Aahana Swrup
In ‘The Love Hypothesis,’ Olive Smith is compelled to find a fake boyfriend for herself for the sake of her best friend’s love life. When the protagonist first arrives at Stanford University, she quickly befriends Anh Pham, a fellow biology doctoral student who becomes the highlight of her college life. From college parties to spending the holidays together, the duo remains joint at the hip.
For the same reason, when Jeremy Langley, their mutual friend who has been the object of Olive’s affection from afar for some time now, asks Anh out, she declines the offer. As such, the other becomes determined to show her friend that she has a thriving love life of her own, to encourage her to give Jeremy a chance. However, instead of seeking out any real romance, she ends up fake-dating Adam Carlsen, a biology professor. While this arrangement leads Olive down unexpected roads, it also pushes her friend to confront the love she’s running away from. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Anh is Initially Skeptical of Olive and Adam’s Romance
When Olive first comes up with the lie about her dating life, she doesn’t give it much thought. The only reason Anh won’t go out with Jeremy is that her friend has been crushing on him for some time. Therefore, the easiest way to overcome this hurdle is by insisting that she has indeed gotten over her crush and is even pursuing new romantic suitors. This is how the doctoral student ends up committing herself to a made-up date the following Saturday night. In reality, all that awaits her is another tireless meeting with her lab rats. Anh, suspecting the same, shows up at the lab to catch her best friend in her lie. Consequently, Olive panics and kisses the first person she finds in the hallways. This person ends up being none other than Dr. Evil, Adam Carlsen.
The biology professor is known around campus for his harsh demeanor and trigger-happy tendency to reject student proposals. In fact, Olive and Anh’s friend, Malcolm, who is a part of his research team, often dubs him his archnemesis. For the same reason, the idea that she is dating Adam remains hard to believe. Nonetheless, the latter ends up agreeing to Olive’s proposal of staging a fake relationship since it will help him secure his grant renewal at the university. Thus, the duo officially becomes the hottest new item around the campus. As a part of their deal, they have to sell their relationship to Anh, specifically, so she will stop worrying about her friend’s lack of dating life and go out with Jeremy. Nonetheless, the other student holds on to her doubts. Yet, even though she can tell their relationship is a farce, she realizes it offers an unexpected and unique opportunity for her friend.
Anh and Jeremy Get Together at the SPD Conference
Anh knows her best friend well enough that she’s able to tell that Olive’s relationship with Adam isn’t real. Even so, she can also spot the early chemistry fizzling between the duo. Therefore, she continues to entertain the charade, forcing the fake couple to spend more and more time together. She thinks that if they continue faking a romance long enough, it will only be a matter of time before they fall in love for real. Ultimately, she ends up being right. One month into the arrangement, Olive has really gotten over her crush on Jeremy, too preoccupied with her developing feelings for Adam.
Even though a lack of communication and scope for misunderstanding keep things relatively complicated between the pair, Anh is certain she doesn’t need to worry about hurting her friend by going out with Jeremy anymore. For the same reason, she decides to finally make her move. The friend group attends the SPD conference together, where Olive is set to give a presentation on her research. Anh ends up commandeering their shared hotel room for the night to hook up with Jeremy, sending her best friend to crash with her “boyfriend” Adam. In the end, the night ends up becoming a jumping-off point in both friends’ romantic relationships, for better or for worse. In the aftermath, Anh starts dating Jeremy, while Olive deals with the complications of her own romance.
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