Page 52 - The Love Hypothesis

“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—”
He shook his head. “It’s fine.”
He did seem uncharacteristically indifferent to the situation, especially

for a guy who was known to freak out when people got the atomic number
of selenium wrong. No, he wasn’t indifferent. He was amused.