There is a huge question that runs throughout our conversation here: Should we understand romantic comedies as parables of a certain kind, or should we hold the characters in romantic comedies to a standard of psychological realism? But that's far from the only question on which Dr. Schultz and I find ourselves divided.

Is Nora Ephron an object-oriented ontologist? Is the city of New York the true romantic lead in this film? Does Greg Kinnear's character just utterly indict all of us nerds? Is this movie suffused with economic anxiety and yet bereft of class politics? Wasn't the late-90s internet aesthetic just the best thing there's ever been? Come with us, dear listener, and remember your bated breath as you waited for dial-up to connect.