What it's like to be the SO of a start-up founder.

In many parts of the world (and USA) it's considered pretty disrespectful to take a phone call while seated at a restaurant.

Now 'furiously coding' at the restaurant (not a coffee shop) -- that I've never seen before, and I've lived in SF for a long time.

> the SO is unusually accommodating

This is what I consider a working relationship. It’s kind of like being poly, each partner has to accommodate the other’s external love (for work, as it is). I’ve seen this between pairs of artists, athletes, artist+programmers and musician+designers. It’s never people who have “just a day job” but rather those who view their trade as a superset of their life. The accommodation for the partner is really just understanding and accepting the need to create in another as a legitimate part of the relationship.

Since the writer did the same to her husband, I’m assuming this isn’t a big issue...

My girlfriend would never stand for this, there are 6 days of the week I can work whenever I need to, but when it comes to Sunday brunch its hands off. Thats our time. It got interrupted once with a work issue, and she still brings it up.

There's a difference between creating and putting out fires, though. I enjoy creating, but I can also set it aside long enough to spend some time with someone. I DON'T enjoy putting out fires, but it is usually a necessary evil towards a more significant goal.

It's amazing to have a SO who understands and accommodates that, but the two shouldn't be confused - it's the difference between having to fix an emergency, and enjoying coding more than sharing a meal with your SO.

Thanks for posting this comment; though I agree with the poster you're replying to, you provide a good counterargument that gave me some insight.

I greatly enjoy creating and producing, so count me in your camp on that issue. And yet I can't see the appeal of diving so deep into the creative process that you lose touch with other important things in life. As time goes by I increasingly view the opportunity cost as too much to bear. Your friends and family grow and change over time; they may move or die or drift away. If you don't spend quality time with them now, it may be prohibitive or impossible to make it up later. The places you've always dreamed of visiting may be very different when you come up for air (consider how New Orleans has changed). The bands you always wanted to see live may have broken up; the bands you wanted to play in may never have formed. You won't have participated in that historic march or rally, you won't have seen that rare animal before it went extinct, you won't have climbed that mountain and seen that glorious landscape before it was marred with suburbs and smokestacks. The world we live in is ephemeral, always changing, and you can never go back.

That doesn't mean you can't create and produce and have a great time doing it, but it does mean that it's worthwhile to carve out enough time to experience as much as possible of the beauty this world has to offer. When I'm lying on my deathbed, I want to look back and remember a life lived to the fullest, full of experience and laughter and love. I do not want to look back at a lifetime spent staring at a laptop screen, regardless of how much I created or how much money I made.

I think a person's stance on this subject is probably determined by the kinds of experiences that they value. If there are only a few types of experiences that really excite you, it probably makes sense to traverse life depth-first, and get as much out of those kinds of experiences as you can. That might mean that long hours and single-minded focus over long periods are the best way to achieve your goals in life. If you are excited by a wide variety of experiences in many different areas, a breadth-first traversal of life is probably more suitable.