The Hunter-Sanders interpretation of offset π-stacking, as a balance between dispersion and quadrupolar repulsion, has been characterized as "neat, simple, and wrong". It does not account for the fact that charge penetration is significant at typical non-bonded closecontact distances, with the result that electrostatic interactions (E elst ) may differ in sign with respect to what would be inferred from the leading-order molecular multipole moments. Nevertheless, the Hunter-Sanders (quadrupolar electrostatic) picture continues to be widely invoked in organic chemistry, almost as a talisman or a shorthand way to suggest that π-π interactions are important but also well understood.