The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

“What do people who are dating do?”
It beat Olive. She had gone on maybe five dates in her life,
including the ones with Jeremy, and they had ranged from
moderately boring to anxiety inducing to horrifying (mostly
when a guy had monologued about his grandmother’s hip
replacement in frightening detail). She would have loved to
have someone in her life, but she doubted it was in store for
her. Maybe she was unlovable. Maybe spending so many years
alone had warped her in some fundamental way and that was
why she seemed to be unable to develop a true romantic
connection, or even the type of attraction she often heard
others talk about. In the end, it didn’t really matter. Grad
school and dating went poorly together, anyway, which was
probably why Dr. Adam Carlsen, MacArthur Fellow and
genius extraordinaire, was standing here at thirtysomething
years old, asking Olive what people did on dates.
Academics, ladies and gentlemen.
“Um . . . things. Stuff.” Olive racked her brain. “People go
out and do activities together. Like apple picking, or those
Paint and Sip things.” Which are idiotic, Olive thought.
“Which are idiotic,” Adam said, gesturing dismissively
with those huge hands of his. “You could just go to Anh and
tell her that we went out and painted a Monet. Sounds like
she’d take care of letting everyone else know.”
“Okay, first of all, it was Jeremy. Let’s agree to blame
Jeremy. And it’s more than that,” Olive insisted. “People who
date, they—they talk. A lot. More than just greetings in the
hallway. They know each other’s favorite colors, and where
they were born, and they . . . they hold hands. They kiss.”
Adam pressed his lips together as if to suppress a smile.
“We could never do that.”
A fresh wave of mortification crashed into Olive. “I am
sorry about the kiss. I really didn’t think, and—”