Can't beat that mere exposure effect!

Spotted: Dev Patel and Freida Pinto together, participating in a romantic lunch... together. (If you didn’t get the Gossip Girl reference, all is lost.)
It appears that Dev and Freida Pinto have finally come forth and admitted to having a romance off-set, despite their previous protests against the accusation, for lack of a better term. It was obvious to anyone (except them, supposedly) what was going to happen: because they worked so closely together, for a long period of time, they were bound to get together.
Those of us deeply immersed in psychology lore would call this the mere exposure effect. It happens when a person is exposed to an object or another person repeatedly over time. As the person—let’s just call him Dev Patel—is repeatedly exposed to the object or other person—we’ll call her Freida Pinto—he grows to like her more and more. However, this only happens if:
1) The first person has a neutral or positive reaction to the second person or object
and
2) The first person doesn’t have a negative reaction to the second person or object

If Dev was to have a negative initial reaction to Freida, repeated exposure to her would’ve just made him dislike her even more. Evidently, though, this was not the case.
Not only do Dev and Freida have the mere exposure working to their benefit, they also have the matching hypothesis on their side. This hypothesis states that, “people tend to pair up with others who are equally attractive” (Baumeister 334). Dev Patel captured the hearts of girls everywhere from the moment he graced their movie screens. Similarly, my boyfriend admitted that the initial reason he went to go see “Slumdog Millionaire” is because of how attractive he believed Freida to be. It’s safe to say that both of them are equally attractive and desirable; is it any wonder that they paired up? I mean really, who else could they be with?
So girls around the world, it’s time to find another man to swoon over. This one is so obviously taken.