Trope or Trite?

When is something a tried and true trope? When it it simply cliche?  What got me thinking about this was my promise to get some titles and short synopsis into my publishwer so we can talk about publication dates (assuming she likes what I send her of course). I have a notebook full of ideas, but I'm kind of waffling on a couple of them because suddenly, they seem soooo cliche.  But then again, there's nothing new under the sun, is there?

When I say "trope" in this context, I don't mean it the same way my college lit prof. did. Rather than ways of using words, I'm talking about situational conventions in (usually genre) fiction. The Scary Movie series cheerfully pokes fun at not only individual horror movies, but  horror movie tropes as well: the blonde bimbo (why is she always blonde?) who gets killed in the first ten minutes, the girl alone babysitting, the man in the mask. There's some interesting psychology behind some of these tropes.
Some popular tropes in m/m include the "gay for you" theme, in which the previously self-identified straight man suddenly falls for another guy. Another one (and I'm stealing from Goodreads) is "insta-dad finds himself in need of boyfriend/partner" (usually this involves someone who suddenly becomes the guardian of a younger sibling or a child he didn't know he had until the mother dies, runs off, or is otherwise incapacitated).  Some more general romance tropes include things like the secretary and the boss, the poor rancher and the billionaire neighbor (or land developer) who falls for him/her and saves the farm instead of destroying it. The high school enemies who meet up again 10 years later and become lovers. The naive college kid and the gazillionaire BDSM king. (And seriously why are all subs poor schmucks and all Doms rich?) Let's face it, we've all seen (and purchased) these stories a million times. Or maybe that's hyperobole...but you get the idea. When do those situations move from being tropes into the realm of cliche? And what do writers do when they have a great idea for one of these situations simmering on the not-so-back burner and they suddenly realize crap that just might be cliche! (I would SO love to see Jeff Foxworthy do a "....you might be writing cliche." skit! Maybe I'll have to come up with one).  So what do y'all thing? What's cliche and what's trope? When does trope become cliche?  What tropes are you tired of seeing and which ones will you read every single time no matter what because you're just a sucker for that kind of story?  Which do you prefer, the stories that push the boundaries of romance (the stories set in unusual places or with unusual characters, like Renn Faires and Circus Big Tents), or more familiar ground like office buildings and ranches filled with sexy cowboys?    Helen Pattskyn, Fantasy Artist, Gay Romance Author