MAN, I love my wife. My theory is that any two people in the world are the right ones for each other; it's just a matter of them figuring out how so. As soon as I said this to my wife, I thought, That's not a very romantic thing to say to your wife. –It was the morning after Valentine's Day and we were on our way to Seal Rock Inn for breakfast, talking about the couple that wasn't a couple that we'd gone out with the night before.

"I'm sorry," I said. "That's not a very romantic theory."

"I think it's romantic," she said.

"Really?"

"Yeah." She explained what she liked about it and I thought, Hmm, maybe I better start working on a revision of my theory. You hate to say something that people are going to agree with. Later that night I was talking to my good friend Moonpie, my first love and almost-oldest friend in the world, who lives in Pittsburgh. We had already exhausted the subjects of the weather, poetry, and getting run over by cars, and there was a lull in the conversation.

"I'm working on a theory of relationships," I said, breaking the silence. "My theory," I said, breaking the silence again, "is that any two people in the world are potentially perfect partners for each other."

She didn't say anything. Either we'd been disconnected, as so often happens whenever I'm getting onto anything profound, or else she was thinking about it.

"Except for Bill Stoner," she said, finally – ever the good editor.

So there was my revision. Any two people, give or take Bill Stoner ...

Bill Stoner is an old buddy of my brother's who got in an argument with Moonpie once 20 years ago over a woman's place in the world, or something so traumatic that she still hasn't forgotten. Bill Stoner was and may still be a park ranger. Moonpie is a poet. I think they would make an excellent couple. She'd make him understand, eventually, that a woman's place in the world was wherever in the world she was standing (or sitting, or lying in the street) at any given moment, and he, in turn, could take her camping.

See what I mean?

My wife's name is Crawdad de la Cooter. In some ways we are peas in a pod; but it's the other ways that matter. Make all the difference. Either you can slash and burn and chop it all up, bit by bit by bit, into pieces, or you can step back, open your eyes a little wider, and then try stepping forward again in a more philosophical frame of mind.

That's the way we ate breakfast, sitting side by side instead of across from each other. We could see out the big windows into the rolling and rocking Pacific Ocean, a half-gray and half-beautiful day.

Crawdad ordered a cheese omelette with tomatoes ($6.75) and I got eggs over easy with gyro meat ($7.25). Fresh-squeezed orange juices ($2.25) ...

"There is no love sincerer than love of good food," according to George Bernard Shaw, according to the Seal Rock menu. I love gyro meat. I love my wife. It wouldn't be very romantic to make a comparison, I'm almost positive. But romantic isn't everything. Anyway, I get paid to love good food. Lots of food. And, so long as you're getting paid for it ... I'm a food whore, would be one way of looking at it. Well, sincerity isn't everything, either, George.

There must also be toast and home fries, or in this case, hash browns.

The lesbians at the table in front of us, also sitting side by side, ordered a side-order waffle to go along with their omelettes and eggs. Lesbians know. I was so jealous of their waffle.

"Why didn't we get a waffle?" I asked Crawdad.

She didn't know. Funny thing was, the whole reason we went out for breakfast was because she woke up wanting waffles and there weren't no eggs to make them out of.

The waffles looked good.

The eggs were great. They seemed one notch fresher, one shade yellower than your average restaurant eggs. And – get this – Crawdad wound up with bonus bacon and turkey in her cheese-and-tomato omelette. Talk about a bank error in your favor.

Well, you might have to wait a while on a weekend morning is the catch. But the Seal Rock Inn is worth the wait. Cheap, down-homey food in a fine diner atmosphere with a view of the ocean, if you're lucky, across the street. And if you're not lucky, you can always go for a walk right afterwards.

Jesus Christ, what the hell's happening to the Cliff House?

Seal Rock Inn. 545 Point Lobos (at 48th Ave.), S.F. (415) 752-8000. Mon.-Fri., 6:30 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 6:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Takeout available. Beer and wine. American Express, Discover, MasterCard, Visa. Wheelchair accessible. Dan Leone is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).