Hola monoxyde! I promised I'd get back to this thread at some point, so here goes nothin'...! (Please note that I'm not trying to consciously break down your post point-by-point or argue with you in any way)

I may have mentioned this in a thread long ago, but although I agree in principle that Jeff does seem to have a bit of a temper, I personally find the words "short fuse" and maybe even "temper" to imply a much more heated, and violent disposition, which I don't think he possesses at all (or if he did possess anything close to that at some point, I no longer think that aspect of his personality has the "edge" it once did). I think the man himself may have said it best in the Lost Dog liners: "passive aggressive rage". I think he's a passionate guy with a stubborn streak, and as the Board as a group has discussed a couple of times, I think he's certainly had his moments where he's been a little big for his britches, or a little too stubborn or tempermental. I also recall a quote from a Bass Player feature in which Jeff (in reference to the creation of "Jeremy") said something to the effect of: "Usually, if something doesn't work the first time, I just say '**** it,'"... I suppose there's that element to his "temper" as well. But on the whole, I think he's no more easily frustrated than any other typical human being. We all have our flaws; plus, Jeff is also someone with a deep artistic temperment and creative side -- and without wanting to paint a group of people with one brush (no pun intended!), I think it's pretty fair to say that creative people tend to feel very deeply, take things very personally, and become very protective of their art and their ability to express themselves. Further, we must also take into account that Jeff's likely got a highly-developed competitive side, hence the years of "serious" and recreational athletics all the way to the admission that he and Stone have often "competed" within bands (ie. One completes a song, the other feels he has to.)

So, to swing this back around to the "relationships" angle, I totally agree that "relationships" are definitely some sort of barometer through which Jeff seems to be perceive the world, especially as of late. Throughout the Riot Act release and ensuing summer tour, whenever Jeff was interviewed, he'd always make reference to how glad he was that Pearl Jam was communicating and enjoying one another's company, and had worked through all of their old intraband tensions. I have to say that every time he mentioned that sort of thing whether implicitly discussing PJ or in general, I couldn't help but think that he was also making a covert reference to how he'd worked through some relationship(s) in his personal life. And as I said once upon a time on this Forum in another thread, it seems like both professionally within PJ and personally, he really has come to an excellent point where (to paraphrase JA himself), "you get through that difficult phase and it's even better than the honeymoon period!". I commend him for that and am happy as hell for him...

I think a lot of his growth in that regard came via his work with Three Fish, both because the band gave him a creative outlet at the time when he was fairly disenchanted with the Pearl Jam experience and because, as you mentioned, he seemed to be exorcising a lot of personal things within the music and in his man-to-man conversations with his 3F bandmates. (If you've read a good chunk of Three Fish interviews, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about). In that sense, I will certainly miss 3F a lot, if indeed that band -- and his friendship with Robbi -- has completely dissolved. But then again, perhaps this is all just their "difficult phase", and Jeff's words will be prophetic and we'll one day have another record and whatever the hell is happening between JA and RR will resolve itself positively and fruitfully.

Now, I have to admit I'm not familiar with this interview you speak of... I can think of two interviews I've seen that are very close to the one you describe: First is an interview Three Fish did on MuchMusic (Canadian MTV equivalent) in the summer of '96, in which Jeff kind of laughs and says "I'm concentrating on my mistress here (meaning 3F) and then I'll go back to my wife (PJ)", but I think in that case, he was only referring to how he was splitting time between the two projects, and also during 3F's heyday, he and Robbi would frequently use the "other woman"/"mistress" reference to describe Three Fish in relation to their main bands. The other interview I'm thinking of is an MTV one from around the release of PJ's Binaural, wherein Jeff and Stone are discussing side projects and Jeff says that he hasn't spoken to the 3F guys in six months -- which I have to say totally surprised me at the time. But, I can't remember any instance in which Jeff ever outright said he was "leaving behind" Three Fish completely or a time when he used the "mistress" analogy in a degrading way.

Finally, if I may again pick up the topical thread re: relationships, I agree with you that duration of relationships seems to be a huge thing with Jeff. One quote from a 2000 Chicago newspaper interview comes to mind immediately. The interviewer must've asked something about PJ's longevity, and Jeff's answer is "My life has been a series of shorter relationships, whether it's with business or love. So to sustain something and work through that period where you're questioning everything is kind of big." When I first read that interview, that comment seems totally out of nowhere, and although the latter part of it (re: "working through the period where you're questioning everything") is now a very typical Jeff answer, the bit about the length of his relationships, still to me seems like a very "loaded" quote that still makes me scratch my head. And like you said, there's the comment about the length of his parents' relationship, some similar references to years and longevity in his little contribution to PJ's post-tour Fan Club newsletter, and so on and so forth. He really does seem to quantify his relationships a lot in that sense.

With regards to your last paragraph about men in general, I agree with you in principle for the most part, though without getting into any more of a massive philosophical discussion, I will say that women have some "same yet different" tendencies when it comes to forging and functioning within relationships with men. But to again whittle this down to Jeff content, I think for all his admitted foibles in navigating his relationships, Jeff does seem to have a great grasp on how men tend to struggle with those types of issues. To be honest, even beyond Pearl Jam's longstanding feminist (or at the very least, greatly "pro-woman" stance), I've always been very impressed by Jeff's ability to seemingly admit the flaws of his own gender. Again, if you read a lot of Three Fish interviews, he flat-out says that he believes men are far too guarded in relationships and don't give enough of themselves; he makes allusions within the songs and in interviews to having been that way himself (as referred to above) and Robbi makes the occasional comments about how he and Jeff would have tremendous conversations about their tribulations within romantic relationships and how they wanted to improve themselves as communicators and being (in Robb's words) "a nourishing ally to a woman."

Okay, I feel I'm no longer "getting anywhere" so I'll quit henpecking the topic to death! Sorry about the length of the post, especially if it made little or no sense!