with being spurned while capturing her beauty in verse.
- Xanth:
- In the novel Ogre, Ogre, the female protagonist's wish to escape such an abhorrent admirer (a rape demon, more or less) is what kicks off the plot.
- Subverted with the Dolph/Electra/Nada Love Triangle that takes up a couple of books. Prince Dolph finds himself engaged to two women, the beautiful Nada Naga, whom he loves, and the more ordinary Electra, who loves him. Nada considers Dolph to be this trope, as he is far too young and immature for her. Dolph thinks this of Electra, as while she is not unattractive, she can in no way compete with the knockout Nada. To compound matters, Dolph must marry Nada to ensure an alliance between two kingdoms, and he must marry Electra or she will die from a magical curse. Despite this, the three are friends, and eventually decide to Screw Destiny by having Dolph marry Electra, divorce her the next day, marry Nada, and fix the love triangle with the use of Love/Anti-Love potions. Then it gets double subverted when during their one night of marriage, Dolph discovers that he truly does love Electra, and they remain married. (In case you were wondering, the Nada thing is sorted when Dolph performs her wedding ceremony to another guy, as "to marry someone" also means "to perform their wedding vows".)
- During winter break in the book The Way You Are, the main character is set up to date one by his well-meaning mother. Initially, Robert tells the girl he's not interested in pursuing any kind of relationship because of school (and his own issues). But, he's uncomfortable with hurting her, so he accepts. This ends up blowing up in his face when he's reunited with his secret boyfriend.
Music
- Inverted with "Her Hair Is a Mess" by Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys, as in the song he feels attracted to a girl even though she is completely unappealing.
- Sam Cooke's "Another Saturday Night":
Another fella told me
He had a sister that looked so fine
Instead of being my deliverance
She had a strange resemblance
To a cat named Frankenstein - Michael Jackson's classic "Billie Jean" is about a stalker/groupie claiming that Michael, or one of his four bandmates in The Jackson 5, is the father of her child. Definitely Played for Drama in this case, and subverted in that what makes her repellent to him is that she's clearly only doing this to be able to mooch off him. Billie Jean herself is fictional, but the character was based on a multitude of women who did the same thing. Jackson wrote the lyrics in response, bewildered by how they thought they could get away with it:
Michael Jackson: I could never understand how these girls could say they were carrying someone's child when it wasn't true.
- In Mamamoo's "Um Oh Ah Yeah" music video, Solar is rather repulsed by Hwasa's character's rather forward advances (such as trying to jump on her), to the point where she tries to slip a sleeping drug into his drink just so she won't be bothered by him anymore.
- "Obeah Wedding" by The Mighty Sparrow is about an admirer named Melda who goes so far as to consult an "obeah man" (practitioner of Black Magic) to get Sparrow to marry her. Sparrow makes it clear that her abhorrence is due to her poor hygiene:
Nastiness go cause your death
Gal, no man can stand your breath
You too damn nasty! Get away from me
- "Cyclone Sally" by Six & Out is about a tattooed, beer-swilling, KFC-guzzling woman who has an eye for a certain Cricketer.
- Starbomb's first hip hop parody of The Legend of Zelda has Link trying to rap about his accomplishments as the Hero of Hyrule and how he'll go about his newest quest, but he's constantly interrupted by the elderly "It's dangerous to go alone" guy from the first game, who's trying to flirt and have sex with him. The old man shows up again in the second Zelda hip hop parody released by the group, clearly on the move for Link again, but does not interfere with what Link is trying to do this time around — at least, not after a stern warning from Link.
- Twiztid has Jenny (Jamie Madrox doing a female voice), an obsessive fan who doesn't know anything about their music but claims to be a "Juffalo" because she wants to sleep with the duo... then moves on to pretending to be a Blaze Ya Dead Homie fan.
- The Kingston Trio's rendition of "Zombie Jamboree":
Right then and there she raise her feet
"I'm a-going to catch you now, my sweet
I'm gonna make you call me 'Sweetie Pie'"
I says "Oh, no, get back, you lie!"
"I may be lyin' but you will see (What?)
After you kiss this dead zombie." (Blah!)
Well, I never seen such a horror in my life
Can you imagine me with a zombie wife? (Yes!)
Pinball
- Pepé Le Pew in Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ball, who's fawning after Honey Bunny even as she's leaning against Bugs. He gets a faceful of perfume for his troubles.
Pro Wrestling
- Goldust's gimmick was a pan-sexual who would flirt with his opponents to gain a psychological advantage in a match by, for example, suddenly appearing to enjoy the grapple he's been put into or caressing his opponent in a hold. Goldust got the tables flipped on him by The Blue Meanie, who resurrected his "Bluedust" parody bit from ECW and subjected Goldust to all the flirting and psychological harassment that he'd used on his previous opponents.
- The exotics known as The Christopher Street Connection wanted Slyk Wagner Brown's tag team title belt in Jersey All Pro Wrestling. But more than any championship gold, they really wanted Slyk himself, refusing to start what was their own title shot unless Brown got in the ring first.
- At CHIKARA Aniversario Zehn, May 22, 2010, there was a match between The Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield and Sugar Dunkerton) and the Die Bruderschaft des Kreuzes team of Daizee Haze and Tursas. In The Throwbacks' promo, Dunkerton said that he wanted to get with Daizee and "melt her icy heart with some hot chocolate." The BDK won, and Tursas splashed Dunkerton a second time after the match, with Daizee smiling. But then, Daizee generally viewed any guy interested in her as this trope.
- Many wrestlers with the Gorgeous George gimmick. Gorgeous George himself in the 1930s-50s, who wasn't the first Ambiguously Gay pro wrestler but was perhaps the most ambiguously gay pro wrestler up to that time. "Exotic" Adrian Street after him in the 50s to 2000s.
- The Boys who flank Dalton Castle seem to be absolutely terrified of Ring of Honor's resident vamp Taeler Hendrix. Whether or not she actually is attracted to them or is just amused by their reactions is anyone's guess.
- Katarina Lea was one to many people in Family Wrestling Entertainment. Ivelisse Vélez had the crowd (and Maryse) cheering when she made her disdain clear with a DDT.
- A.J. Lee was this to CM Punk (ironically, they would get married in Real Life). It wasn't because she was unattractive (in fact, Punk made out with her at one point) — it was because she was nuts. Hell, she was so insane that it made Kane, the other object of her "affections", uncomfortable enough to reject her (albeit quite uncharacteristically kindly).
"I'm a monster. I wear a mask. My only source of pleasure is eviscerating people. And even I find you mentally unstable."
- Heidi Lovelace experienced this a few times.
- At CHIKARA Sword of Destiny, June 13, 2015, she teamed with Icarus against Kevin Condron and Juke Joint Lucas Calhoun. Calhoun pressed her above his head and dropped her into a swing dancing position. Heidi did not like it at all.
- Arik Cannon gave her kisses of distraction in a variety of promotions. In Heidi's final CHIKARA promo, before her match with Cannon at CHIKARA White Rabbit, she even speculates that Cannon might have a "secret crush" and that it might have been the reason why he held back during their matches.
- At CHIKARA Sword of Destiny, June 13, 2015, she teamed
- Ooga Booga, who pursued the PGWA Champion Nemesis. Since crowds generally tended to be against Nemesis though, they liked him.
- Karlee Pérez is this to Space Monkey in Absolute Intense Wrestling, to the point where he tried to use the comparatively more conventionally attractive Dick Justice to draw her away.
Radio
- Tim Brooke-Taylor's memorable character in I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, the repellent and loathsome — and also sex-crazed — Lady Constance de Coverlet, usually introduced with a high-pitched screeching cackle, who pursues male members of the cast with a single-minded obsessive devotion. She is on radio for a good reason.
Roleplay
- NoPixel has a male variation with Julio Thomas, a dorky guy in a neon rave mask who worships the ground that Trooper Copper walks on, although she absolutely cannot stand him.
Tabletop Games
- The Nosferatu from Vampire: The Requiem can be an interesting Deconstruction of this trope. Although their appearance suggests otherwise, the Nosferatu are not as susceptible to the caprices of the Beast as the other vampires are, so they can still be quite human at heart (or not!), but this does not dismiss the fact that they can still feel attracted to (or even fall in love with!) others, and when this happens, they become Abhorrent Admirers. To make the situation more aggravating, they are supernaturally hideous, meaning that it is simply impossible to love them. The core rulebook does point out how dramatic the experience can be, for both sides (especially if you are the receiver of the affection).
- Naturally, exaggerated in Warhammer 40,000 with Nurgle and Isha. Long story short, after the Chaos God the Eldar orgied into existence slaughtered almost their entire pantheon, Isha was saved because Nurgle decided to keep her for himself. Nurgle, being Nurgle, expresses his affection by imprisoning Isha in his throneroom and testing all of his experimental diseases on her (only able to survive due to being a deity of Healing), and if it is a success he unleashes it upon the universe. But this also allows Isha to whisper the cure to the universe as well, so it's all good. Not to mention that Nurgle definitely fulfills the "abhorrent" part. As the Chaos God of Pestilence, he is probably the most utterly repulsive thing in existence.
Theater
- In 1789, Olympe, depending on the production, is either hounded by Artois or Ramard. In the productions where it's Artois, she ends up putting her foot down. With a gun.
- The Changeling: De Flores has a terrible skin disease. He may initially have been intended as a more sympathetic Dogged Nice Guy, but a Dogged Nice Guy doesn't usually commit murder and then rape-by-blackmail. Beatrice's apparent hatred for him may have been intended as a sort of Belligerent Sexual Tension, but since the "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization doesn't work very well nowadays, it looks like the victim falls for the rapist.
- In William Shakespeare's early play The Comedy of Errors, Nell the Kitchen Wench becomes enamored of one of the Dromios. She's an offstage character but is heavily described. "... she would have me as a beast: not that, I being a beast, she would have me; but that she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me." (III, ii). On the other hand, in something of a subversion, the other Dromio actually seems to like her back.
- In The Insect Play, the Audience Surrogate character is unhappily pursued by a flighty young thing called Clytie (or Clythie, depending on the translation), in spite of the fact that she's a butterfly and he's not.
- In The Merry Wives of Windsor, Gold Digger Sir John Falstaff writes boilerplate love letters to two local wives, who find him repulsive (but humor him long enough to subject him to a Humiliation Conga).
- Katisha in The Mikado is mostly a straight example. She does get the Act II song and recitative, "Alone, and Yet Alive" which describes the pain of being forever thwarted in love. Some modern productions play Katisha as the hero and Nanki-Poo as the Jerkass who jilted her. It's unlikely that Gilbert wrote with this intention, though, since he seemed to regard elderly spinsters as inherently funny.
- The Mrs. Hawking series: Theo Pryce to Cora Little in Gentlemen Never Tell.
- Stephen Sondheim's Passion works toward a subversion. The soldier hero pines for his beautiful (and married) lover Clara and is repulsed by the attentions of the unattractive and sickly Fosca. Eventually, he realizes that Fosca's love is more, well, passionate, to put it lightly, and gives in to her. Fosca dies afterwards, but still, victory!
- In The Sorcerer, Lady Sangazure, under the influence of the Love Potion, becomes infatuated at first sight of Mr. Wells.
Lady Sangazure: What is this fairy form I see before me?
Mr. Wells: Oh, horrible!—she's going to adore me! - Tanz Der Vampire:
- Herbert von Krolock is a borderline example of the male homosexual variety, depending on who's playing him. He might be handsome and endearing, but he's also a clingy, aggressive vampire who's very intent on getting his teeth into vampire-hunting Tenor Boy Alfred.
- Rebecca, Chagal's wife, who presumably used to resemble her lovely daughter Sarah, has become one of these to her husband in the same show, driving him toward his beautiful scullery maid Magda. This is especially jarring in productions where she's not even played as particularly obnoxious or ugly. (However, the fact that he isn't particularly charming or attractive either renders him a genderswapped example of the same trope as far as Magda's concerned... until he bites her, at least.)
- In the first scene of Thrill Me, Richard reacts to Nathan as if Nathan is a Gender Flip of this trope — Richard goes as far as saying that Nathan's obsession is the reason he transferred schools. And then we have, "There's Nothing Like a Fire".
- Twisted: Prince Achmed loves the Princess, who barely remembers him as one of her tiger's victims. It doesn't help that his idea of proving his love is to conquer her kingdom and massacre her people. And when he makes his grand entrance, his soldiers ruin it by thinking Achmed loves the tiger.
- The Yeomen of the Guard has two examples:
- Sergeant Merryl has Dame Carruthers, whom he finds too old to be attractive.
- Phoebe has Wilfred Shadbolt, whom she detests for his occupation as jailer at the Tower of London.
- Podstolina in Zemsta, who just can't take a hint that Wacław may not be interested anymore.
Video Games
- Bugsnax: Downplayed. Gramble is romantically interested in Wiggle, but is very withdrawn and finds her rather aggressive flirting off-putting and difficult to deal with.
- In the Danganronpa spin-off Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls, we learn that Leon Kuwata had one in the form of his cousin, Kanon Nakajima. In a variant, Kanon is stated to be rather pretty, and Leon did care for her, but only as family. Despite this, she was never able to take a hint.
- Deltarune: Berdly is far more enthusiastic about being Queen's peon than Noelle, but because he's a clingy, egotistical Know-Nothing Know-It-All she wants nothing to do with him.
- Inverted with Laharl of Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, who actually gets hurt by pretty, big-busted women. Though he shows no interest either way, romantically.
- Dragon Quest:
- The Lips/Smacker/Kisser types of monsters who as slug-like creatures with oversized plump lips that attack with licks and sloppy kisses. Whenever they appear as friendly NPCs, more often than not they have a flirty personality, offering kisses to the hero even if they often cause goosebumps and other disgusted reactions.
- In Dragon Quest IX, one of the bosses is a lizard turned into a Drakulard monster by a Fygg who's in love with the beautiful princess Voluptua/Ulysses and kidnapped her under the illusion of having turned into a human.
- In Dragon Quest XI, the boss monster Booga is a lecherous Fat Bastard & Amazon Chaser who falls for Action Girl Jade.
- Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp:
- A morbidly obese Eve chases Dirk, thinking he's Adam.
- There's also Mordroc, a rare male example and the game's Big Bad, who has the hots for Daphne.
- At first, Taiga of Duel Savior Destiny is thrilled that someone as cute as Nanashi is after him. Then her arm falls off and she cheerfully informs him that she's undead. He is less than pleased.
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: After a drunken night that you cannot remember, you spend a hangover-esque day trying to piece together what happened to you. Eventually, you find out that you're newly engaged to Moira. A hagraven. Yeah. And your job is to get the ring back. She doesn't handle it well.
- Aimee from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance isn't physically unattractive, but gets this reaction out of Ike. He runs and hides from her, attempts to have someone else buy supplies so she won't touch him, tells her that she's scaring him several times, bluntly tells her that even if he noticed her intentions he wouldn't act on them, and even calls her delusional, albeit after she has left earshot. Yes, even the rough mercenary with Nerves of Steel is scared by essentially a really rabid fangirl. In two scenes, Soren goes out of his way to protect Ike from her, with hilarious results.
- Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure:
- During the Lance Banson boss fight, his fangirls (Banson being a famous opera singer and Sky Pirate) will rush out from time to time. Sometimes they're attractive and mildly replenish his health. If Henry screws up his singing via the match-three puzzle, they're rather plain and fat — Benson will freak out when they rush him, and their collision actually hurts him.
- The first boss, Lady D, is this for Henry. He tells her that he hasn't the time, and she promptly tries to destroy him with her giant Wedding Cake Battle Fortress.
- Hiveswap: Zebruh Codakk. While he does behave formally towards Chixie, he makes her extremely uncomfortable by making sure that she’s obligated to comply to his demands, and appears to have romantic ulterior motives for doing so. He also has a lot of interest in Marvus, who does not feel the same way.
- In Ib, Garry somehow manages to get a little blue doll to fall for him. The doll follows him around and leaves him messages asking if they can play. Garry is terrified of the thing, and for good reason.
- The goal of Incredible Dracula: Chasing Love is to help Dracula escape from a short, fat, scraggly-haired human princess with different-sized eyes who misrepresented herself on the magical online dating service he patronized.
- Injustice 2: In some match interactions, The Joker expresses the interest of making Supergirl, Power Girl, Poison Ivy, and Black Canary his "molls", but they are all absolutely revolted by him for many, many valid reasons. He is the one character that literally everyone else in the game hates (including other supervillains).
- Monty from Kindergarten becomes this to his fellow Kindergarten Hustler Carla in Kindergarten 2. He admires how shrewd and well connected she is, while she considers him a gross dweeb and an interloper on her territory. In the mission "Things That Go Boom", he agrees to disarm a bomb for her and the protagonist in exchange for her going on a date with him. However, the game's "Groundhog Day" Loop mechanic means that the player never actually gets to see how said date goes.
- Terk from the Tarzan world of Kingdom Hearts falls in love with Donald Duck. Since her character can only speak to Tarzan and other gorillas, the rest of the cast pick up on this by the way she is lovingly gazing at the duck. It's not really known if Donald Duck is attracted to her or not, since he just remarks that his girlfriend Daisy would kill him if anything ever happened between him and Terk. Chances are he isn't though, since he has gained a few abhorrent admirers over the years (see the western animation page).
- Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords:
- Darth Sion is this to a female Player Character, although it's downplayed by the fact that he's not overt in his affection and in fact is frustrated by it. It should also be mentioned that the man is a craggy, heavily-scarred zombie fueled by The Dark Side and Unstoppable Rage (but who knows, you might be into that).
- For a male Player Character there's Jedi Master Atris, who is actually very attractive but has a terrible personality. Due to her Black-and-White Insanity and Jedi dogma she could never confront her feelings for the player, which led to significant Belligerent Sexual Tension and her Jumping Off the Slippery Slope. The male Exile can imply that he was very well aware of her feelings, and might have even reciprocated if she wasn't such a complete Ice Queen.
- The Legend of Zelda:
- Ruto in Ocarina of Time. Link seems agitated when she starts flirting with him after being rescued from Jabu-Jabu's Belly, and again when she brings up her one-sided Childhood Marriage Promise seven year later. This is less because of her appearance (which is considered very beautiful in-universe) and more because of her blunt, bratty personality.
- In Twilight Princess, Telma is this for Renado. After helping Link and Ilia get Prince Ralis to Kakariko Village for Renado to treat medically, she soon starts flirting with Renado after first meeting him. She eventually returns to Hyrule Castle Town, and when a later quest requires Link to deliver a letter from Renado to Telma, Renado admits that he really can't stand her.
- The Great Fairies in Breath of the Wild. They all flirt with Link when speaking to him and use rather affectionate techniques to magically upgrade his armor. Link's reactions range from embarrassed sighing when they blow him kisses to terror when they give him actual kisses.
- Live A Live: The Final Chapter features a horny fat guy named Voice Heart that chases your lead character around a dungeon. The remake alters this character (now called The Bountiful Heart) into being an overzealous martial artist that pesters your character.
- According to the Mega Man & Bass CD files, Snake Man "likes" Toad Man, whatever that means. Toad Man clearly does not reciprocate, indicated by his profile listing Snake Man as a dislike.
- Middle-earth: Shadow of War's "Blade of Galadriel" DLC gives us Krimp the Enchanted, an Uruk who is infatuated with Elven culture and language. Unlike many of his other bretheren, he is very polite and courteous. When he first meets Eltariel, he immediately falls in love with her and swears ultimate loyalty to her. She is less that pleased (he's not the nicest looking fellow. Also, he's an Uruk), but to be fair, he is not a Stalker with a Crush. He only cares about her health and goals above his own, and never betrays her.
- Mobius Final Fantasy's Echo is reliably this to any good-looking boy she encounters, though for her annoying personality rather than her looks. It's unclear how much she actually is attracted to the boys, and how much of it is her just doing it for laughs, though she does seem to have genuine affection for Wol, and her crush on Cloud is sincere enough for Wol to pick up on it.
- In Mystery Case Files: Rewind, Lucy the Bearded Lady has taken a liking to Victor Dalimar (of all people), and this does not please him at all.
- Onmyōji (2016): Though not physically unattractive by any means, Kijo Momiji is definitely this to Abe no Seimei, who saved her from a group of other monsters prior to the start of the story, even though he has since lost his memory and doesn't remember a thing about her.
- In Persona 4, it turns out that Hanako had a crush on your main character throughout the game if you talk to her in the epilogue.
- In Poker Night 2, Claptrap is quite enamored with GLaDOS. She is... somewhat less than enthused by his flirtations.
Claptrap: I might as well say it now- I've always loved you, baby.
GLaDOS: Were I outfitted with a dry-heave subroutine, I'd activate it now. - In Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, Bégoniax the witch is shown to be one to Razoff the hunter in the last cutscene of the "Bog of Murk" level. If she gets her affections rebuffed, she'll turn the person in question into a frog and, ahem, make new frogs with him.
- In the Richman series, the fat character Salonbus has a crush on Miss Money and constantly tries to woo her, much to the latter's dismay since she detests fat and poor people, which he sometimes is both.
- Sam & Max: Freelance Police:
- Inverted in "Chariots of the Dogs", where the titular lagomorph (Max) ends up being the object of obsession of the fairly attractive Momma Bosco. Max doesn't like girls (for the same reasons a 10-year-old boy is disgusted by girls) and finds her advances on him to be gross. In the same game, a young version of Max tries to avoid going to the prom because there's a girl who has a crush on him who is apparently known for french kissing every boy she likes.
- In "The Tomb of Sammun-Mak" we have the Mole-girl, Nefertiti, who is hopelessly in love with a pre-vampire Jurgen.
- Something: The Rip Van Fish from "The Only Water Level". If they see Mario, they immediately chase him. Also, they're dreaming about finding love since they create hearts when they're sleeping.
- Spellstone: The card "Bee Nice" shows a cartoon flower trying to sneak away from a gigantic bee with powers over fire. Its upgraded form, "Bee in Love", shows the bee bursting into flames (and lighting the entire forest on fire along with it) as it finally spots the flower, who can only scream in horror.
- Suikoden Tierkreis has Maybelle, who is absolutely convinced that she is a reincarnated "Warrior of Light" and the main character is the reincarnation of her true love. While she's not unattractive, the main character is so weirded out by her behavior that his usual reaction is to run away.
- Summertime Saga has Roz, the sixty-odd-year-old medical receptionist at the hospital, who demands a particular sort of payment for her help to the Main Character.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Some versions of the story world place Bowser as this to explain why you're rescuing the princess from him.
- In Super Mario RPG this role goes to Booster, who's convinced that the princess is in love with him and tries to make her marry him. And then flipped at the end, when he changes his mind about his impending marriage to Valentina.
- Birdo is often cast as the female equivalent. In Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, she gets recruited by the thief Popple and comes to view themselves as a couple in crime, which constantly repulses him. She will also flirt with a male player in Fortune Street, and spends her single player matches in Alefgard unsuccessfully flirting with the Chivalrous Pervert Angelo from Dragon Quest VIII. She combines this with White-Dwarf Starlet tendencies when cast as Mario's female lead in a stage play in Paper Mario: The Origami King.
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door has the Recurring Extra Dupree, who flirts with Goombella each time they cross paths, despite her clear disinterest. If you keep tattling him, she has a near breakdown about how often he is able to track them down.
- Tales of the Abyss: Luke, at the least, sees his fiancee Natalia as this, mainly for her persisting on bringing up their Childhood Marriage Promise and her Loving a Shadow tendencies towards him. Character Development has Natalia move past this, and she actually downplays it throughout the game, as it's quickly dropped due to the various problems The Team has to face.
- ToeJam & Earl: In Panic on Funkotron, Bloona has a crush on Peabo, who doesn't return her love. He goes as far as telling ToeJam and Earl not to speak of his whereabouts, because she's trying to stuff him with candy bars. At the end, they become a couple only because Peabo gives in. Averted at the end of Back in the Groove where Bloona is revealed to be in a relationship with Sharla. Sharla is overjoyed to be with Bloona, and the player-character is happy to see her in such high spirits.
- w0rd 0N 7h3 S7R337: If you're playing as a girl, Jen begs you to come to the town square and make Earl leave her alone. You can tell him to back off, lie to him that Jen's had a crush on him since third grade, or make him think you're in love with him instead.
Visual Novels
- Danganronpa:
- While Toko from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc isn't particularly ugly, she's generally rather unpleasant and is very creepy about her affection towards Byakuya, eventually settling into a strange one-sided S&M relationship, which Byakuya tolerates only because he can take advantage of her when he needs to and generally treat her as a verbal punching bag. And that's not even getting into her Split Personality, Serial Killer Genocider Syo, who also has a crush on Byakuya.
- Kazuichi Soda from Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair has a gender-inverted version of this relationship with the Foreign Exchange Student Sonia Nevermind. Soda isn't necessarily bad-looking aside from his mildly off-putting delinquent aesthetic, but he constantly acts like a Dogged Nice Guy towards Sonia due to her status as a princess in her home country, which frustrates her, as she just wants to experience life as a normal high schooler. As the Deadly Game progresses, he becomes more obsessive towards her while she becomes more openly hostile towards him in return.
- The Devil on G-String has an abhorrent admirer for the main heroine. All her talk of heroes and justice really grates against the amoral Kyousuke, but the real reason is that he knows that her father ruined Kyousuke's family.
- Fate/stay night: Archer 2 a.k.a. "Gilgamesh" is this towards Saber "Artoria Pendragon", though there's less emphasis on the "Admirer" part, as he is more interested in raping her because he is the king and it's thus his right.
- Judge Aunty to Roland in Fleuret Blanc. She isn't particularly ugly or terrible in and of herself, but the fact that she's extremely flirtatious despite being old enough to be Roland's mother creeps him out a great deal.
- Carolina Bucci in Eisuke's route of Kissed by the Baddest Bidder is, although chubby, not a bad-looking woman, but she is extremely forward and persistent in her romantic pursuit of Eisuke, who can't risk hurting her feelings by directly rejecting her because offending her will sour his business relationship with her Mafia Don father. Carolina doesn't really hit this trope, however, until Eisuke and the protagonist manage to convince her that Eisuke's heart is spoken for... at which point Carolina promptly shifts her passion to Eisuke's buddy Soryu, to Eisuke's amusement and Soryu's considerable dismay.
- While not initially, Kokoro No Doki Doki Senpai has Emo become this to Player, the protagonist..
- In The Labyrinth of Grisaia and its sequel The Eden of Grisaia, a squadmate of main character Yuuji named Millie constantly pines after him and flirts with him, even though she can't even remember his name correctly. Perhaps their relationship is defined by their first conversation: She challenges him to a duel, and he punches her in the face before she can explain that she wants a sniping competition. In the ending and epilogue for the latter game, she isn't even mentioned while everyone else is on an island with him with at the very least an ambiguous edge to their relationship.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney:
- Wendy Oldbag is attracted to several younger male characters over the course of the series, most notably Deadpan Snarker Miles Edgeworth. Part of the reason this is considered repulsive is probably the fact that Oldbag is a completely obnoxious Jerkass, and that she simply refuses to leave Edgeworth alone, despite the fact that he makes it clear that he has zero interest. And, just to top the whole thing off, she's obscenely old and constantly talks down to people.
- Sal Manella, a fat, sweaty, ugly geek who speaks in internet memes and "l33t speak", is this to Maya in one case in the first game.
- Larry Butz displays this occasionally towards Maya, beginning in the first game where she's seventeen and he's twenty-four. She never reciprocates his advances, instead occasionally turning his flirts back on him to get him to spill information about whatever case she and Phoenix are investigating.
Web Animation
- Anon: Connor is heavily disturbed by Vivian's massive crush on him, which went to lengths as far as her sleeping in his bed in a bikini while he was out.
- Black Rhino Ranger's "Now That's What I Call Skylanders Polka" fan-animation shows a chain of these; Wolfgang is one to Hex, who is one to Fright Rider. In that same video, Chompy Mage is one to Stealth Elf.
- Girl-chan to Yusuke in Girl-chan in Paradise. The former is a busty, scantily-clad Ms. Fanservice, only the art style purposefully makes her look like she crawled out of the Uncanny Valley, and the latter is just annoyed by her.
Yusuke: [after Maytag gives Girl-chan a price of -] That's the price that I would pay for her.
Girl-chan: [giggling] Yusuke is just kidding, right?
Yusuke: Shut. UP. - Helluva Boss: Stolas to Blitzo, though subverted. After they slept once, which Blitzo did to steal Stolas's Grimoire, Stolas calls Blitzo both in the pilot and "Murder Family", hitting on a very uninterested Blitzo by painting a very graphic picture with his words. Downplayed as soon as "Loo Loo Land" (the third episode counting the pilot) as Characterization Marches On: they just have an occasionally positive but messed-up relationship that doesn't know where it wants to go. By "The Circus", it's shown that Blitzo was the more knowingly abusive one from the start, and the obscene way Stolas used to talk to him was probably due to a misunderstanding that he liked it.
- Inanimate Insanity:
- Salt is this towards OJ. In this case what's unattractive is how extremely clingy she is and how incredibly obsessive her pursuit of him is (according to the webcomic story "Complaints", she's tried to ask him out through letters, cake, and skywriting), though her egocentric Alpha Bitch personality probably isn't doing her any favours either.
- Toilet is a non-romantic example. He was chosen to be MePhone4's assistant since nobody else wanted the job, and he deeply admires his boss and will go to any lengths to please him. MePhone4, however, is constantly frustrated by Toilet's dimwittedness, incompetence, and overall obnoxiousness.
- Lunch Lady Belinda from The Most Popular Girls in School is this for a lot of people, especially Cameron van Buren.
Cameron: At my house?! Belinda! What did the judge say? He said 800 yards! This is not 800 yards! Don't you have an Amber Alert you should be running from?
- Another unconventional example is SamBakZa's There she is!!, a story in five "steps" about a relationship between Doki, a rabbit, and Nabi, a cat. In their society, friendly intermingling of felis and lepus is perfectly fine, but the reactions of others to a romance between the two highlight the still-somewhat-strained relationship between Japanese people and Koreans. In the first step, Nabi flees Doki's attentions more because of social norms than actual disinterest (although Doki's enthusiasm probably intimidates Nabi a bit, as well). The rest of the shorts are more about Doki and Nabi's attempts to cope with society's opinion of their relationship. The example works so well because the creators (Koreans) show both sides' crowds as being equally disapproving (removing bias) and refraining from demonstrating which country is represented by which animal.
Webcomics
- In Dubious Company, Elly has three of them. While all of them are physically attractive, their personalities terrify him. Mary and Marty are also the bad guys.
- Mary is a Clingy Jealous Valley Girl that comes on too strong.
- Marty is damn sure that Elly is a girl and also comes on too strong.
- Raque is a guano crazy raccoon girl that sees her beloved in Elly.
- In El Goonish Shive, not realizing that Tedd is a guy, Larry tries flirting with him, which makes Tedd incredibly uncomfortable. Larry does not stop even when Tedd is being obvious about his discomfort.
- Male-to-female example in Everyday Heroes, where Ken Troubled develops a Villainous Crush on Summer Mighty, who wants nothing to do with him:
Summer: Listen, you sick little psycho, I am not interested in your stupid games.... I am not your nemesis, rival, victim, future victim, future henchman, archenemy, ordinary enemy, romantic interest, or even casual friend....
- In The Gamercat, the adorable kitten Nano develops a crush on the adult Gamercat the first time they meet. It's not till later that she shows up and declares her love for him, at which point we also learn why they're not exactly compatible: she's way too young for him, but beyond that she's incredibly creepy, being into Dark Souls and watching Gamercat sleep. She also likes to utterly smother him in affection and scare off other girl cats who might be interested in him. The only way she doesn't fit the bill is that she's not ugly — it's her behavior that freaks Gamercat out. Eventually, she developed into Glitch's playmate, and Gamercat himself started taking her affection in stride, being able to be in the same room as her since she really only tries to see if he's changed his mind on occasions like Valentine's Day.
- Sherry from Out There finds her admirer Clayton fairly abhorrent, and while he has many flaws (surly, shiftless, dishonest, alcoholic), the other notable female characters seem to like him.
- Male-to-female example in Penny Blackfeather, where mr. Poggleswede, honestly convinced he's God's gift to women, keeps trying to court the titular character. She hates him. A proper screaming, kicking, fervently avoiding hate, which he just doesn't seem to understand is there.
Penny: If I have to talk to that pompous, arrogant, preening, empty-headed, inbred, self-obsessed, ignorant, boring, oily dope again I WILL SCREAM!
- Scandinavia and the World:
- Sister Finland for Sweden, though it's less about her looks and more about her violent tendencies and his sexuality. That, and Finland would probably try to maim/kill Sweden if the latter even touched his sister.
- Estonia, of the Baltic girls trio, just wants to party with the cute Nordic boys. They, however, hide from her in fear. Except for Finland, who does accept her booze before slamming the door in her face.
- In Shortpacked!, Faz was this toward Amber. It was only made worse when Amber discovered that they're half-siblings, and was actually afraid that telling him would make the Abhorrent Admirer tendencies worse. When she finally told him, he burned a pillow with her image in response. Although by then he had gotten over Amber and hooked up with someone as perverse and strange as him anyway, so it worked out. Faz's Ultimate Universe counterpart in Dumbing of Age is still an abhorrent admirer, but due to him being Amber's stepbrother in this universe, his affections are now on Dina. She ties him up and leaves him with Ruthless.
- Torg's blind date from Sluggy Freelance, a brawny woman with a large nose, five o'clock shadow, and hook hand who may or may not actually be a woman.
- Unsounded: Ruckmearkha, a spirit and mind eating monster that likes to prey of beautiful men, is extremely interested in Bastion who knows better than to trust or be in the same room as an efheby.
Ruck: I want there to be love between us, as there is love between you and Ilganyag. I can make you forget her.
- Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic:
- An interesting take on an Abhorrent Admirer is featured in one story arc. It revolves around a queen with a trio of daughters who is making arrangements with another king to have his son marry one of her daughters to cement an alliance, with intent to betray him later and become absolute ruler of both kingdoms. The prince in question, however, is in every possible way disinterested. Not because the daughters are necessarily ugly, but because they're gnolls, and he's just plain not interested in an interspecies relationship (by gnoll standards they're actually pretty hot catches). Two of the daughters are incredibly forward and eager; it's never shown onscreen, but when the middle daughter tries to actually use sex to win him over, it's implied that he reacts badly. When he succumbs to the fact that he's not going to get out of this, he chooses the third daughter, who's surly and completely unwilling. When his father asks why he chose her over her cheerful, willing sisters, he points out that if he has to marry one of them, he might as well choose the one he agrees with and who will, more importantly, be equally as miserable with the arrangement.
- When Gren briefly breaks up with Bob, she has Arachne set her up on a number of blind dates. All of the prospects are this in some way, either from being perverted (the kuo-toa), attractive but too sensitive (Turg), or absolutely disgusting (the otyugh and neo-otyugh). It's possible that Arachne did this on purpose, as she despises men and thinks Gren should as well.
Web Original
- The Call of Warr: Ashes does not care for Glintz-Terry, as much as he tries to make her like him. She gets outright insulted when he tries to say he likes her, pointing out that he doesn't know her.
- Channel Awesome:
- The Nostalgia Chick to Todd in the Shadows. She's a pretty lady, but her personality and behaviour towards him is the reason why she's seen as abhorrent.note
- Todd himself is this toward Lupa (who seems to bring this out in most of the males on the site), almost to the point of Single-Target Sexuality. It's unclear whether he really dislikes the Chick, or if he's just too blinded with love for Lupa to even notice her feelings for him.
- Hyper Fangirl for The Nostalgia Critic. There's a behind the scenes video that has Doug wanting her to look messy as possible, and she's a psychotic Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who refuses to take Critic's many violent no's as an answer.
- The Starfish loves Charlie the Unicorn and WANTS TO BE WITH HIM FOREVER!
- Laura Clery, an Internet comedienne, has a character called Helen Horbath who relentlessly pursues Stevennote with terrible pick-up lines despite his obvious lack of interest. Laura is a pretty lady, but uses a Snapchat filter to distort her face and speaks in a lower, huskier voice while playing Helen in order to fulfill the "ugly" portion of the trope. When Snapchat got rid of the square jaw filter, the couple found other ways of making Helen come to life — including an improvised sketch shot from Helen's point of view (much to Steven's chagrin), and especially Helen haunting Steven in his dreams, implying all the while that she's very well aware of how she really makes him feel and doesn't care as long as she gets to "smash" him. Most disturbingly, in that last one, Laura also appears as herself, implying that Helen is hitting on a married man.
- In the "Deadpool: The Musical" short films, Deadpool hits on multiple characters, much to their disgust.
- "Deadpool: The Musical":
- Deadpool addresses "Anna", "Natty", and "Betsy" as a "threesome" and his "sexy friends" when he appeals for help with his bar brawl, and isn't discouraged when he gets kicked in the face. They don't accept his spooning-and-Conan invite, but he does get to enjoy watching them when they're so pissed off with him that they fight the mooks.
- When Spider-Man drops in to help, Deadpool cheers and immediately ogles Spider-Man's "arse" in his tights.
- In the stinger, Deadpool hits on Wolverine after Wolverine impales Deadpool's stuffed unicorn on his claws and tells him, "Go fuck yourself." Deadpool excitedly accepts this as a proposition and suggests using Wolverine's claws for a painful and anatomically impossible sex act.
- "Deadpool: The Musical 2":
- During "No Chance in Hell", Deadpool pops up behind Rogue and Cyclops and shoves Cyclops out of the way to suggest a "little skin-on-skin contact". Rogue responds by punching him.
- Deadpool, who is wearing a Wolverine hoodie, saunters up to Wolverine, who has his claws extended, and offers to "impale" Wolverine. Wolverine threatens to claw Deadpool mid-sentence.
- In the first verse of "A Whole New Team", Deadpool piggybacks on Iron Man in flight and sings, "I can show you my sword, and I don't mean my katana." Deadpool continues hitting on the exasperated Iron Man for the rest of his lines.
- During "Be a Team", Black Widow observes "don't know if we're friends or if I'm a fool." Deadpool hopefully wonders, "with benefits!?"
- Deadpool's Spider-Man crush from the first film continues; when Spider-Man shows up, Deadpool hollers "Spideypool!" and holds up an "I [heart] Spidey!" sign.
- "Deadpool: The Musical":
- In the Fantasy High campaign from Dimension 20, Biz repeatedly flirts with Adaine, despite her making it very clear from the beginning that she's not interested and finds his come-ons to be gross rather than charming. At one point, she even privately asks Fig and Kristen to make sure she's never alone with him because he makes her so uncomfortable. (Though this could be just as much because she doesn't trust herself not to hex him in retaliation.)
- Mortal Kombat fansite The Kombat Pavilion, a host of various fan webcomics and animations, has a random intro that plays before you enter the main site. One of them has Kitana chasing Liu Kang in front of the site's logo, whining that he "runs too fast" and that "[they're] meant to be!". They run back and forth across the logo, with Liu always outrunning Kitana until she disappears, leaving him to hesitate as he wonders where she is... long enough for her to appear out of nowhere, snatch him, and drag him offscreen for some "Hot Edenian Love", complete with a porn-y track made of Garageband loops. The two have a far more chivalrous relationship in the canon of the games, especially in the original timeline, as they're Together in Death in the rebooted one, but it's something of a Running Gag among fans to depict her as a Clingy Jealous Girl who relentlessly pursues him. A bit subverted since she's not ugly, it's just her behavior that turns him off in these depictions.
- The meme character "Overly Attached Girlfriend", describing creepy or desperate behavior that might be committed by a current or ex-girlfriend, or by someone who has a crush on the creator of the meme.
- The Porn Critic for Sursum Ursa. From Busty Cops 2:
Sursum Ursa: Stop sending me boxes of condoms in the post, you creepy pervert!
MikeJ: Uhhh...
Porn Critic: There's nothing wrong with sending a box of used condoms to a fellow Internet reviewer! What's wrong with that? - Vaguely Recalling JoJo: Under the magnetism curse, Joseph Joestar accidentally flips Enya Geil's skirt, causing her to fall in love with him and making his situation worse.
- Vinesauce Tomodachi Life:
- Alpaca is a minor example. She's by no means a bad person (she's actually one of the nicest islanders, if also one of the least functional), but Vinny doesn't want her anywhere near Vinesauce, mainly because she's an alpaca and because Vinny has eyes for Two-Faced only. This becomes very prevalent in Episode 20, where an attempt to get Wario a girlfriend ends with Vinesauce and Alpaca becoming a couple. Vinny tells them they can't be together, and openly thinks of Alpaca as an obstacle. Ironically, the problem is solved when Walrus (Two-Faced's lover and Vinny's main Sitcom Arch-Nemesis) hooks Alpaca up with someone else that very same episode.
- Seabiscuit would've also been treated as this to Vinesauce, for the same reasons as Alpaca, but also because her voice causes Vinny pain. Why doesn't she become this? Because they get together in Episode 28, the episode in which Isaac pushes the Reset Button halfway through; when the game is reloaded, Vinesauce and Seabiscuit aren't interested in being a couple, and the latter soon finds someone else.
- Later on, there's Balegdah. She just barely escapes being Gonk, she has a bad temper, and worst of all, she's based on a Discredited Meme. Of course, she ends up getting together with Vinesauce, and Vinny can't do a thing about it. From then on, she's treated as this by Vinny, even though Vinesauce actually likes her a lot. However, given how Vinesauce immediately moves on after Balegdah gets assimilated near the end of the first series, it's very possible that he did share Vinny's opinion of her.
