Dumpy guy gets gorgeous girl: Wondering why are so many (male) writers drawn to this theme?

New Yorker fiction issue, 20 under 40, read last night Gary Shteyngart's Larry hearts Eunice and ZZ Packer's story, Deployment? Forgot title. I use the term "story," loosely as these are obviously not stories but excerpts from or openings of longer works, novels no doubt. Why are there so many novel excerpts in the fiction issue? Because obviously the editors solicited submissions from the 20 anointed writers, and many either had no stories they wanted to submit or, more likely, they want an advance push on their forthcoming or slowly coming novel - who wouldn't? Shteyngart is one of these guys who debuted with an envy-making splash, a cleverly titled book by a superclever writer who didn't even speak English till he was, what?, a teenager or something, and with a provocative picture of the bearded author with playful bear cub. Hm. His books are a little too campy and show-offy to me, couldn't finish Absurdistan, but he does claim a room of his own within the uberbrainy Foer-Kraus-Mason-Eggers set. This story teasingly is set in the future, a world even more dominated by tech alienating tech gadgets than today's, but within the high-tech gleam it's a conventional love story: the dumpy but funny guy improbably wins heart of beautiful, exotic girl. Why are so many (male) writers attracted to that theme? Just wondering. Packer's is set in the post-Civil War past, another take on the agonies of the freed slaves (amazing that anyone will try after Beloved and The Known World). Story seems strikingly cinematic, a dramatic escape, boy fights of dog to save sister, and arrival at a safe (seemingly) outpost, but impossible to judge it as a story as it's so clearly just a setup for something coming.