All Of Ted's Significant Others In 'How I Met Your Mother'
- 11,515 VOTES
Tracy
Photo: CBSAh, the titular Mother herself. For the character that the show is technically all about, Tracy only appears in 22 episodes, and only 14 of those is she played by Cristin Milioti (the other eight appearances are teasing cameos where the audience never sees her face). Though Ted and Tracy's relationship appears somewhat truncated when compared to the rest of the series, it is clear to all viewers that there is an immediate spark between the two.
From their initial moments of falling in love, their sharing of the one exception to Ted's "Nothing Good Ever Happens After 2 am" rule, and the heartbreaking scene of Ted by her side in the hospital bed near the very end of the series, there is an effortless chemistry between them.
- 21,523 VOTES
Victoria
Photo: CBSVictoria is a fan-favorite love interest of Ted's who was introduced in the first season. After having a meet-cute at a wedding where both kept their identity purposefully a secret, Ted tracks Victoria down and the two start dating. Everything goes swimmingly for the couple at first, until Victoria gets a fellowship at a culinary institute in Germany. The pair try long distance but quickly find that maintaining a connection is arduous at best, and they break it off. All the while, Ted is lying to Robin about being single again because he thinks he has a chance to be with her.
Plenty of fans assumed Victoria would end up being "the Mother" before Tracy came on the scene, and this almost came to pass as Ted actually proposes to Victoria after they rekindle their relationship in the seventh season. Victoria agrees to marry Ted only if he gives up his friendship with Robin, which is something he just can't come to terms with.
- 31,646 VOTESPhoto: CBS
Who doesn't love a little Robin Sparkles? Robin Scherbatsky is Ted's first love interest on the show and one of the main characters of the series. Their relationship starts with a resounding bang - and subsequent whimper - as Ted professes his love for Robin mere days after meeting her. Unsurprisingly, she does not think the two should continue dating after this, and the pair remain friends until they finally become a couple for most of Season 2.
After the pair break up just before the wedding of their good friends Lily and Marshall, things become even more complicated. Robin moves in with Ted after losing her apartment, and they live together for years while dating other people. Of course, the complications don't end there, and Robin ends up marrying one of Ted's best friends, Barney.
Ted meets Tracy - the mother of his children - at Robin and Barney's wedding. Tracy gets sick and passes in 2024, setting up the final scene of the show, which revisits Robin and Ted's first date from the pilot, implying they end up together when it's all said and done. Though Robin and Ted established themselves as friends for much of the series, it is hard to deny the chemistry between the two and, in some ways, it feels like they were meant to be together all along.
- 41,508 VOTES
Stella
Photo: CBSTed first meets Stella because of an unfortunate tattoo he acquires on one particularly boozy night out. Stella is the dermatologist tasked with removing Ted's tattoo, and she initially rejects his advances as she cannot, in good conscious, date a patient. Once the pair do start dating, their relationship moves very quickly and they are engaged by the time of her fourth appearance on the show. What's worse is that Ted tried to break up with her earlier that same day.
While the pair clearly have on-screen chemistry and appear to have a lot of fun together, there was always something a little off about the couple. Stella ends up leaving Ted at the altar in order to get back together with her ex-husband Tony. Tony even ends up writing a movie about the love triangle called The Wedding Bride, where Ted is the villain of the story.
- 51,459 VOTES
Zoey
Photo: CBSZoey is an activist who begins her appearances on How I Met Your Mother as a thorn in Ted's side. When Ted is hired by Goliath National Bank to design a new headquarters for the company, Zoey tries to rally public support to protect The Arcadian, which is the historical building that will be torn down and replaced with Ted's design. Zoey ultimately befriends Ted's friends at their hangout MacLaren's Pub, and though it is clear the pair are attracted to each other, nothing can come of it as she is already married.
This changes about halfway through Season 6 when Zoey gets divorced from her husband, and she and Ted begin to date. Even though Zoey gets along with everybody in the friend group, she and Ted can never get over the proverbial elephant in the room of their relationship: The Arcadian. Ted comes to terms with the fact he'll have to choose between designing his own building in the New York City skyline and his relationship with Zoey. Spoiler alert: He chooses the building.
- 61,217 VOTES
Natalie
Photo: CBSNatalie is the unfortunate recipient of a Ted Mosby breakup on her birthday not only once, but twice. In the Season 1 episode "Return of the Shirt," Ted begins to realize his tastes are shifting in his old age when he rediscovers an old shirt he thought he used to dislike but now loves. This gets Ted waxing poetic about former girlfriend Natalie. Three years before the episode, Ted actually broke up with Natalie via a voicemail... on her birthday.
When Ted tries to reconnect with Natalie, she is obviously weary of him in light of his cowardly past actions. Ted breaks down her defenses and the pair rekindle their relationship only to have Ted realize, again, that she is not the one. Cut to Ted and Natalie out to dinner where he realizes it is her birthday again, and tries to break up with her - again. Natalie doesn't take too well to this and uses her Krav Maga training to give him a beatdown.
- 71,178 VOTES
Naomi
Photo: CBSSometimes in life, you find that you build a thing up in your mind that makes reality pale in comparison. After meeting a woman at a Halloween party in 2001 and subsequently losing her number, Ted continues to try and find her for years after their initial meeting. Ten whole years after their introductory encounter, Ted finally tracks her down, and he and Naomi begin dating.
As it turns out, Ted and Naomi have absolutely no chemistry when it comes down to it. Both Ted and Naomi spent years building each other up in their minds and they really wanted the relationship to work. Ultimately, it isn't meant to be, and the pair end up dating for less than one episode.
- 8963 VOTES
Stacey
Photo: CBSStacey is one of Ted's girlfriends who serves as a plot device in a story that is ultimately about Ted and Barney's relationship. In the Season 3 episode "Little Boys," Ted and Barney decide to have a competition to figure out who has more "game." The pair decide that whoever can sleep with Stacey, who is sitting at the bar, first has more "game," and Barney immediately goes over to hit on her.
Throughout the episode, Stacey is a mere pawn in their game, though Ted seems to genuinely like her. And why not? She appears to be a very kind person, plays the bass guitar, and is into yoga, which is something Barney takes advantage of in his quest to best Ted. The worst thing about her might be the fact that she ends conversations by saying, "See ya later, alligator!"
- 9965 VOTES
Carol (AKA Blah Blah)
Photo: CBSIn the Season 3 episode "How I Met Everyone Else," Ted introduces the group to a woman he's dating. But since Future Ted is telling his kids the story a couple decades after it happened, he has forgotten her name and is resigned to calling her Blah Blah, even though her name - Carol - is revealed down the line in a Season 9 episode. Carol spends the whole episode playing fast and loose with Barney's Hot/Crazy Scale.
Carol forces Ted to lie about how they started dating (since they actually met online), is clearly jealous of Robin to the point of aggressive confrontation, and tries to push Ted and Lily into telling Marshall they made out the night they met. It is even mentioned in the Season 5 episode "Rabbit or Duck" that Carol has been committed to the Bellevue Hospital Center, presumably due to her unique personality traits.
- 10897 VOTES
Royce
Photo: CBSRoyce dates Ted in a single episode of Season 5. In "The Wedding Bride," Future Ted tells his kids that people in their 30s tend to have a lot of baggage, even Ted himself. Even though Royce and Ted's relationship is going well at the beginning of the episode, he laments the fact he can't figure out what her baggage is and that it will eventually lead their relationship to ruin. And, as it turns out, Royce ends up having plenty of baggage to go around.
At the end of the episode, Ted discovers Royce has been left at the altar not once, not twice, but a whopping three times. She also has a crippling gambling habit and lives in a studio apartment with her brother. Oh, and she shares a bed with said brother. By the time the credits roll, the pair have broken up.
- 11975 VOTES
Cathy
Photo: CBSWhen describing Cathy to his friends, Ted believes they're all going to love her, exclaiming, "Lily, she knows all about art. Marshall, she's open to the existence of UFOs. Barney, she's hot. Robin, she's not hotter than you." Unfortunately for Ted, the friend group ends up hating her, but they won't tell him why out of fear of "spoiling" her for him. After much cajoling from Ted, Marshall shatters Ted's illusion of Cathy by letting him know Cathy talks... a lot.
After Ted has been made aware of Cathy's incessant chattering, he can't stand dating her anymore and calls it off. All is not lost for Cathy - Ted isn't the end-all, be-all of men - and she ends up getting engaged a few years later. When Ted runs into the couple on the street, Cathy explains her fiancé is deaf. Ted knows sign language, though - and, in a final bit of comedy in the episode, he shatters her fiancé's illusion of her by mentioning how much she talks.
- 121,069 VOTES
Karen
Photo: CBSKaren is Ted's on-again, off-again girlfriend from college who is the worst. Marshall and Lily certainly do not like Karen as she has an uppity pretentiousness about her that makes her hard to be around. In her recurring episodes, Karen is shown to have cheated on Ted many times, which he consistently forgives.
Ted eventually does break it off with Karen for good because she thinks Ted will stop being friends with Lily when he finds out she's been meddling in his love life for years. Ted comes to the realization that while it doesn't matter what his friends think of his girlfriend, it ultimately really does matter what his girlfriend thinks of his best friends.
