From Off Campus to The Love Hypothesis, Why We Still Can't Get Enough of 'Fake Dating'

Of all the ‘BookTok’ love stories that have made the leap from page to screen this year, there are two outliers: Off Campus and The Love Hypothesis.

Coincidentally, both of these stories take place in educational institutions, which, as a setting, definitely has its merits — but that’s a whole other article. For me, the biggest similarity between these two stories is that they both rely on the ‘fake dating’ trope. 

In The Love Hypothesis, Olive and Adam pretend to form an attachment so that Olive’s friend can date guilt-free while Adam can convince his department that he isn’t a ‘flight risk’. Meanwhile, in Off Campus, Garrett and Hannah fake a romance to make her crush notice her.

This particular trope is a path well-trodden, and if I’m being completely honest, it’s not like these two tales do anything groundbreaking with the trend. But what they do achieve is a complete mastery of all the fundamentals of the perfect fake-turned-real romance.

How Did Off Campus and The Love Hypothesis Revive The ‘Fake Dating’ Genre?

First and foremost, an important element of the fake romance is, in my opinion, the friendship that develops between the couple through their shared scheming and close proximity to one another. Olive and Adam, along with Hannah and Garrett, are able to develop a unique kind of camaraderie that only they can understand, and through this, they are able to get to know and trust each other on a level that just wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for their arrangement. They say the best couple are friends first, and the fake dating trope as a whole never fails to demonstrate that this is true time and time again.

Tangentially related to this foundational friendship is the way that, in these fake relationships, these characters have the freedom of expressing a total lack of inhibitions with their fake partner. Because they’ve essentially detached themselves from the performance of social interaction, they have the freedom to be their authentic selves right away. As well as being completely liberating for these characters, who deal with issues like shyness and the crushing expectations others have of them, it is, in a way, ironic: while their whole relationship is a lie, it is underpinned by a level of genuineness that is only accessible through this performance that they both do.

When the very fake couple have a very real connection as Olive and Adam and Hannah and Garrett do, the forced, close proximity they have with one another is another enjoyable aspect of the trope. It keeps us on the edge of our seats because there are so many layers to it. The first, outer layer, is the romantic gesture the rest of the world sees: just a hug or a kiss between your average, run-of-the-mill couple. But beneath that layer is the mutual understanding that they’re essentially playing a role, and that this isn’t real. However, there’s a third and final layer that the faux couple can’t really account for, and that is the genuine chemistry and mutual desire for each other that bubbles under the surface of every gesture. It adds a degree of tension to interactions that is exacerbated by the yearning, slow-burn nature of their relationship, which, when it comes to fake romances, really is the perfect storm.

So, when all is said and done, the fake dating trope can warm even the coldest of hearts — and I think the success of both Off Campus and The Love Hypothesis kind of speaks for itself. Without a doubt, these two stories have sparked something of a ‘fake dating’ renaissance across popular culture, and with a Love Hypothesis sequel and Off Campus Season 2 already in development, I have a feeling that our love affair with the trope is only just heating up.