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Then, right before Daphne gets married, fate brings them together and he finally works up the nerve to confess his love. And she loves him back, of course, because you don't spend seven years building up a plot point only to just throw it out. So Daphne ditches her groom, and together she and Niles live happily ever after.

If you're unfamiliar with that storyline because you're young or, ugh, a Friends person, this is a trope that's in, oh, roughly half of all pop culture involving relationships. The message, over and over again, is that if you're too shy to tell a woman that you're attracted to them, you just have to hang around, and eventually a situation will arise that will let you sweep them off their feet. It may take years, but if you're a good friend or a fun co-worker, romance will inevitably bloom. True love is a video game boss, and you just have to grind experience points until you're ready to confront it.

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Female characters never have any agency in this. They're always charmed when the dude says that he's loved her ever since he first saw her gutting cod in that cannery eight years ago (spoilers for Fishing For Love). Because what kind of lesson would these shows be sending if patience and hard work weren't rewarded? So much of pop culture equates seduction with a chore, like cleaning out the garage. You just have to quietly put the hours in, without fuss or complaint, and eventually you'll complete the project. Persistence is considered more important than honesty. When it comes to pursing a woman, there's a fine line between persistence and harassment, but not in pop culture -- if two characters are "meant" to be together, a "no" is just a more dramatic "yes" in the future.

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This all reinforces a subtle delusion in Nice Guys. Despite the stereotype of men being willing to hit on any woman with a pulse, some men would rather wrestle a lion than approach a woman. Everything about dating is exhausting and terrifying to them, for reasons we'll get into later. So all these stories about meek guys stumbling into perfect relationships reassures them that they were right to not ask out that woman they like like to dinner or a movie or the new Hollywood executive's office-themed escape room today.