meet cute

If this is a distortion of reality, it is a knowingly utopian gesture, and the wit of such conceits lies in placing in tension the ideal with the real and so being more than a series of fancy ‘meet cutes’: […]

A short meet-cute dialogue ensues, detailing exactly how many hours of interviews [Steven] Levitt had agreed to (two), and exactly how much of his time [Stephen] Dubner actually ended up taking (three days).