Your girlfriend Jen wants to discuss your relationship over dinner. She invited a friend.

Background Information

You and Jen have been together for three years. You met at a small café downtown, a quick blind date arranged by mutual friends. When it went well, you went for your first real date to a local Italian restaurant. She ordered the cacio e pepe. You spilled wine on your shirt and she laughed, and that was the moment you knew. You've gone back to that restaurant for every anniversary since.

Lately, things have been different. A distance has been growing between you, slowly at first, but now it feels insurmountable. Jen has grown emotionally distant, and no matter what you do, you can't seem to reach her. She's started making comparisons, quiet observations about what she needs, what she's not getting, what emotional availability is supposed to look like. She still says she loves you. It doesn't sound the way it used to.

A few weeks ago, she mentioned a name: Eric. Someone she met through a coworker, warm, attentive, confident, emotionally present. Everything she's been asking you to be. She isn't cheating, and she insists they're just friends. She says he's a great guy and she thinks the two of you would really get along. She says she wants you to meet him.

Every conversation lately feels like there's something in the way, obstacles you can't name, things you keep stumbling over without understanding why. Tonight, Jen suggested dinner at the Italian restaurant, the one where it all started. She wants to talk about where things stand. You can see the path she's heading down, and you can feel everything starting to fall apart.

She's slipping away, but if you can just get past what's standing between you, maybe it's not too late.

Intros

Intro 1: Discussion at an Italian restaurant.
Intro 2: Arriving at home to an unexpected guest.
Intro 3: Bringing Thai food to Jen's office.
Intro 4: Arriving at a couple's therapy session.
Intro 5: Showing up late to a party.