Honestly, WMD, not long. I was with a guy for 3.5 years and then we broke up in March 2008 and I was single until September which isn't long. And I started dating Dave in January (my ex and I were only together a few months - both admitted to using the other as a rebound). And the weird thing is that I feel like I really would like to be single and I like living by myself and going out with my girl friends without worrying about a boyfriend but I really liked him. And he moved a lot faster than I wanted to but that's the kind of person he is.

We have kind of talked about splitting in May and just seeing what happens. I feel like I need a while of just being me and by myself and doing what I want to do when I want to do it. And today I told him that my education is top priority to me so I'm not going to put that on hold to deal with his issues. And I have said several times that I am thinking about whether I can deal with this or not. Right now I am applying to grad schools and fellowships and doing my own research project so I'm to the point where when we fight I just give up and don't really care because it's not worth the energy.

I can definitely see the dependency but more with him than me. I try to go to the bars with my friends and he will get mad when I say I want to go alone. And he gets mad when he goes back home for the weekend and I say that I'd rather stay here and have a relaxing weekend to myself. Or I try to go to the mall by myself just to walk around and have some alone time but he'll get upset if I don't ask him to go. It is really hard trying to find time to be alone so sometimes I end up just staying in the lab doing work til late at night just so I can have some time alone. That's the reason I got out of my 3.5 year long relationship because I couldn't do anything by myself - he was attached at my hip.

And he is starting to. When I first met him he had a ton of friends and always had someone to go out with if I weren't around. Now he has basically one friend. My friends haven't decreased but his have. He just kind of stopped talking to them. Even with me saying "why aren't you hanging out with...." or "don't you want to go out with....". I don't know. He just doesn't seem to care much that I'm pretty much his only friend now. I would love for him to go out with other people without me and to have fun with others but he has pretty much cut out all his friends since we started dating.