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Chapter 242: CP Rankings
🕑 Added 2025-05-03 03:04:10 +0000 UTC*Boston.*
At the book signing event.
"Holy shit!"
When Adam saw Amy’s classic iconic moment—especially since he was the subject—he almost couldn't hold back from spitting out a mouthful of complaints.
But thinking about it, it actually made sense.
What did Penny’s ex-boyfriend, Zack, have going for him?
Sure, he was tall, but calling him handsome would be a stretch.
And yet, even he could make Amy unconsciously let out a "Hoo~~." So, given Adam's own qualities, it was hardly surprising.
Still, knowing this only made Adam more frustrated.
He would rather be completely average than find himself in such a situation.
After all, Amy was Sheldon’s destined soulmate.
In Adam’s personal CP (couple pairing) rankings, they were ranked third—just behind Marshall & Lily in first place and Howard & Bernadette in second.
They even ranked higher than Chandler & Monica.
Without Amy’s patience, persistence, and efforts to guide Sheldon, he wouldn’t have become more socially adjusted—not in eight years, not even in eighty.
In his previous life, the Penny-Sheldon CP had a lot of supporters.
One of Adam’s friends even quit watching The Big Bang Theory because Penny ended up with Leonard instead of Sheldon.
In his words, The Big Bang Theory had only one decently attractive female lead, and she didn’t end up with Sheldon? Absolutely ridiculous!
Meanwhile, the actual male lead, Leonard, could only cry silently in the background. Penny was the female lead, and he was undeniably the male lead. They were meant to be together. Just because Sheldon’s character was brilliantly acted and charismatic didn’t mean he should be treated as the main protagonist, let alone steal the female lead from Leonard.
Penny did have some traits reminiscent of Sheldon’s mother—she was tolerant and understanding of him, which earned her the nickname "Penny-Mom."
Sheldon once described his love for Amy by saying:
"Everything my mother could do for me, Amy can do. And everything my mother couldn’t do for me, Amy can do too…"
Thinking about it that way, it’s not entirely unreasonable that some people shipped Penny and Sheldon together.
Plus, Sheldon and Penny did share a few ambiguous moments.
For example, when Penny slipped in the bathroom, Sheldon had to help her get dressed with his eyes closed. However, when he touched her arm, he ended up grabbing the wrong place.
Faced with Penny’s slightly awkward question, "Is this my arm?"
Sheldon seriously considered it before responding, "It doesn't feel like an arm..."
Before helping Penny out of the bathtub, she told Sheldon not to look.
Sheldon agreed, but later, he somehow knew Penny had a tattoo on her butt.
Of course, unlike Leonard, Howard, and Raj, whose glances were filled with desire, Sheldon probably only peeked out of curiosity. But still, it showed that Penny held a special place in his mind.
After all, Amy—who was far more physically affectionate—had often made direct advances on Sheldon as his girlfriend, yet he always rejected her.
Then there was that time when Penny and Sheldon did the famous love experiment—where they stared into each other's eyes for an extended period. Penny admitted to feeling a little something.
Even in an alternate scenario hypothesized by Amy and the gang—if Leonard were out of the picture—Penny was imagined making a dirty girl move on Sheldon in the laundry room.
But in this lifetime, with Peggy as a new variable, Sheldon’s romantic future became uncertain.
Still, Adam was 95% sure that Sheldon would end up with Amy.
Compared to Penny, Amy’s intelligence was much closer to Sheldon’s.
Not to mention, Amy would later share a Nobel Prize in Physics with Sheldon. She also once provided academic assistance to Sheldon’s long-time rival, Caltech theoretical physicist Barry Kripke, which made Sheldon incredibly jealous.
For years, Barry had bullied Sheldon, and their research areas even overlapped. Yet, Sheldon couldn’t dismiss Barry’s intellect outright.
Later, when Caltech cut funding and forced them to collaborate, Sheldon realized that Barry’s research was actually superior to his own.
In the end, Sheldon had to use Barry’s excuse to console himself:
"You have a girlfriend, Amy. Of course, your focus is divided. That’s why your research is lagging. If I had a girlfriend, I’d also be too distracted to do research!"
Whenever Sheldon and Barry worked together, Sheldon had to resort to telling dirty jokes—ones he wouldn’t dare say in front of Amy—just to keep Barry from teasing him.
That alone showed Barry’s intelligence and academic strength. And yet, Amy could still offer him significant cross-disciplinary help, proving just how brilliant she was.
When it came to IQ, only Peggy was smarter.
Meanwhile, in Sheldon’s eyes, Penny was nothing more than a blonde monkey.
Then there was the issue of tolerance.
Peggy was immediately out of the running. She was too proud and, like Sheldon, enjoyed feeling superior to others. There was no way she would tolerate his eccentricities.
And if someone didn’t accommodate Sheldon, he would absolutely flip the table—and possibly even blacklist them.
In this regard, both Penny and Amy were quite patient with Sheldon. But Amy had the edge, because she had a clear goal.
Sheldon once stated that "positive reinforcement is the most effective type of conditioning."
That explained why Amy could tolerate Sheldon’s quirks—she was incredibly attracted to him.
Finally, there was the matter of training Sheldon.
There wasn’t enough data on Peggy to analyze, so she was out.
Both Amy and Penny had, in their own ways, shaped Sheldon—whether intentionally or not.
Penny’s influence was passive and unintentional.
Amy’s, on the other hand, was deliberate and methodical.
This was due to her personality and profession.
As a neuroscientist, Amy often studied human behavior through experiments with monkeys and apes—teaching monkeys to smoke, having food fights with chimps…
Sheldon called Penny a blonde monkey, but in reality, he was the one Amy had been training all along.
After dating Sheldon for a year, Amy told Bernadette and the others that she had a timeline for their relationship.
In four years, she planned to marry Sheldon. But she told Bernadette not to mention it to him because he was still a duck that might fly away at any moment.
Four years later, while Amy was away at a conference, one of Sheldon’s admirers made a move on him.
When Amy found out, she was furious and said:
"I spent five years smacking that ketchup bottle, and now some other woman just gets to tip it over and enjoy?"
Right after that, Sheldon proposed.
At one point, Sheldon even considered breaking up with Amy because Leonard and Penny told him she had changed him too much.
But Amy skillfully reversed the situation, proving once again just how effective her methods were.
This wasn’t just true for Sheldon—Amy had done the same to Penny.
Originally, Penny didn’t even like Amy, let alone consider her a best friend.
But Amy subtly used various strategies to become Penny’s BFF.
This included filling Penny’s apartment with her scent, acting subservient, and constantly showering her with praise.
Her training was so subtle and drawn out over the years that it was terrifyingly patient.
And that… was exactly what worried Adam the most.
*(End of Chapter)*
