You know, pretty much all our free time is spent together, and really most of my time has been free time. Add in that she 1) hates her job and complains about it constantly and 2) freaks out about "us" at the drop of a hat, requiring constant relationship maintenance, and really I've been on a spiral that would undoubtedly have had me homeless in a month or two if not for her vacation. Strangely, it's not even that I'm stressed out or depressed or anything. I'm pretty happy, I'm just constantly being absorbed in all her stuff.

And I realized something last night, hanging out with GBF, who is living with his fiance. With all love, lust, respect, and admiration for those of the fairer sex, I think at some point any guy needs some kind of break from even the woman of his dreams, who he loves more dearly than life itself. The fact is, guys need to spend some time just hanging out with guys. I know, maybe I'm not coming up with any ground-breaking new revelations here, but it's a recollection that's feeling pretty new to me.

For instance, CG and I went to dinner with her best friend and her husband the night before she left. Her friend and her were having some kind of fight over something -- more than half our time at the restaurant was taken up with their going at it, and honestly I couldn't quite get my mind around what they were really arguing about the whole time. I don't know her friend's husband that well, but I was impressed by his being smart enough to just stay out of it ... I think he even looked at me a couple of times, in kind of a you poor bastard, you haven't learned yet, have you? kind of way?

I'm saying, however they were arguing, whatever they were arguing about, was more of a way that women argue. I think most of us who've spent any significant amount of time close to someone of the opposite sex would acknowledge that there seem to be some basic but hard to grasp differences in the way men and women think and communicate. Of course, I do believe the majority of us still say vive la difference, right? Part of what draws us are the differences...

Nonetheless, I would say that any guy who spends all his time with his woman and only other female friends will after a while start to go a little wiggy. He might be enchanted by women, but he will only ever be permitted to understand them just so much ... at best he could lead a sort of happy, confused, docile kind of life. You see some old guys like that. And it could all be avoided, if he could just go out and bullshit with the boys once and a while.

Haven't seen him in weeks, barely spoken to him for months. GBF and I spent a little time talking about school, a whole lot of time talking about a comics story that has never been written and never will be, and random other moments of whatever observations of life happened to come to mind. Oh, and he's supposed to be getting me a job, but we kind of never got around to talking about that.