: Re: How to represent jealousy in a cute way? The main character (which is a girl) of the first romance I'm writing would feel jealous sometimes of her love interest, but I want it to be a cute

@Berryessa137

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This is something that I've seen Japanese writers (in Manga/Anime) do especially well. From what I've seen there, I'd say...
The key to pulling this off is in how your MC reacts to her jealous feelings.
If she gets petty and takes it out on her love interest (as you describe with pouts and annoyance), it may be seen as obnoxious and non-productive by your readers. This trait is only holding back their romance and nothing but selfish/annoying. Would you want to date someone who gets mad at you for reasons outside your control (like with the waitress)?
However, if she uses this jealousy to push herself to try things outside of what she would normally do to "compete" with these other girls (who--to the reader--clearly aren't actually competition), it'll come off as endearing. She's trying hard to win her love interest, and "fight off" the competition. It would look like a small dog trying to defend its owner from a huge Boxer, when the Boxer is just walking past them.
You can also play this up with the self-esteem issues. "I'm clearly not beautiful/interesting/intelligent/etc. enough for my love interest, so to compete with these other girls I'll have to XYZ."
You can further give this a cute spin by making it clear to the reader (but maybe not the MC) that the love interest clearly finds this all endearing and is trying to play along to help her save face.
And the beauty of all of this is that she'll be trying so hard to step outside of her comfort zone for the love interest that she won't be able to keep it up forever. While this may start as cute and endearing, it's probably taking a toll on her. Combined with the self-esteem issues she'll probably be thinking along the lines of "I've been trying all of this and failing miserably. Does [love interest] even like me?" And when she finally breaks, it'll setup for a beautiful scene between them where the love interest can "give back" emotionally and express their feelings for her (which would also give you a great point to start chipping away at those self-esteem issues!)

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