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As we perused the menu, Kara asked, "Is it wrong that I want the spinach artichoke dip?" To which I replied, "Why, no. There's nothing wrong with that. For we are humans, and humans like the spinach artichoke dip." A bit of a pause. "Shall we split an order?" I asked. To which Kara agreed.

Thirty seconds later: "Is it wrong that the Hawaiian pizza sounds really good?" Kara asked. To which I replied, "Why, no. Hawaiian pizza is divine. Pineapple and Canadian bacon were meant to go together. You should get it."

And everything seemed fine and normal and ordered in our codependent little world. We had our iced tea and our dip. We were talking about ... God, I don't even know what we were talking about ... when the unthinkable happened.

Her Apple store pager vibrated. And she had to leave.

So there I was. Alone. With dip and, eventually, two pizzas.

Now, I've had many meals by myself. I think I'm one of the few people in our culture who actually likes doing things alone. I miss that now that I've got a toddler in tow. It's not like I've got any hangups about being in a restaurant alone. In this area, I'm 100% well-adjusted.

Or so I thought.

As the minutes drug, I found myself watching out the window, leaping a bit each time someone in a red sweater would pass, hoping it was Kara. I considered calling her. I even - I'm not proud to confess - thought about getting our food boxed to-go and high-tailing it to the Apple store! Because she was gone! And I was alone! And I wasn't quite sure how to eat my lunch without having her there to guide me! I'm not 100% sure how to eat without talking, and the people at the next table don't really look like they want to talk to the alone girl who's all sweaty and panicky.

Can someone tell me where, exactly, the line between close friendship and mental illness is located? Because I think we might have passed it five miles back.

I'm not convinced this is a bad thing. Yes, it's probably a bit excessive that we exchange upwards of, oh this is embarrassing, 100 emails a day. But they're short emails! Really. And they're not exchanged from the moment we wake up until the moment we go to bed, often peppered with phone calls when we're away from our computers.*

I'd also like it noted that I would never, ever call Kara when she's in the middle of what might be a compromising position and chastise her for not yet having a particular discussion with the other person in that compromising position.**

And not once did I ever get upset because she didn't respond to an email quickly enough - and email I'd sent a mere hour earlier. I certainly didn't assume that she was angry with me, and then spend a day pouting and feeling sorry for myself, which made her all weepy and sad. All because our email service neglected to tell her that she had a new message from me. Nope. We would never fall into that degree of intense melodrama.***

*I'm lying. They totally are.

***Actually, we would fall into that level of melodrama. Quite easily, even.

Honestly, it's just a matter of time until we start calling each other at 7:30 AM to ask questions like, "Do you think I should wear my monkey underpants or my boyshorts today?", so thick and rich is the codependent batter we've been concocting.

Give us a break. We've both had really intense years. I think we've earned the right to lean on each other a bit heavily. The thing is, Kara and I are both only children, which means we never learned how to act right. It's not like we got a lot of practice with peers at home when we were kids. But in recent months, Kara and I have gone into territory I don't think either of us has ever gone with another friend. I know I'd never had an alone-in-a-restuarant tailspin before the one I experienced today. And I'm not even going to discuss some of the other things that Kara and I have discussed and/or done recently.

Shut up. We did not have that pillowfight. And even if we did, we'd make you pay through the nose to see it. We may be codependent, but we're not stupid.