@wonder2wonder said:

Is Amy right?

Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler sometimes says things that make you think , like in the episode "The Lunar Excitation".

In S7E11 "The Cooper Extraction".

Amy: "You make jokes about Sheldon, but... if it weren't for him, I don't think any of us would be sitting in this room right now."

Well…

A. All the guys work in the same place.

B. Penny and Bernie worked at the CCF—the others either ate there, or could have eaten there at any time.

C. Amy is working on-site, in Sheldon-territory, entirely on her own merit—and not due to her connection to any member of the team.

D. Most importantly, they all live in the same city.

So, they could have met in any number of ways having nothing to do with Leonard and Sheldon’s living arrangement.

Whether any of these meetings, if they happened, would have led to any, or the same, attachments…who knows? Whether any of these meetings, if they happened, would have led to them sitting around in that room together…who knows? But, with such scant degrees-of-separation...can't say it wouldn't have happened.

@FormerlyKnownAs said:

C. Amy is working on-site, in Sheldon-territory, entirely on her own merit—and not due to her connection to any member of the team.

Amy wasn't working on-site, in Sheldon-territory, until "The Workplace Proximity." Season 7, episode 5. I find it unlikely that she would have either met Sheldon otherwise to have had an interest in working there, or would have likely accepted the job/change and THEN met Sheldon, without Howard and Raj doing the computer matching thing, at the end of season 3.

So, they could have met in any number of ways having nothing to do with Leonard and Sheldon’s living arrangement.

That might be at least theoretically true for Leonard and Penny, and maybe Howard and Bernadette. But I doubt Sheldon and Amy would have met on their own. Or if they had "met" by accident in the cafeteria or whatever, I doubt anything would have come of it. Without some outside influence - i.e., what Howard and Raj did - if Sheldon had met Amy he would have dismissed her as "icky girl" and "works with grey squishy stuff" etc, and Amy would have dismissed Sheldon just as much.

And I don't think it's Sheldon being Sheldon who made it possible for Leonard to meet Penny across the hall, etc. Anyone could have lived in that apartment, rather than Sheldon, and it would have been the same as long as Leonard became the roommate. The only "causation" issue could be that a normal person living there would not have driven out their roommate the way Sheldon did, thus creating an opening for Leonard at just the right time. (Which was still a few years before Penny arrived, but that's how things work. If it had been a normal non-Sheldon person who hadn't driven out their roommate right then, Leonard would have found a different place and likely would not have been looking again.)

@Knixon said:

@FormerlyKnownAs said:

C. Amy is working on-site, in Sheldon-territory, entirely on her own merit—and not due to her connection to any member of the team.

Amy wasn't working on-site, in Sheldon-territory, until "The Workplace Proximity." Season 7, episode 5. I find it unlikely that she would have either met Sheldon otherwise to have had an interest in working there, or would have likely accepted the job/change and THEN met Sheldon, without Howard and Raj doing the computer matching thing, at the end of season 3.

So, they could have met in any number of ways having nothing to do with Leonard and Sheldon’s living arrangement.

That might be at least theoretically true for Leonard and Penny, and maybe Howard and Bernadette. But I doubt Sheldon and Amy would have met on their own. Or if they had "met" by accident in the cafeteria or whatever, I doubt anything would have come of it. Without some outside influence - i.e., what Howard and Raj did - if Sheldon had met Amy he would have dismissed her as "icky girl" and "works with grey squishy stuff" etc, and Amy would have dismissed Sheldon just as much.

And I don't think it's Sheldon being Sheldon who made it possible for Leonard to meet Penny across the hall, etc. Anyone could have lived in that apartment, rather than Sheldon, and it would have been the same as long as Leonard became the roommate. The only "causation" issue could be that a normal person living there would not have driven out their roommate the way Sheldon did, thus creating an opening for Leonard at just the right time. (Which was still a few years before Penny arrived, but that's how things work. If it had been a normal non-Sheldon person who hadn't driven out their roommate right then, Leonard would have found a different place and likely would not have been looking again.)

Amy was offered a "dream" opportunity at a prestigious university. Any researcher worth their salt would give up their "first born" to be invited to work inside such a "holy" sanctum.

Also, instead of being the reason she decided to work there--Sheldon was the reason she was iffy about taking the offer. Before she accepted, she checked with him to see if he was OK with her working on-his-turf; because she didn't want to "crowd" him.

As for S3 happenings vs. S7 happenings: timeline isn't the key--proximity is the key. So, they would have met later, rather than sooner.

All Howard and Raj did was to get the two of them in the same place at the same time. A same-place-same-time meeting could have happened even without Howard and Raj. It was meeting each other that spawn the relationship--not how they meet or the fact that Howard and Raj arranged the meet. And, yeah, the “icky girl”; factor may have kicked in when meeting 999 other girls; but, running upon "The One" is all it takes to turn this into this . Don't believe me--ask any former confirmed bachelor.

You know, when you ask a couple: "How did you meet?” One of them will say something on the order of...

"I miss my train, had to wait for the next one, and got a seat next to Max. If I had not missed that train we never would have met."

When you think about that: it could be--could not be true. That’s just HOW it happened, but, it’s not the only way it COULD have happened.

They met—they clicked. You saw it! I saw it! America saw it! Even the crew on the Space Station saw it!

It's possible that Amy wouldn't have been invited to be closer to Sheldon and the other guys - and as I recall, that was supposed to be just for one research project - if she hadn't been involved with Sheldon first.

I don't think Amy and Sheldon would have met, or if they had "encountered each other" it wouldn't have "Clicked," if not for Howard and Raj and the computer matching. Sheldon and Amy both had "match-making" on their minds, while meeting under those circumstances. I think if they had just "encountered each other" without any such subtext, they both would have been completely uninterested. Of course, almost anything is possible. And if Amy and Sheldon HAD met and "clicked" without Howard and Raj, then - as with Amy's remarks about Raiders Of The Lost Ark, she could say that Howard and Raj were completely irrelevant to the series.