10 women who were not at all meant for Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother

Ted Mosby's love life in How I Met Your Mother, therefore, became a long and complicated journey, filled with heartbreak, poor decisions, and an undying search for "The One." Ted was a hopeless romantic who genuinely believed in grand romantic gestures and love stories written by fate. But more often than not, Ted found himself entangled with women with whom he had nothing in common.

Some of the women he dated were toxic; others were emotionally unavailable while still, a few were discouraged by incompatibility with his personality, values, and dreams. No surprise that every one of those relationships either ended in catastrophe or like some others, should never have started at all.

Ted had to go through these horrible relationships to eventually meet the children's mother, Tracy; but it's hard not to look back and wonder why he wasted so much precious time on the wrong people. Tragic Ted is at best, an archetype of a highly dramatic man: from pretentious ex-girlfriends to outright stalkers.

Ted's list of mismatches is as enjoyable as they are infuriating. Here, we recount ten women who were definitely wrong for Ted Mosby and why their very relationships with him were never meant to be.

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1. Karen

Karen was Ted's pretentious college girlfriend who lived off arrogance and superiority. She never stopped belittling Ted's interests, which made him feel uncultured. Theirs was a never-ending cycle of breakups and makeups based on nostalgia, not real connection.

Karen's worst quality was her hypocrisy—she would always accuse Ted of being immature while she herself cheated on him on several occasions. She was smart but didn't have depth emotionally and for Ted's feelings. Ted wanted a supportive friend, not a person who would see him as a below-her-level project to repair.

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2. Zoey Pierson

Zoey was the most fiery woman Ted ever dated, but most of that fire was aimed at him. As an activist hell-bent on saving the Arcadian, she became Ted's professional adversary. Opposites may attract, but their relationship is founded on disagreement and not love. Even when they attempted to be together, their very differences made it impossible for them to agree on anything.

Ted yearned for forward motion, while Zoey held on to the past. The relationship required Ted to sacrifice too much of himself, showing that love is not enough when two individuals are just fundamentally mismatched.

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3. Jeanette Peterson

If there ever was a woman who absolutely was not meant for Ted, it was Jeanette. Their relationship did not begin with romance—it began with a restraining order-worthy fixation. Jeanette stalked Ted for months, torched his possessions, and was basically off the chain. But Ted, in his lonely quest for love, viewed her as a wild last fling before committing to marriage.

Their relationship was more mayhem than love. She was evidence that sometimes Ted overlooked all the red flags in search of "the one." Fortunately, even he knew that being with Jeanette was not feasible before things deteriorated further.

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4. Stella Zinman

At first glance, Stella was the ideal woman for Ted. She was a stable single mother with a secure job, and Ted was willing to settle down. But their relationship was founded on a compromise—Ted's, in particular. Stella would not allow Ted to relocate to New Jersey, ignored his opinions on big life choices, and ended up leaving him at the altar for her ex.

She viewed Ted as a short-term solution and not as a life partner. Ted deserved someone who felt about him as much as he felt about them, but Stella never truly cared.

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5. Becky

Becky was so bubbly, so enthusiastic, and so full of energy that she appeared more like a cartoon figure than a real person. Her childlike high pitch and overly childlike ways found very soon the fu in Ted. The naivety that appealed to some men was something Ted could do without since he needed a partner who could engage him in some intellectual sparring.

To Becky, romance was allowing Ted to be the receiver of the toys she had gotten his whole year through and bursting into laughter, pretty much making him feel like a babysitter rather than a boyfriend.

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6. Royce

Royce looked such a splendid proposition at first, charming, excellent-looking, and apparently rational. But as Ted found out very soon, she came with unbearably huge emotional baggage. Very sadly, she had once been left at the altar-thrice...i.e., she came up with all sorts of resolution issues.

Everyone has past loves; Ted felt like he was being thrown into a romantic limbo, for somehow Royce hadn't moved on from hers. Ted wasn't going to be able to build anything new with her because he'd be too busy dealing with her past. He was looking for a new beginning, not a relentless reminder of an old failed love.

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7. Natalie

Natalie was a genuinely sweet girl and truly passionate about Krav Maga, and she even liked Ted forthrightly; yet, their timing had always held up to be tremendously bad. Their first time going out, he broke up with her with a voicemail, which was totally heartless, on her birthday.

He attempted to make amends years down the road, and after rekindling for a short while, he came to the conclusion that once again she was not "the one." However, instead of learning from this past mistake, he broke up with Natalie on her birthday again. Basically, she deserved much better than being Ted's second choice.

8. Tiffany

Tiffany was perhaps the most infuriating woman Ted ever dated because she left him in that dreaded "maybe" category. She didn't want a true relationship with him, but she wasn't willing to let him go either. She kept Ted on hold as an insurance policy, dangling him just enough to keep him nearby as she dated other men. Ted, hopelessly romantic that he was, lingered much longer than he ought to have. Tiffany was not a bad person, but she was not serious about him either.

9. Blah Blah (Carol)

Ted met Carol (better known as "Blah Blah") in an Internet chatroom, and their relationship was a powder keg from the beginning. She was very insecure about how they met, constantly over-explaining it to anybody who asked about him.

That insecurity traveled into their relationship, where she became jealous and in control. She incessantly needed reassurance to the point that it became an exhausting endeavor for Ted. Instead of these qualities that would be a basis for a healthy relationship, there was distrust and an absence of confidence in one another. Ted was not looking for a partner who needed constant validation; rather, he was looking for a partner.

10. Carly Whittaker

Carly was young, had fun, and enjoyed being adventurous—exactly why there was a problem. She was Barney's much younger half-sister; while she was always on the lookout for thrill, she wasn't into any serious business. Ted, on the other hand, was really looking for his future wife.

So, the relationship was just physical without any emotional involvement or future possibilities. Carly was looking forward to the enjoyment and not commitment; she was currently in a different life stage. So it was always a quite short-lived fling that made it clear from the start that Carly was never going to be anything more to Ted than a short-lived distraction.