She may already think of me as a companion, I don't know. But it's not like I can ask someone on a date who already has a boyfriend, regardless of how much they might fight.
I do already spend a fair bit of time with her. We'll go out to lunch about once a week (not alone, but with a few others), she's over at my house or calls often. And like I said, we're off to futureshop tomorrow.
Let me share another thing that just came to mind...
One of the problems her boyfriend has with her is that she always wants to do things for him, whereas he'd rather do things for her. (And I see why he's upset-- guys don't like to let girls do things for them, they feel like they have to be the providers.)
So, for example, she wanted to make a picnic for him on his birthday but when he found out, he protested because he didn't want her to go through all of that work.
She talks about this problem a lot. Asks me what I think about it. One night we were working on physics together and there's always something better and something not so good -- she wants me to take the better chair, the better pen, and so on.
And when I said "I'll pick you up at 10 saturday morning" for futureshop, she replied "no, I'll pick YOU up at 10 saturday morning" with a smile. To me, that shows that in her mind she is comparing myself and her boyfriend because I'm willing to let her do those things, even though I have to override every instinct I have with respect to girls.
There's also the possibility that I am reading way too far into that, of course...