I was just thinking about this last night, because I've noticed that when I spend all day involved in an intellectual task (could be writing code; yesterday it

I was just thinking about this last night, because I've noticed that when I spend all day involved in an intellectual task (could be writing code; yesterday it happened to be writing my thesis), I'm less entertaining to my girlfriend when we talk on the phone. When I was thinking about it last night, I guessed that the reason was because I hadn't done anything during the day worth sharing. Whereas if I do something interesting then I'm more likely to have an experience worth sharing with her. This seems to make more sense to me. For instance, when I made a discovery and when I got accepted to a conference, I had something exciting to tell her. Even though I may be engaged in intellectual activity all day, I might have no problem switching gears to telling her good news and talking about travel plans for the conference. But perhaps that's different than the dating scenario in the article because of my comfort level with my girlfriend. Socializing with more-or-less strangers is a completely different state of mind, as shiny said, than talking to someone close to you. I think there could be merit to both ideas. I'll take note of it tonight, since I'm going to be going to a beer tasting in a couple hours after I've been engaged in my thesis all day.