When I was twenty, and very stupid, I was utterly in love with my economics professor. It is one of the most unsexy subjects, but the way this man talked about numbers was obscene. It helped that he was fucking gorgeous, too. There was a boy in econ who always sat next to me and found excuses to talk. He’d share his notes if I daydreamed during class—and I did a lot of daydreaming about that professor. This boy was persistent, so I made a deal with him. If he could ask the professor a question which he answered incorrectly, I’d agree to one date.The boy thought about it for a while, and then he asked, ‘Will she go out with me tonight?’, pointing at me. And the professor said, very decisively, ‘No.’ So the boy, thinking himself clever, asked me where I’d like to have dinner, and I said I’d tell him later. After class, I asked the professor why he’d answered ‘no’ with such certainty. Do you know what he said? He said, ‘Because you’re having dinner with me.’ And that was the night I started dating my econ Professor, and my now boyfriend of 5 years.