As a romantic comedy, The Love Wager is necessarily concerned with the pursuit of romantic love. Painter explores the conventions and expectations around this state through the steps her characters take to find love and through the beliefs they hold about it. While the comedic element of the romance depends on their quest being rocky along the way, the relationship that both protagonists are looking for underlines the importance that romantic love holds as an ideal and a desired relationship. Painter uses humor not to undercut love’s seriousness but to underscore how clumsy, vulnerable, and hopeful the pursuit can be in a contemporary context.

With its opening scene set at a wedding reception, The Love Wager immediately confirms the expectation that marriage is the indicator of and seal on the commitment a couple has made to one another. With its setting of a hotel ballroom, furnished with alcoholic drinks along with dancing, The Love Wager signals its setting in a world of mainstream American culture where a wedding is a huge party for family and assorted friends thrown to acknowledge and celebrate this commitment. This setting serves as both backdrop and