Informed Loner/Playing With

Basic Trope: A character, described as a loner, is always with other characters.


 * Straight: Jack, said to be a loner, is always with Tom, or Jill, or Sally, or --
 * Exaggerated: Jack is always in the middle of the party.
 * Justified: He's described so by other characters, and despite Infallible Babble, they're wrong.
 * He's not there voluntarily. You can tell by his awkwardness.
 * Jack calls himself a loner because he thinks it makes him cool.
 * Inverted: Suzie is called gregarious and is always seen alone.
 * Subverted: Jack, a loner, is always seen with other people, but the POV character only sees him for small parts of the day.
 * He's always seen with other people, who are only paying attention to other people, never to Jack.
 * Double Subverted: Except that he's not alone the rest, either.
 * Parodied: Jack growls out that he hates people, and want's to be as far away from socializing as possible... to his adoring fan club, Paid Harem, and a large group of assorted friends and family, who are all "ruining [his] loner image."
 * Deconstructed: Characters who describe others as loners are indulging in Malicious Slander out of spitefulness.
 * Characters who call themselves loners are actually posing.
 * Jack, a loner, loses his sanity and kills anyone who dares go within 10 feet of his personal space.
 * Reconstructed: Jack is a Stepford Smiler, he may look and act sociable, but on the inside he feels completely alone.
 * Zig Zagged: It looks like all the talk about Jack being a loner is just hype, he's having a birthday party! Which he threw as a joke, he's dying to get out. Except it's because he's so happy lots of people showed up, but he doesn't want anyone to see him cry.
 * Averted: Jack is not described as a loner.
 * Jack is seen alone.
 * Enforced: "Calling him a loner makes him edgy, so we don't need to have him alone; besides, it's easier to plot when we can dump exposition in dialogue."
 * Lampshaded: "For a loner, you seem to have a lot of friends."
 * Exploited: Jack makes friends with the people pitying him for "being so lonely".
 * Invoked: Jack spreads the rumor he's a loner to try and seem edgy and get a date.
 * Defied: No one ever calls Jack a loner because they don't want to make him seem cooler than he really is.
 * Discussed: "So how's the asocial lifestyle treating you?" "Great! I get invited to a ton more parties now!"
 * Conversed: "So is anyone who is called a loner actually asocial?"

Back to Informed Loner, and please check your fan club at the door.