True love can be pretty boneheaded. Relationships that develop in the silliest of circumstances can thrive, and what circumstances we think of as silly can change. There was a time when the idea of connecting with somebody online was treated like an embarrassment; now, it’s completely standard. People stay together who make no sense on paper, and sometimes that’s beautiful, and sometimes it’s devastating. (As Brian Krakow said in the very last episode of My So-Called Life with the regrettable but common nihilism of teenagers, “If you, like, analyze why certain people end up with certain other people, it’ll make you want to kill yourself.”)

It doesn’t matter to anybody else’s life whether this relationship is real or not, nor is it something you can figure out from watching her watching him or watching them leave a football game together. Maybe it’s PR. Maybe it’s lust. Maybe it’s going to be over in a month. Maybe it’s going to last. Maybe she’s going to write a song someday heavily hinting that somebody who wore pads and a helmet betrayed her. It’s a weird and beautiful and ultimately unimportant thing: Who knows?