When it comes to starting new relationships, I’ll admit it: I’ve gotten caught in a familiar trap. Before I even realize what’s happening, I’ve let ‘us’ become that couple that spends Every Minute Possible together.

The side effects? After the glow of newness wears off you realize “friends” have stopped calling as much (when you stop sharing their enthusiasm for drinking three nights a week). You catch yourself assuming you’ve got plans together instead of making them. On the occasion the other person makes different arrangements, you might sit home alone wondering what they’re doing and feeling slightly pathetic and friendless. You become, simply, too dependent on that person – for companionship, for entertainment, for your own happiness.

I think this all starts out harmlessly enough. It’s a quick addiction that forms from this simultaneous silly-sedated feeling and the adrenaline rush you get from all-night talks, coy smiles and exploring the newness of having someone else’s limbs entwined with your own each night. But weeks after you surface and slow down from warp speed, you’re left knowing you can’t keep up that momentum. You need other things.

So when D and I make the conscious choice to not see each other for two days – and openly express it’s for the betterment of ‘us’ in the longrun – I see it as tough love. Something that’ll make us stronger in the end. Not a test of Can We Survive? or I’m Getting Sick of Him. Just us doing all we can to start off a healthy couple.

Anyone who’s fallen into the Glued At The Hips trap can tell you, it’s no fun when the inkling of taken-for-grantedness creeps in too fast and you stop hearing that person say “I miss you”. But to keep that, don’t we need to give them a chance to miss us?

I guess we live and learn. It’s amazing how much you appreciate beginnings when you’re able to step back, spend a night or two apart and ask yourself why you miss that person, what they add to your life and who you still are when they aren’t there. (Not to mention, it makes for quite a cuddlefest when you reunite.)