Is Jennifer Lawrence Dating Liam Hemsworth?

I might have built an entire career around gossiping about what celebrities do with their time, but even I know that this should be taken with a grain of salt. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1 crushed the box office over the weekend and Gale Hawthorne spent most of the movie time pining over the very distracted, very distressed Katniss Everdeen. Now there's a rumor that Jennifer Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth are dating even though — spoiler alert — that whole Gale and Katniss thing doesn't end well. Katniss' feelings for Peeta might be so obvious that everyone can see it, but what about poor Gale? Even if he weren't played by Hemsworth, there are plenty of reasons why Gale would make a perfect boyfriend, too. Sorry, Team Gale fans, but the chances of Lawrence and Hemsworth pursuing a romance behind our backs right now is slim to none. But would they date in the future?

At present, Hemsworth is wonderfully, refreshingly single and Lawrence is rumored to be dating Chris Martin of Coldplay fame. However, as the two of them have rarely if ever been seen anywhere near each other, most people (myself included) don't actually believe Martin Lawrence (as the couple is popularly called) is a thing. That means that Lawrence is single as well, which is probably what was seized upon for this rumor. "They've always had insane chemistry, but they've never been single at the same time before," reports a website called Design & Trend. "...Jen and Liam have been friends for years and she's always confided in him about the drama in her love life. She's really leaned on him during all the drama with Chris."

If you add that story to the 2013 revelation that Lawrence helped Hemsworth during his break up with Cyrus, then you have a recipe for an adorable romance. I mean, you'd have to ignore the fact that Lawrence and Martin allegedly got back together for this story to hold water, but since no one really believes Martin and Lawrence are dating to begin with then that shouldn't be too hard. However, the parallels that can be drawn between Hemsworth and Lawrence and Gale and Katniss are pretty damning. Gale and Katniss were friends for years before anything romantic ever happened between them, and it happened in the midst of a war and her awakening feelings for Peeta. In comparison, Hemsworth and Lawrence have been friends since they worked on the first Hunger Games film together in 2012 (or, rather, before 2012 since that's when the film came out) and something romantic would be happening between them in the midst of a war and her awakening feelings for Chris Martin.

I don't, of course, mean a war on par with the Panem rebellion and the Hunger Games themselves. Lawrence herself is currently fighting a war against hackers, Internet privacy, and the sex crime of leaking, or looking at, someone's intimate photos without their permission. She has spoken out against the victim blaming that has been the common defense in previous nude picture scandals and changed the narrative so that the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of those who had any role in the leak, even if it was simply just seeking out the photos. Josh Hutcherson has spoken out in support of Lawrence, but Hemsworth hasn't spoken of it at all — possibly because Lawrence doesn't want him to. After all, she shouldn't necessarily need a male voice to legitimize their concerns.

So, essentially, Lawrence and Hemsworth might not be dating right now, but there's plenty of framework for the two to build a relationship in the future. Maybe the two of them don't want to develop a romance while they're co-stars because, as Lawrence learned from her time with Nicholas Hoult, everything gets a lot harder when you're not together for filming and press tours. Maybe the two of them are really just friends and are laughing at this fresh dating rumor right now. Or maybe it's the latter, but some day, some time, a spark will ignite and we'll get to see Gale and Katniss transcend the screen to date in real life. At this point, anything is possible.

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