The narrator tells us that he has heard a rumor that a girl from his class has fallen in love with him. He's shocked, because he's never paid much attention to a girl in his class before. The girl, he tells us, might even hate him. The narrator asks the girl why she's so upset, and the girl tells him that she hates him because he doesn't have the same taste in books as she does in novels. He tells her that he'd be happy to have something in common with her, even if it's just a small thing like a love interest. She's upset, of course, because the girl hates him for the same reason she hates the guy in the first place. But the narrator says he'll be fine with that, since he likes the idea of sharing interests with someone else.