Metzger is an adjunct professor at Embry-Riddle University. In this essay she examines the question of whether it is believable that Anna would choose to be with Pale rather than Burton.

In Lanford Wilson's Burn This, the feminine hero, Anna, chooses Pale as her lover/partner rather than Burton. Setting aside the argument that love can sometimes make little sense of emotion, audiences, and especially women, are left wondering why she would make such a choice. Indeed, some of the play's male reviewers noted the unlikeliness of this choice as well. In his review of Burn This, Prank Rich noted that Anna and Pale lack the depth of passion of other great romantic theatrical pairings. Wilson's lovers "don't fight to the death," instead they "slowly settle down to make the choices facing those New York couples who inhabit the slick magazines," Rich remarked. "What begins as ago-for-broke...