So Glad To Have Found This Group!

Wow! This is definitely the kind of group I've been looking for.  A little about me:  I'm 23 years old.  Met my sailor in early November and quickly fell for him.  He was very up front with me about his job and that he would be deploying soon, which I appreciated - better than learning a month or so later!  I could've made it easy on myself and just moved on then, but he intrigued me, so I told him we'd just see where it went.  My dad is retired from the Navy so I do have a little of an idea of the lifestyle.  The thing that sucks is he leaves for such a long time and right now we spend all of our time together that I don't know what I'm going to do once he leaves.  I'm fairly new to the area, well, I went away for 4 years for college then came back, but all I really do is work and spend time with him.  I could make friends at work, but I already spend 8 hours a day with them...so it's not really ideal...maybe I'll look into volunteer work?  I'd like to find ideas to keep our conversations interesting...there's only so many ways I can tell him how much I miss and adore him...I want our communications to stay exciting for both of us.  I'm allowed to send mail to the ship once he leaves...I'd also like to learn ideas of fun little things to send him.  I get emails from the ombudsman updating friends and family of what is going on, which makes me feel pretty special that he's including me in these, but I don't think I'd feel comfortable going to the events they have during deployment since I'm not an actual wife.  My stepmom even told me that girlfriends are typically looked down upon in those groups because they normally cheat or don't stick around very long.  Have any of the girlfriends in this group ever gone to those sort of events?