I'm sitting on the couch with a friend of mine, Skyping one another. We're talking about nonsense mostly, catching up, the typical round up of things to discuss. And someone brings up HiddleSwift, which, for those who don't know, is the most recent pairing of Tom Hiddleston and Taylor Swift. After chatting about it for a moment, my friend on the other side of the screen pipes up and says casually, "Well, if I had the opportunity to get with the Lord of Lies, I'd take him up on it, too."

"Yeah," my friend and I respond, "If nothing else, it's a great story."

Whom someone has dated, and what happened, can be a great story. But that story is best heard in good company, maybe over drinks, and definitely with snacks. Instead, for those who end up in the limelight, those stories are broadcast atop glossy covers in checkout lines at the grocery store, or explained in detail by Mario Lopez on the television screen. This week in news: "Brad and Angelina are getting a divorce; Zayn and Gigi out on the town; and don't forget to check out which couples are tying the knot this summer." We've all heard these headlines before; simply change the names and they're almost identical to one another.

But the attention that Taylor Swift has received over the years for her romances is almost unparalleled. And it is most notably seen in her recent engagements with Tom Hiddleston.

To recap: Swift had previously been dating Calvin Harris after spending some time being single and focusing on herself. However, the pair broke it off, and after a short time, Swift was photographed with Hiddleston and it was announced that the two were dating.

Since then, nearly everyone has heard of the backlash, mostly from fans and onlookers. Back are the days when Taylor Swift was a household name for serial dating. But why?

Fans have criticized her harshly, the media has swarmed to cover the story in as unflattering a light as possible, and other celebrities have also fed into the buzz, whether they are aware of it or not.

But why do we care? Shouldn't a woman in her 20s be allowed to date whomever she wants, just like everyone else? As a society, we tend to follow our celebrities in excess, complete with gossip columns and super fangirls and commentary on their every waking move. "They take out the trash, just like us!"

But I think it's important to realize that, just like they take out the trash, they also make their own choices. And sometimes they will be positive, while other times, not so much. Sound familiar?

So maybe the jokes about which boy she's going to write an album about next shouldn't be as funny as they are to some. There are plenty of other celebrities out there who have dated everyone under the sun, and then written a song or an album about it. (Google it -- the list is long.) Whether you're a fan or not, favoring her or not should be about her music, not her choices in men. An adult woman should and is perfectly capable of deciding who to date, just like us.