In 8th Grade Social Studies a girl that sat next to me that was reading through a series of novels that all had the same base plot: girl has to choose between two desirable suitors. For each book she would give me a brief description of both suitors and ask me which one I thought she would choose. Every single time I was wrong — even when I realized that I was always wrong and selected the suitor I thought was inferior, I was still wrong. And after every wrong choice, she would roll her eyes and explain the one key factor that I missed. This “key” factor always seemed to be arbitrary and inconsistent.

My reaction to both the Atlantic article and those romance novels of many years ago is pretty much the same: “Really? That’s what girls think?”

So is it?