‘How I Met Your Mother’ season 8 spoilers: Does Barney have a new love interest?

For those of you hoping that Barney and Robin will finally get together again on “How I Met Your Mother,” we have some bad news to share: it’s not going to happen immediately, even if we do know that Robin’s relationship with Nick is going to end soon as a part of this season’s “autumn of breakups.”

So who is he specifically going to start dating here? That much is unclear, but there are a few hints shared here by E! News in that it is someone we have seen on the show before, and it also is someone who has clashed with Robin in the past. There are a number of guesses that we could make here, but the show is keeping things a little bit close to its vest. We can give you a few more details when it comes to the timeline, though, as this photo to the left is from the November 5 episode entitled “Splitsville.” Meanwhile, the new “love interest” for Barney is coming up later than that.

Whatever this is, don’t worry too much about it, as the only way we see it lasting for a very long time is if the show gets picked up for a ninth season. If we are in the middle of the final year, then what we are probably going to see instead is a quickie relationship that quickly turns into an opportunity for these two characters to finally start on the road again to their upcoming wedding … and after that, we will finally learn the answer to our pesky “who is the mother?” question.

Do you have any guesses for who Barney could be seeing next?