Summary

• Ted's long journey to find love on "How I Met Your Mother" led him to women ranging from toxic to the ideal partner.
• Memorable girlfriends like Karen, Royce, Cathy, and others made lasting impressions on Ted and the series.
• Tracy McConnell, Ted's ultimate love interest, was the best fit for him and made him the happiest, despite the controversial ending.

Along with the titular "mother," Ted Mosley's girlfriends ranked from toxic to ideal partners on How I Met Your Mother. The entire premise of the show sought to eventually reveal the identity of Ted's future wife and the mother of his children. However, the show took a long time to get there, and in the meantime, it followed Ted and his friends as 30-somethings living in New York City. During this time, Ted dated a variety of women, some more memorable and better suited for him than others.

Throughout the course of the series, Ted ends up dating over 30 girls. While not every relationship got serious or lasted beyond a single episode, others stuck around and became significant parts of Ted's story. When it comes to those who stuck around for a while and made a lasting impression, Ted's love interests ranged from problematic to fun distractions to people who he could conceivably spend the rest of his life with. How I Met Your Mother's ending and who they chose to have Ted end up with was controversial, but his memorable girlfriends along the way made their own marks on the series.

All nine seasons of "How I Met Your Mother" are available to stream on Star+.

10 Karen

Played By Laura Prepon

Karen represents one of the oldest relationships Ted had on the show. The two dated on and off throughout their time in high school and college. Despite the long bond and the fact that they kept coming back to each other, Karen was the worst of Ted's girlfriends on the show. While Ted is far from perfect himself, he doesn't deserve to date someone as pretentious as Karen and be cheated on by her.

In fact, when Karen comes back into Ted's life, it is eventually revealed that she is using him to end a relationship with another man. What's worse is that Ted's friends also hated Karen, especially Lily. When Ted finds out that Lily was secretly sabotaging their relationship for years, he doesn't care because he realizes he cares more about his friends' opinions than he does about Karen.

9 Royce

Played By Judy Greer

The longer the show has been off the air, the more How I Met You Mother become obvious. He has to confront those issues when he begins dating Royce. Their relationship begins as Ted is getting over being left at the altar and humiliated. He realizes he has a lot of baggage of his own so he is willing to ignore some of the things about his next potential love interest. Hilariously, Royce seemed deadset on challenging that new outlook.

Royce had also been left at the altar before which might seem like a good connection for her and Ted to have. However, the fact that she was left at the altar three separate times becomes worrying. More and more things begin to emerge about her, including her gambling addiction and the fact that she shares a bed with her brother and all of it becomes too much.

8 Cathy

Played By Lindsay Price

The characters on How I Met Your Mother are great friends and clearly have a lot of influence on each other's lives. That is shown to be a dangerous thing when Ted begins dating Cathy. She is a girl whom Ted is convinced that his friends will love as she has qualities that appeal to each one of his close friends. However, he is shocked to learn that his friends don't like her after all.

At first, the others don't want to tell Ted what it is about Cathy that bothers them as they feel it will spoil things for Ted. They eventually reveal they think she talks too much and it does indeed ruin it for Ted who suddenly becomes aware of her excessive talking. Luckily for Cathy, Ted is able to find someone else as he runs into her years later when she is engaged and reveals her fiancé is deaf, making for an ideal pair.

7 Jeanette Peterson

Played By Abby Elliott

If a terrible person was all Jeanette needed to be, then she certainly succeeded in that goal

Jeanette is important in the timeline of Ted Mosby because she is the last girl he dates before meeting "the mother". However, Ted explains to his children in How I Met Your Mother his theory about dating one terrible person before finding the love of his life. If a terrible person was all Jeanette needed to be, then she certainly succeeded in that goal.

Jeanette was a stalker and very unstable with it eventually being revealed that she started a fire to set off a fire alarm just to meet him. The fact that she was a cop only made her behavior all the more troubling. While it was certainly a bad final relationship for Ted, Jeanette made for an epic exit from the show, throwing away all of Ted's things and even starting another couple of fires.

6 Naomi

Played By Katie Holmes

Ted and Naomi first flirted with each other at a Halloween party in 2001. She was wearing a pumpkin costume with cuts in strategic places. Ted ed her, and continued to search for her every single Halloween, waiting for the girl who first mixed up a signature drink containing Kahlúa and root beer. It set up a very romantic story for the two to eventually find each other.

10 years later, they do ultimately reunite. They try to date, although the pair realizes how incredibly awkward they are together and determine that their lack of chemistry is a sign they should part ways. It makes for a funny reveal after all of this build-up that the relationship is simply a non-starter. Ted can be a hopeless romantic to a fault and this romance with Naomi shows him how things don't always work out like in rom-coms.

5 Stella Zinman

Played By Sarah Chalke

Stella isn't sure about getting into another relationship after a significant breakup

Given the fact that Stella is the one who left Ted at the altar on their planned wedding day, it is clear that they had a special relationship and that they were not meant to be. The two shared a unique meet-cute story as she was removing an unfortunate tattoo that he had gotten and while Stella isn't sure about getting into another relationship after a significant breakup, they eventually start dating.

Ted and Stella's relationship timeline quickly goes into high speed with Ted proposing to her way too early for his friends' comfort. Indeed, the relationship proves too good to be true as Stella decides to go back with her ex. To add insult to injury, Stella’s husband Tony ends up creating The Wedding Bride, a movie based on the love triangle they found themselves in with Ted painted as the villain.

4 Zoey Pierson

Played By Jennifer Morrison

Zoey and Ted make for one of the most memorable couples on the show as they fall into the classic "enemies become lovers" trope. She is an activist who is wholly against the destruction of The Arcadian, an old New York hotel that is to be replaced with a building Ted is deg. Though they first find themselves at odds, Ted develops a crush on her and a string of events leads to their friendship.

After Zoey reveals she is getting a divorce, she and Ted begin dating. However, he learns that the order of events leading to this was scrambled and that he ended up causing her divorce. They continue to fight throughout their relationship, and he chooses to call it off in pursuit of his dreams over his future with Zoey. However, Zoey was charming and seemed like a good match, causing some to feel Ted made the wrong choice.

3 Victoria

Played By Ashley Williams

Victoria was the girl Ted almost ended up with. First, the two met at a wedding and shared one perfect night together. They decide not to get each other’s information so as to not soil their memories, but Ted later realizes how stupid that was and tracks her down at her bakery. They have a happy relationship, but it ultimately ends after she leaves for a culinary institute in and Ted lies to Robin about breaking things off with her.

The pair actually would have ended up together had the series been canceled after Season 1. The creators of How I Met Your Mother made Victoria into a safety-net Mother, so had the series not continued, she would become the girl Ted ultimately ended up with. It is not hard to see how she was chosen for a potential endgame for Ted as she was sweet, funny, and fit into his romantic views of the world.

2 Robin Scherbatsky

Played By Cobie Smulders

they eventually break up leading to a lot more complications

Ted and Robin’s relationship was rocky all the way to the end of the series. Things started on a charming note with Ted stealing a blue French horn as a way of impressing her and starting things off. However, Ted gets too swept up in things and tells her he loves her far too quickly, making her decide that they would be better as friends. They eventually do start a romance at the end of season 1, but that is just the beginning of things.

While their relationship works for most of season 2, they eventually break up leading to a lot more complications. They move in together while dating other people and Robin ends up marrying Ted's best friend, Barney, only to subsequently divorce him. The How I Met Your Mother finale makes it seem as though Robin was the one Ted was always meant to be with, but as great as Robin is, that sentiment wasn't shared by many fans.

1 Tracy McConnell

Played By Cristin Milioti

Tracy didn't need much time to endear herself to fans

It is fitting that after the long buildup about who was the mother of Ted's children, she turned out to be the best love interest Ted had on the show, even if the showrunners didn't realize it. Tracy McConnell is incredibly cool (as the bass player and lead singer of the Superfreakonomics) and is also very sweet, helping out Ted’s friends even before she knows them.

Though she was only introduced at the end of season 8, Tracy didn't need much time to endear herself to fans. Ted and Tracy live an amazing life together, and though her ending is tragic, it is clear that she was the person who made Ted the happiest and was the best fit for him. In fact, many fans of the series tend to embrace How I Met You Mother's alternate ending in which Tracy lives and she and Ted remain as the endgame couple for the series.