Take Me Down to the Codependent City

via email:

"My girlfriend is too hot and it makes me want to be with her all day instead of actually doing anything. Is there something wrong with me? More poignantly, is there something wrong with her?

-Lost in Love"

This is quite a dilemma you're in: go to work or be with your girlfriend, eat lunch or be with your girlfriend, breathe or be with your girlfriend...you seem to like her a lot, which is good, but then WHABAM! you wake up one day and you're in Codependent City. You know, the city of "I can't go to Target to pick up shaving cream unless my girlfriend goes with me" and much, much more unhealthy neediness.

One of the problems a lot of people have in relationships is balance. Balance is hard, especially when you're with someone you care about so much that you want to be with them constantly. But once you start spending all your time together, ignoring your friends and family, and losing your job at Pep Boys, you've gone too far. Women are notorious for this- when they have a boyfriend, all of a sudden they don't see their friends anymore. But that wouldn't happen if they knew how to balance! Really, it IS possible to have a relationship, a job, friends, and hobbies all together in the same life.

Yes, you want to be with your girlfriend 24/7...but at the end of the day, that's not healthy. You both need your own lives and your own stuff going on outside of each other to have a good relationship. You can't rely on one person to be your everything- it's too much pressure, and you're better off if you have more than one person in your life that you can count on.

So enjoy your girlfriend, but also enjoy the other things and people you enjoy. Your relationship will be better if you have a life (and you also won't run out of things to talk about!).