Fake dating is a romance trope in which two characters agree to pretend to be a couple, usually to fix an outside problem, and the act gradually turns into real feelings. On social media readers on #BookTok and other book communities use #FakeDating to recommend and request books built on the setup.
Origin
The premise is older than the hashtag. Book Riot’s Rachel Brittain wrote in February 2021 that “By no means is the idea of fake dating a new concept in the literary world,” adding that it had been a staple of fan fiction from the start. The same piece predicted that “2021 is going to be the year of fake dating in romance,” listing fifteen new releases built on it, including Jasmine Guillory’s While We Were Dating, Alisha Rai’s First Comes Like and Adiba Jaigirdar’s Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating.
At least one prominent fake dating novel came straight out of fan fiction: The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood, published by Berkley on September 14, 2021, was originally published online in 2018 as a Star Wars fan fiction called Head Over Feet.
How It’s Used
Readers use the tag to label a book’s premise, to ask for recommendations (“fake dating, but sapphic”) and to pair it with neighbouring tropes such as #EnemiesToLovers, #OneBedTrope and #SlowBurnRomance. In a separate Book Riot list, Julia Rittenberg called it her favourite trope and noted that these stories “have the same general structure” but can be adapted to almost any pairing. Her picks include Alexis Hall’s Boyfriend Material, Talia Hibbert’s Take a Hint, Dani Brown and Alyssa Cole’s A Prince on Paper.
The typical reasons for the arrangement are a jealous ex, family or social pressure, or a public-image problem; the tension comes from two people performing intimacy while insisting it means nothing.
Fake Dating Canon
| Title | Year | Format | The fake arrangement |
|---|---|---|---|
| To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (Jenny Han) | 2014 (novel) | YA novel, later a Netflix film | Lara Jean explains her situation to Peter, who decides to go along with the lie. |
| Bridgerton, season 1 | 2020 (Dec 25) | Netflix series | Simon suggests that he and Daphne pretend to court to improve her prospects and keep other matches away from him. |
| The Love Hypothesis (Ali Hazelwood) | 2021 | Adult romance novel | Olive pretends to date professor Adam Carlsen to convince her friend Anh that her dating life is going well. |
| Anyone but You | 2023 (Dec 22) | Film, Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell | Bea persuades Ben to pretend they are a couple; the film is based on Much Ado About Nothing. |
Not Quite Fake Dating
Red, White & Royal Blue is often listed alongside these titles, but in the novel Alex and Henry are forced to pretend to be friends, not a couple, to contain a diplomatic and media crisis. It is a fake-friendship story.
Recent Developments
Anyone but You (2023) took the trope to the box office, earning about $220 million worldwide according to its Wikipedia entry. Season 1 of #Bridgerton had already put a fake courtship at the centre of a Netflix series in 2020.
Sources
- https://bookriot.com/fake-dating-trend-2021/
- https://bookriot.com/fake-dating-romance-novels/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_All_the_Boys_I%27ve_Loved_Before
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgerton_season_1
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Love_Hypothesis
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anyone_but_You
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red,_White_%26_Royal_Blue