There’s a lot of stuff that changes about a person after living with a person they’re dating, after a while. There’s the Big Stuff, of course—ideas about the future, the possibility of personal identity in coupledom, masculinity and femininity, all that stuff.

Then there are the Specific Things, particular to each person. The messy learn to become neater, the antisocial get used to being dragged to parties, the disinterested-in-television start to enjoy watching Top Chef or Rock of Love or Gossip Girl — the gradual blending of personalities that takes place when two different people make the thousand compromises necessary to successfully cohabitate.

As a side note, I think it is the general unwillingness of a person to make these compromises outside of a romantic partnership-type cohabitation that makes some people terrible roommates. (Like me! Sorry, former roommates!)

But lately I’ve been thinking about the third and much more elusive type of change a person undergoes when living with a partner: changes of a more obscure origin. These are instances where one or both persons in the couple suddenly change a way of thinking or living for no real reason that makes sense. I’m sure you’ve observed this, either from the inside or out.

For example, the pair that always loved sleeping in on the weekend that suddenly are all out and about by 9 am. Sudden conversions to vegetarianism by a person previously uninterested in the idea. A former hater of live shows suddenly going out to see as many people  as possible. Now to be fair, any of these changes could be related to aging, coincident to cohabitation, or prompted by a million factors unrelated to living situation. I understand that.

I just know that for me, certain behaviors I have have changed in a way that I know is somehow related to living with Frank without actually having anything to do with Frank. Example: sharing food. I have always hated sharing food. Despite growing up in a household that was always filled with delicious, well-prepared meals and abundant, freely-available snacks, I always had an irrational fear that if I agreed to split dinner with someone, that I would not get my fair share and therefore go hungry.

Even if it was at a tapas place where I knew intellectually that I could order more if I needed to, or in the situation where you order two full-sized entrees and each eat half of the other’s—therefore still getting an entire entrée’s worth of food—I still had a sort of irrational panic that I would come away hungry. (Which in and of itself is weird, I mean, if I left the dinner table hungry, I could just get a snack, right?)

It was worry that I ate more than the average person combined with the notion of radical fairness above all that I had at the time. I realized the other day as I was out to dinner with some friend that I was trying to talk into splitting a couple appetizers with me that I had, at some point in the recent past, abandoned this weird habit.

Now I love to share food. Not just with Frank, though that’s where it started. Now I always like to share, because you get more variety that way. Which is, of course, the reason why people were trying to get me to share all along, not because they wanted to steal part of my share of dinner or something.

I directly attribute this to living with Frank, though it is not the case that he is particularly in favor of sharing food. In fact, the only time he really gets to eat meat is when we go out to dinner, so often as not we don’t share anyway.

It’s something that stems from the relaxing of the radical fairness I mentioned before. I used to believe that for something to be fair, it absolutely had to be split down the middle. If I did the dishes one night, Frank had to do them the next, or else it wasn’t fair. If there were eight pieces of sushi, each person gets four, no matter what.

Now, after three-and-a-half-ish years of living together, I’ve learned to take the long view of what’s fair. Or maybe a more communistic one, from each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs. This trust that, in the end, it’ll all work out fair has been really good for me in lots of ways—not the least the niceness of abandoning the constant score-keeping. I worry a lot less about being taken advantage of, or somehow being a pushover.

Plus, now I love to share food. With anybody and everybody. It’s so much nicer that way, everyone gets a bite of everything. I suppose my point in all this is that sometimes, unless you really stop to think about it, you can miss the small surface changes in your behavior that ripple out from deeper, more underlying shifts in understanding.

Sometimes they are good, and sometimes they are bad. Either way, it’s interesting to me to try and sort them out. It seems like, once unpacked, the changes of an obscure origin are the most interesting of all.

Frank is away this weekend in Ohio, attending his brother and sister-in-law’s baby shower. This has cracked people up when I’ve told them—it’s kind of hilarious to imagine grumpy old Frank drinking mimosas and making diapers out of tissue paper or whatever people do at baby showers—but I don’t think it was that kind of scene. More of a family reunion.

This is, after all, his parents’ first grandchild. When I first found out that his younger brother (younger than me, even!) was a) getting married and then b) becoming a father, of course I freaked out. Regular readers of this column will know that it is my wont to freak out about nearly everything. Look, there’s two types of people that write about their lives on the internet: neurotic freaker-outers and people with exciting lives. Try reading the dating column if you prefer the latter.

Anyway, so whatever, I’m over it. They’re very mature for their ages and live in a place where cultural norms skew toward younger adulthood than here, etc. But it did get me thinking this weekend about birth order. Be forewarned, I had a lot of time to myself this weekend to think a lot, so maybe this is dumb.

But it occurred to me that I couldn’t think of a couple that I know who don’t share the same birth order position, if you let only children act as switch hitters, which I think is only fair since some parents raise their only kids like eldest kids and some raise them like youngest.

That just seemed funny to me. Frank and I are both eldest siblings, with the next kid down being much more responsible than we are. I also have a youngest brother who is much less responsible than me, but that is a story for another day.

His brother and my sister are both totally more together than either of us were at their ages, two and three years younger, respectively. They are both people who are naturally organized, good with money, and hardworking—basically the opposite of me and Frank. Also, we both used to fight like hell with them and now are really glad they’re around, and both siblings also went through a phase where they were really mad at each of us for various things we did to them during childhood.

So it’s funny that we ended up together, and it amazes me too look around at my friends and see the same thing. I know some pairs of youngest/youngest, some middle/middles, a youngest/only and an eldest/only, plus of course lots of eldest/eldest, but no mix-matches.

I found a book that some dude had written about birth order and romantic connection, and he thinks that I’m wrong. According to him, female eldest children should date male youngest children with older sisters, because us older kid ladies have maternal instincts and youngest males want mothering. Which, whatever, Dr. Kevin Leman, I haven’t read your book and you are a doctor, but that makes me think that you were an only child. Or at least never had any older sisters.

Because while I don’t have maternal instincts of any kind (and anyway, that would be a creepy way to relate to a partner, right?) I do have an insatiable desire every now and again to tickle someone until they cry or to hold someone down and force-feed them leaves. And it’s funny, I can see the same instincts in Frank, who is otherwise a completely non-violent human being. It takes another eldest to know how to defend against the cruel tendencies of eldest children.

Anyway, I’m sure this is a thing that psychologists have spent lots of time thinking about, and I fully realize that my tiny pool of anecdata is not scientifically meaningful. Still, it’s an odd thing to see in action. What do you guys think? Same birth order or mixed birth order? Or does it matter?

Hoo boy, things have been a little heavy around the old Ference-Smith house of late. See, I’ve come into some money. Which is awesome. But it has changed the conversation about buying an apartment from, “I’d really love to buy someday when we’ve saved enough for a down payment” to, “OK, now, what’s this whole mortgage thing again?”

Which is a little scary. I mean, I do want to buy an apartment. Like a lot. After this spring’s getting kicked out of our place debacle, I look forward to living somewhere that I am in control of. And unlike many of my friends, the commitment of home buying doesn’t seem scary to me.

I guess because we can’t afford to borrow a lot—our mortgage payments wouldn’t be much more than we pay in rent—so it’s not like we’d take on some huge financial burden. And if we wanted to live somewhere else for a while, we’d just rent it out. The New York rental market being what it is, I don’t think we’d be “tied down” just by owning a place.

It’s just that, well, I didn’t think this time would come so quickly. Frank and I have been saving money, but since I’m a nonprofit employee by day and a writer by night, and he’s a copyeditor by day and a writer by night, we are not exactly big earners. I sort of figured it would take us a good five or so years to save a meager 10% down payment.

And now suddenly we (well, technically I) have 20% ready to go. Which again: yay! But also: holy shit! Because there is a lot of stuff to figure out when you are thinking about buying an apartment with someone. Obviously, there’s a lot to learn about the process, which is pretty overwhelming at first: lenders, points, property tax, first time home buyer programs, closing costs, inspections, timing the market, all the mazillions of things renters never think about. Those things are learnable, though scary.

Second, there are the sorts of preliminary decisions you have to make as relatively non-rich people buying property in a relatively expensive area. Basically, deciding what compromises you are willing to make. Is it better to buy a small crappy apartment in a fancy area? A great place in a farther away area? A neighborhood that is much less cool but close to an area we like versus an area that is clearly going to be cool in a few years but harder to get out of?

And discussions of those questions, the “what do have to have, what can we live without” discussions, are the ones that lead into really deep waters. Because suddenly we need to talk about stuff like whether or not my assumption that we’ll be a childless couple is shared (no, it turns out.) How sure both parties are that we’re in it for the long haul (pretty sure, to my surprise.) What kind of contract we’d need to get drawn up for this thing, whether we’d just share it all 50/50 or work out some kind of weird plan where I own more shares of the house because I’m paying the down payment. And from there, how exactly we’re thinking of finances and sharing in a larger sense these days.

Conversations that draw tighter and tighter circles around the Big Question neither of us really are sure of the answer to yet: should we just get married? And if not, what?

For so long we’ve kind of gone happily along, committed but not in any official sense. And I like that because it feels organic and genuine. But these conversations have made me realize that by not directly addressing the uncomfortable issues of what exactly our shared future might look like, and exactly how shared that future even will be, I’ve made a lot of untrue assumptions about what Frank wants out of our relationship. And, well, life, I guess.

It’s hard for me to bring this stuff up, because it is so stereotypically a “girl” thing to do—pressuring a guy about commitment or future plans. But I am also by nature a planner aheader. I don’t want to be 35 and living in a one-bedroom apartment when Frank suddenly turns to me and says, “Hey let’s have a kid!”

So it’s strange to talk about it and it’s strange to bring it up. And it’s strange to be in a place where if we’re going ahead with this house thing, we actually need to know where we stand with money stuff and legal stuff and future stuff.

Even stranger, I guess, is that I’m not even sure what my answers to these questions are anymore. I have been such a staunch hater of marriage and children my whole adolescent/adult life, and have absolutely reviled the idea—often shared with me by wives and mothers—that once I find the “right” person, my opinions will change.

The concept annoyed me because I hated the idea that there’s one magical perfect person out there for everyone; I hated the idea that ultimately the man has the transformative power in all heterosexual relationships; and I extra hated the implied notion that my hormones would overpower what my rational mind had decided.

Suddenly, though, I don’t know what I think any more. I’ve realized that most of the scary commitment stuff, like knowing you’d be devastated if your partner left you, or the combining of finances and families, happens in a committed relationship whether you marry or not. It’s not something you can magically stave off by not wearing a ring.

Also, though, it is very Frank-based. I don’t want to get married. If I were single, I wouldn’t long for it. But I would love to be married to Frank. I don’t want kids, but I would consider the idea (internet, this is not a solid yes) of having a kid with Frank. I don’t want that stuff for itself, but only insomuch as I like Frank and whatever sorts of things need to be done to build a life together, I’ll do them. Which is of course what those women were trying to tell me, I was just too dumb to understand.

Talking with my sister and me recently about marriage and families and all that stuff, my mom said something along the lines of how things were simpler when she was making those decisions and even though she had no idea what she was getting into, she just did them and learned as she went. And how she wasn’t sure if our way—the neurotic, over-thinking and over-planning way (my words, not hers)—was better. It’s a tough call, Mom. I’m not sure either any more. About anything.

Readers, and imaginary readers, who probably outnumber you, be aware: this will be a blog about cats. If that offends your sensibilities, then move along to more scintillating fare. Cat people, here is my issue: I think I might need to get another cat.

I admit, I like cats. I didn’t used to, but then I got some. I now have two. The first was adopted hesitantly and largely because of Frank. Her name is Elliott. The second was adopted off Craigslist because I thought that Elliott was lonely—she would mew and demand constant attention. I accidentally ended up with a gigantic, young, creepily smart cat named Ruggles.

Elliott still cries and demands attention, except that now she also hates Ruggles. They fight. Like a lot. I come home to find fur stuck to the floor with some indeterminate fluid or kitty litter and blood everywhere. He has gashes all over him from the fighting, fortunately nothing serious, but I swear I’m going to come home one day and find him missing an eye.

Long-time readers might note that I’ve covered this topic before. Previously the vet suggested I put “composure liquid” into their food—some kind of homeopathic calming fluid. This, unsurprisingly, cost a lot and did nothing.

So on the most recent vet visit, the guy suggested that we get another cat. At first I assumed he was joking, but no. It seems throwing cats at the problem is not as nuts as it sounds. The thinking is that Ruggles is young and needs someone to play with, and Elliott is old and crotchety and hates playing, which explains why he’s always the one that walks away injured.

I’ve talked to a couple other expert-ish cat people—another vet and a guy who fosters cats in his house—and none of them see this as a crazy idea. All of my friends, obviously, view this as the next step down a road that inevitably ends with my corpse being eaten by starving cats in some filthy house somewhere.

Frankly, I’ve always been wary of exceeding parity on the human/cat ratio in a one-bedroom apartment. Somehow that moves you from a person who has cats to a cat person. But if the total level of cat-related worry and cleanup decreases when you move from two to three, doesn’t that make you less of a cat person? And also, it still means that I spend less time caring for my pets than a person who has only a single dog.

And I have to admit the idea of getting a new frisky young kitten is appealing. I mean, try and not find a kitten appealing. But on the other hand, if Frank and I are shopping for apartments to possibly purchase, as we very soon may be, will that move us into the category of people who have “actual” pets? (If you are not an apartment dweller, it seems that one or even two cats don’t qualify as the kind of pets that might mess up an apartment, or cause a problem for the neighbors.)

Overall, I would just like to have a happy household, and for me that includes cats that aren’t constantly fighting. And don’t even think about suggesting giving one away because come on. I’m not a monster.

In terms of resources, three wouldn’t be a whole lot more than two. We’ve got lots of space, and if it would cut down on the fighting, it would seem like fewer cats than we currently have. And yet I can’t help feeling like having more than two cats is crossing some cultural line. Which, by the way, I don’t even have the energy to try and unpack the “ew gross cat lady” as spinster outcast phenomenon from a feminist perspective, though obviously it is richly layered.

Anyway, that is my conundrum at present. Do what I think might actually be best for the household, or conform to the cultural standards for acceptable cat-having. I’ll let you know how it unfolds, internet. Thanks for listening.

Well, so Frank left Sunday morning for a four-day business trip to San Francisco. Which is great for him, I mean, San Francisco is awesome. I’d love a free trip there. It’s just weird because that’s kind of almost the longest Frank and I have gone being apart, pretty much since we met. Probably a Christmas or Thanksgiving trip has topped it, but at least then we were both home visiting family, not one person left alone in a two-person apartment.

And I realize that is completely vomit-inducing to be like “Oh we’ve never been apart so long waah.” I am fully aware that I’m totally lucky that I’m not dating someone who has to travel for work a lot or is in the military or who has to live apart from me for an extended period of time. My intention is not to complain. Or well actually I guess it is but I’m trying to mitigate the irritatingness with self-awareness.

I detest the idea that I am now the sort of person who doesn’t feel complete without their partner around, and to be fair, I don’t think it’s that exactly. I mean, Frank and I do plenty of stuff separately. I guess I’m just always amazed at the extent to which living with a person can be habit forming.

If I were single, I think I’d like living alone, but being alone in a two-person apartment isn’t the same as living alone. Just so much of each of our day-to-day routine is intertwined with the other’s—when I get up in the morning, when and what I have for dinner, who gets to pick what’s on the TV, the cleanliness of the apartment. Everything.

And so to be alone for a day or four is odd feeling, because on the one hand, it’s not like I have time to develop entirely new habits and ways of doing things by myself because as soon as I get adjusted to them, Frank will be home again. But it’s a long enough time that the fun of leaving dirty clothes on floor and talking to myself and eating stuff he hates and staying out extra-late with friends has worn off.

So I basically end up sticking to a routine that feels completely arbitrary without the other person there, and at the same time feeling sort of sad because the routine makes the absence all the more noticeable. Plus also on top of that I get this feminist guilt that it shouldn’t matter whether Frank’s around or not and if I’m changing my routines to suit him then that’s a problem on its own anyway.

Which by the way, can I just add that my ideas about what is a feminist decision has changed so much since deciding to live with a partner? Hopefully this doesn’t mean that I have bowed to the patriarchy. I think maybe it’s just that my ideas were kind of jerky. I mean, sure, a woman shouldn’t have to change her ways and preferences to keep a man happy, but any two people are going to both have to bend a little and find a compromise to any point of contention, or else it’s sorta not fair. Anyway.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is just that though I love alone time and can certainly find more than enough to do to keep me occupied, it is shocking to me how much I miss Frank when he is away. It’s partially just the force of habit and the fact that humans in general tend to dislike being forced to vary a routine. But it’s also that I really just miss that guy. To the point that it makes me feel kind of lame and anti-feminist. Is that love? Or something more sinister? I’m not entirely sure.

This weekend, Frank and I were invited to spend the fourth at friend’s family’s house in Vermont. We’d gone for the holiday last year, too, and knew that it was going to be awesome—the property is huge and beautiful and wooded, the house is old and charming, there’s tons of stuff to do and games to play and the couple who host always procure plenty of delicious food and booze.

So in short, we knew going in that we were going to have a good time. Last year, the group that went up was fairly small and made up of disparate parts: us, the hosts, a couple of friends from Neal (the male host)’s law school and a couple of ladies from Caroline (the female host)’s business school. Yes, by the way, all my friends are accomplished except for me.

The group meshed fairly well, because nobody really knew each other. This year, it was a much bigger group of people and split in half: my friends from college and their significant others—Neal and Caroline and I all went to college together—and Caroline’s friends from high school and their significant others.

Though it was a friendly split, there was definitely far less meshing. Anyway, so the reason that I’m bringing this up is because it was a really interesting opportunity to notice how social ability and pairing interact. Frank and I are both fairly shy people, and I’ve been feeling weirdly anti-social lately.

Not in the “I don’t want to see anybody” sense, but in the “I can’t seem to figure out anything to say to people I don’t know that doesn’t sound weird” sense. I mostly hung out with people from school, and Frank either read by himself or hung out with us. So I would say that we are both socially unable, but more insular together than apart.

Adam and Apryl—a college friend and his wife—are the opposite. Both are extremely funny and outgoing individually, but together are almost a machine of sociability. They have a really funny patter between them and are really good at including other people in that, and so are socially more than the sum of their parts.

My friend Ben had brought his new girlfriend with him, and perhaps because they hadn’t been dating very long, they were pretty much the same together or apart: mellow, but outgoing.

So okay even though I used to get really annoyed when people would talk about socializing in terms of couples instead of people, as if you couldn’t hang out with just one person who is dating another person, or also as though people who are single are somehow less as people, now that most of my friends happen to be with someone, I have definitely noticed that being with a partner changes a person’s public persona.

Some folks transform into a social powerhouse, some people hang back and let the more socially able partner take the lead (occasionally me and Frank trade off being these people, when one of us is feeling particularly outgoing), some get less able when together, and some people are unchanged entirely.

I don’t think any one style is indicative of a healthier relationship or anything. Some people are just naturally better at interacting with strangers, I suppose. I do worry that Frank and I come off as uninterested or standoffish to people that we meet for the first time, but you know, thinking back, I’ve always been the kind of person that someone has to meet a couple of times before they like me.

Ah well. I guess the important thing is that I had a nice time. Right? Ugh. Why couldn’t I have ended up with someone who knew how to talk to strangers? If I’m the more socially capable half of a couple, that is a couple that nobody is going to want to get stuck playing Scattergories with, I don’t care how many gin and tonics were consumed. Sorry, Vermont friends. Sorry, wider humanity.