rdfs:comment
| - Alice is in love with Bob. It's very obvious. The writers make no effort to hide the fact. However, we aren't sure how Bob feels about Alice. Every once in a while, he'll do something incredibly romantic, and then turn it into a Just Friends or something similar. He may flirt with her often, but make it seem like it's playful and doesn't mean anything. Often he'll ask her out on a date, and after she accepts reveal it's a group affair, even though the conversation beforehand hinted it might be intimate one on one time. For obvious reasons, she won't just ask him.
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abstract
| - Alice is in love with Bob. It's very obvious. The writers make no effort to hide the fact. However, we aren't sure how Bob feels about Alice. Every once in a while, he'll do something incredibly romantic, and then turn it into a Just Friends or something similar. He may flirt with her often, but make it seem like it's playful and doesn't mean anything. Often he'll ask her out on a date, and after she accepts reveal it's a group affair, even though the conversation beforehand hinted it might be intimate one on one time. The idea is that Bob spends the entire time straddling the line between showing genuine romantic interest and being indifferent, which is incredibly aggravating for Alice and just gives her more and more doubts because Bob won't give any signals one way or the other. Is he unaware? Does he just like playing with her? Does he consider her to be like a sister? Is he gay? She just can't tell. Every single statement he makes can be interpreted both ways, so when he gets done, Alice is left asking "Well, how am I supposed to interpret that?" Alice can count her blessings, though. Nine times out of ten, when it's actually revealed how he feels, it will turn out that he did like her all along. Maybe he had the same doubts she did. Maybe he never thought of her that way, but once he did, realized it was true. Or sometimes he was sending mixed messages because he was genuinely confused. Either way, they'll usually end up together, unless he's the main character and she has a lot of competition. Compare/Contrast Tsundere, whose "mixed messages" are on the far side of the emotional spectrum rather than hovering in the middle. May require Alice asking "Did You Think I Can't Feel?" If Bob drags it out. Compare I Didn't Mean to Turn You On. For obvious reasons, she won't just ask him. Examples of Master of the Mixed Message include:
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