Abe: Honey, are you sure you wanna be Mrs. Montgomery Burns? Don't you wanna be Mrs. Abraham Simpson?
Jacqueline: No. I don't wanna be either.
Abe: Hot diggity damn, that's good enough for me!
Jacqueline: No. I don't wanna be either.
Abe: Hot diggity damn, that's good enough for me!
There are many ways for a romance arc to end. Sometimes there is a normal hookup, one or both members die, or the situation is left ambiguous. There are more options involved when in a Love Triangle, however. For example, apart from the previous scenarios the character may pick several of their options at once. But sometimes they go the opposite direction and reject all of their suitors. As such, they Dump Them All.
A specific variation of Take a Third Option.
Compare to No Romantic Resolution.
This is a Spoilered Rotten trope, that means that every example on this list is a spoiler by default and they will all be unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The Ami subseries of the classic hentai OVA series Cream Lemon ends with the titular heroine rejecting both of her principal suitors to focus on her music career (and because they are jerks).
- In a twist of irony, the Scheris/Mimori/Ryuhou love triangle in s-CRY-ed ends with Scheris dead and Ryuhou rejecting Mimori despite his implied attraction to her because he feels it wouldn't be right. Although he displayed no attraction to Scheris either, she died for him, and he feels Mimori might very well meet the same end if she was to get together with him now.
- In the last episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Jack Atlas tells Carly, Mikage, and Stephanie that no woman will stand in his way, and then he drives away with his D-Wheel to become the King of Riding Duels again.
Films — Live-Action
- The heroine of Catch That Kid rejects both of her male friends as love interests at the end of the movie.
- In Center Stage (2000), Jody's character in Cooper's ballet is in a Love Triangle with Cooper and Charlie's characters. In the final scene, she rejects them both in favor of her true love: dance.
- By the end of The Green Hornet, Lenore is only interested in a working relationship with Britt and Kato, though both of them have been pursuing her romantically.
- It Takes Three: Roxy punches Chris and Cy in the face and, while accepting their apologies, refuses to end up with either of them.
- Legally Blonde: Inverted for Warner, where both Elle and Vivian dump him.
- The 1943 version of Phantom of the Opera ends with Christine choosing neither of her love interests Raoul and Anatole and suggesting that the two of them become friends instead.
- She's Gotta Have It ends with the protagonist dumping all three of the men she's sleeping with and deciding to be "celibate" for a while.
- Valley of the Dolls has Anne in this situation. Already dumping her previous suitor, Kevin, while going back and forth with her other romantic suitor, the faithless Lyon, she decides to dump him as well, despite his claims that he loves her and wants to be with her. The movie ends with her walking down a snow-covered road, content with her decision.
Literature
- Happens in Haganai, where Kodaka individually shoots down every girl who's interested in him, saying he'd rather not change the status quo.
- Throne of Glass: The Celaena-Dorian-Chaol triangle is a significant subplot in the first book, but loses most of its significance by the end of the second. Celaena leaves Adarlan having essentially rejected both of them.
Live-Action TV
- Several seasons of The Bachelor have ended with the Bachelor not choosing to date any woman.
- In the original Beverly Hills, 90210, this is how Kelly resolves the Dylan/Brandon love triangle. "I choose me!"
- In the finale to the first season of Community, Jeff is torn between Brita and Prof. Slater. He essentially chooses this option when he decides to leave as opposed to making any decisions. He runs into Annie outside and kisses her, but he tries to forget about it after. He briefly dates Britta in the premiere of season two, but only so that people would stop hounding him about it. The "relationship" ends when they realize how stupid it would be to marry someone out of spite.
- In the series finale of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Rebecca decides to Take a Third Option, or rather, fourth option, by rejecting all three guys who are interested in her, namely Josh, Greg, and Nathaniel to focus on herself and her blooming career as a songwriter.
- Family Ties. Alex becomes attracted to a music student he's tutoring. While this forces him to admit that he's no longer in love with his girlfriend Lauren, he realizes that the other girl isn't "The One" either and ends things with both of them.
- Friends:
- Inverted in one episode. Phoebe is dating two guys, but she can't decide which one she likes more. In the end, they both dump her. One of the guys learns she slept with the other and not him. The other, a fireman, is upset she had a candlelit dinner in the park with the other, as this involved an open flame in a wooded area.
- There's also an episode where Ross is torn between two women: one he really likes, but lives over two hours away and he's exhausted from traveling back and forth, and one who lives closer but he doesn't like her personality as much. He ultimately decides not to date either one... and then at the end of the episode he gets infatuated with a woman who lives even farther away.
- In Full House, DJ takes this option when asked to choose between Nelson and Viper, reasoning that if she were really into either of them then she wouldn't have any trouble deciding who to be with.
- Happens in Fuller House, where DJ takes this option when asked to choose between Steve and Matt. She reasons she first wants to focus on herself.
- Mahou Sentai Magiranger: In one episode, Kai gets subjected to a "Freaky Friday" Flip with Houka, who he discovers has 15 consecutive dates the next day. Rather than go through the process of asking for help getting ready, he cancels all of them at once.
- Skins: Franky ends up with neither Matty nor Nick, telling them to love each other instead. (Not like that… they're brothers.)
- Soap: Jessica gains four different suitors near the end of the third season: her estranged husband, her former lawyer, her psychiatrist, and her doctor. After they spend quite a lot of time arguing and literally wrestling each other to the ground in order to get her attention, Jessica eventually decides to reject all of them and focus on herself some more. Ironically, it's through this that she ends up with yet another love interest after she goes on vacation, this time one of her strangest ones: a former Central American dictator and failed revolutionary known as El Puerco.
- The finale of True Blood season four is a good example: Sookie turns down all three of her love interests. In the case of Bill and Eric, it's a classic "I'm not picking either of you" ending to a Love Triangle. Alcide gets a gentler "sorry, but I don't feel that way about you" rejection.
Music
- Inverted in the music video for "The Boy Is Mine by Brandy and Monica. A guy is dating two girls (it is the girls singing the song), and at the end of the music video, they throw out his stuff, then confront him together.
Theater
- George Bernard Shaw's play Mrs Warrens Profession ends with Vivie turning down proposals from both her suitors. She chooses to devote her life to her career rather than marry.
Video Games
- Aveyond 4: Shadows of the Mist has an inversion. Throughout the game, Ingrid has the option to marry either Boyle, Hi'beru, or Phye. But if she doesn't have enough attraction points (at least 5) with either one of them, all three will find their love in other places.
- In Beyond: Two Souls among your final options if you choose to return to the living world is to select one of your surviving love interests. There is however the option to choose no love interest and live in solitude.
- In Catherine should you decide to go the Freedom route, that is answering questions and texts which keep your Karma Meter neutral as well as providing certain responses to some of the final questions can have the game end with different variations on this. Interestingly enough, it is one of the three Golden Endings which the game possesses.
- Implied by necessity to start Chitose's route in Galaxy Angel: Moonlit Lovers. Much like the beginning of the first game, the story picks up where Tact was chilling with Lester. While this is treated innocently enough with no presumptions, the only way to get there in the first game is to horrifically screw the Last-Second Ending Choice with the chosen girl, leaving you with a painful breakup after spending the entire game trusting each other. As it is treated as a Bad End, this is only a partial example.
- Persona 5 Royal inverts this if you try to be a Harem Seeker. Come Valentine's Day
and you have two or more girlfriends, THEY all dump YOU. You Bastard!
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: a possible resolution to the Love Triangle is for Geralt to dump both Triss and Yennefer. Trying to do the opposite trope leads them to dump him.
Western Animation
- The Simpsons has Jacqueline Bouvier, Marge's mother, doing this. As Abe Simpson interrupts her wedding to Mr. Burns, he asks her if she'd rather be Mrs. Abraham Simpson than Mrs Charles Montgomery Burns. She says no; she doesn't want to be either. This is good enough for Abe, who then runs out of the church with her and the two of them run onto the back of a bus a la The Graduate.
- Gravity Falls: In "Boyz Crazy", after Wendy is freed from Robbie's hypnosis (and subsequently dumps him), Dipper asks if she wants to hang out. Understandably upset (and perhaps seeing through Dipper's attempts to hide his crush), she calls both him and Robbie out for trying to manipulate her and stomps into the forest.
- On South Park, this is the way Satan resolves the Love Triangle between him, his ex-lover Saddam Hussein, and his current boyfriend Chris. It was based on advice from God, who noted how lame and overly-dependent Satan had grown over the centuries.
