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[greyscale]

I was just offered a really awesome postdoc opportunity near where my partner & I live (we'd be commuting to different universities). I'm on cloud nine. But I've got the future two-body problem blues.

We're both biologists, but so far our research interests have been distinct. We use different methods and ask different questions. By an odd set of coincidences, if I take this postdoc, we'll be working on projects so similar that our labs will be competing with each other. Our own projects wouldn't be in direct competition, but they'd be very similar in methods & questions. It brings up two issues:

1. Our PIs might be distressed at having "spies" in the opposite camp, though they are both friendly, open people who know each other. (In fact, the main piece of equipment we'd both need is jointly owned by the two PIs!)
2. When it comes time to look for faculty jobs, we'll be in a particularly bad position, because departments probably wouldn't want to hire two people who've been working on the same topic.

I'm passionate about my topic and have been working on related questions for years. The postdoc position is a natural extension of my current work with a relatively large shift in focus. Partner has generally been interested in unrelated questions. Hu's project was faltering and hu's PI offered him a new project a few months ago, a total departure from what their lab worked on before. It was very similar to my planned research (I had already formulated my postdoc project idea). We talked about what a strange coincidence it was but decided that it was ok.

I'm pretty sure we can deal with issue #1 above but I'm really concerned about what will happen 3-5 years down the road when we're both on the market and the most recent work we've done is nearly identical. (We love talking to each other about our work but we have no interest in running a lab together or collaborating.) Should I be worried? Or should I just chill out, make sure both PIs know about the potential conflict of interest, and figure the best way to get a job is to work hard on a project I love?

[expatinuk]

You don't even know if you and your 'future two body problem person' will be together 3-4 years down the road.

You don't even know if you'll be alive 3-4 years down the road. You may be hit by a falling meteorite tomorrow.

Go with what works for now and make decisions about the future when you're put in a postition to make those choices.

[greyscale]

Expatinuk: So true! Perhaps I should focus more on the immediate concerns, like whether the two of us will drive each other nuts if we're working on the same project. I'd bet that we'll still be together at the end of this either way; it's been ten years and many different combinations of who's doing better and who lives where. Right now we're sitting around drinking wine and thinking of different project ideas, and I'm feeling optimistic. We've also just realized that this might mean we can go to conferences together. Not so bad.