That said, uh, I’d have to say that in my opinion, there IS lots of fake-dating in the real world. Which is sort of sad. I think it’s actually a very old practice.

When I went to Ireland in 1999, we stayed in hostels. There were three of us girls so we stayed in a regular group room. But there were ‘better’ rooms in some hostels reserved for newly weds or couples (sadly, Ireland on the whole is not so into gays so it was explicitly husband/wife). We ran into some of the travelers more than once as we backpacked around and we knew they weren’t actually married. But it was a game, among larger groups, to take turns pretending so they could get the ‘good rooms’. Back then, no one demanded proof.

Aaaand, I had a good friend (hardly an acquaintance now) back in high school, and she DID fake-date MORE THAN ONCE to seed jealousy. I’m not sure what was worse, the fact that she did it at all, the fact that the boys she wanted jealous, got jealous even though they KNEW that she’d done the SAME THING to other guys, or the fact that she only got away with it because I was her best friend and the people she pissed off were afraid of me and would never take a stand against her because they thought I’d wail them for it.

For the record, I detested the behavior, and I wouldn’t have interrupted anyone who’d tried to ream her.

As soon as two friends pretend to date to get someone jealous, it is SO obvious that they’re going to end up together.