Insecure Love Interest

And she's actually even more insecure than he is!

"No matter what I do, I feel like I'll never become worthy of being by your side."

— Kaoru Sugimura, Nana & Kaoru

A form of Heroic Self-Deprecation where a character thinks they're not good enough for their Love Interest. They may think this while they're actually in a relationship with said person (in which case they may break it off "for the other person's good"), or they may avoid pursuing them in the first place. If the love interest finds out about it, this is likely to segue into You Are Better Than You Think You Are.

Related to I Want My Beloved to Be Happy. Also compare I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me. A case of this on both sides may lead to Mutual Pining. If this causes a breakup, they may say It's Not You, It's Me (and really mean it). Contrast Better Partner Assertion, where characters argue their superiority to their love interest. May result in an Imaginary Love Triangle. I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship may be a reason for their insecurity.

Examples:

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Comic Strips

Peanuts characters have two basic ways to deal with Unrequited Love: being too intense pursuing the one they're in love with while totally ignoring that they're not interested, or paralyzing insecurity that keeps them from acting about their love at all:
- Charlie Brown himself is the biggest offender, and might even be the Trope Codifier to Western audiences. He's usually too absorbed by his own insecurity to even make a decision about love most days: most iconically with the Little Red-Haired Girl, who he can barely even talk to. Though he briefly gets a little more confident with Peggy Jean (which didn't end well).
- Peppermint Patty is a mix of the two: she flirts endlessly with Charlie Brown, but she occasionally makes it clear that despite her seeming confidence, she's actually too insecure about her own flaws to do anything but play games. Upon seeing the Little Red-Haired Girl for the first time, she breaks down into tears, believing it impossible that anyone would love herself in comparison.
- Marcie is also this, to a lesser extent: she makes it clear she's "very fond" of Charlie Brown, but also barely does anything about it because she thinks he'd never love a girl with glasses.

Theatre

In Cyrano de Bergerac the title character feels that, due to his large nose, he is unworthy of Roxane, whom he is very much attracted to.
35MM: A Musical Exhibition:
- "Make Me Happy" is mostly a love duet that's Played for Laughs, but near the end both of the singers drop their hilariously abrasive tones to admit that they know they're not easy to live with, and they appreciate their partner accepting them and putting up with their flaws, before promising to work on themselves so they can both be worthy of the other.
- The song "The Seraph" is narrated by The Sinner, who views his lover as an angel who saved him and made him a better man, and has no idea what his lover sees in him. The final verse has the lover, The Savior, sing the chorus with him, revealing the sentiment is mutual.
  Angel, lead me onward and hold watch as I sleep
  I don't know why you think I've got a soul to keep
In Jasper in Deadland, Agnes tells Jasper she loves him, but he believes that his life is too much of a mess for them to be together.
Jasper: Agnes has everything. Perfect family. Famous doctor for a father… Beautiful stepmom… Agnes is too good for anyone… Me? I have a cheating mother and a drug addict for a father… How could she possibly love me?
Mutual example in South Pacific. Nellie fears she'd bore Emile, due to being less cultured than him. Emile, meanwhile, thinks he's probably too old for Nellie.

Web Originals

Parodied with the psychotic Ask That Guy with the Glasses. Even though the Love Martyr narrator tells him how amazing he is constantly, he'd rather be abused and told he's worthless.
Critical Role: Ashton from Campaign 3 has a very low opinion of themself. While they're more than happy to have a friends-with-benefits situation with Fearne, they don't seem to consider acting on their romantic feelings for her an option, and according to Word of God, the reason they're oblivious to the fact that the crush is mutual is because they believe they're fundamentally unloveable.
Whateley Universe: Sahar, having had a Heel Realization after falling in love with Zenith, broke off their relationship because she felt she didn't deserve someone as wonderful as Zoe. This led to a great deal of pain for both of them, leading Zoe, who thought it had been due to her Gender Bender transformation, to herself become insecure and somewhat bitter over the relationship. It took an intervention led by Chaka to get them back together, after which Semiramis set out to make amends for her previous Fille Fatale behavior.