Training Partners; yes or no?

The above picture is of my good friend and former college roommate Jesse Bergenbaum. The pic was taken back in 2007 after he swept through his first bodybuilding competition winning best overall and top poser in his division and almost winning his pro card! This picture was recently on pg. 32 of March addition of Muscle and Fitness. Jesse busted his ass in the weight room and with his diet leading up to this show and all the hard work paid off! Looking at this picture brings me back a couple of years to lifting heavy weights at SUNY Cortland. Jesse was my first lifting partner that lasted for more then a couple weeks (over two years). The reason we stuck together training was because we had the same mentality when hitting the weights, and that was to give it all we had, every set and every rep of every lift we performed. This is an attitude that very few lifters have and it shows! On a number of occasions we would leave Tomik (Cortland gym) light headed and ready to puke, but no matter how we felt we would still be sucking down are protein shakes on the way to the dinning hall to get a good post workout meal in! Although I did not have the knowledge back then I have today about training, nutrition, and how to take care of your body I have never been stronger then I was when we were pushing those heavy weights! Having a training partner suffering through the same workout you are, can be very motivating and help you push through those barriers. This is why you see so much success with athletes being trained in small group setting compared to one-on-one. Groups allow athletes to compete and push each other much like me and Jesse would.
Now as beneficial as a training partner can be they can also become a cancer to your workouts. Working in a commercial gym for over a year now I see many people training together on a daily bases. Now I use the term training loosely here because they are doing more chatting and coffee drinking then actual training! Many of these training partners will hit a set of bicep curls and then proceed to bullshit with one another and hit on the girls at the gym for the next 5-6 min. That is why it is crucial, when picking a training partner, to make sure you both have the same beliefs and feelings about training. The worst thing that could possibly happen in the gym is to have someone else mess your training up! Before committing to any one training partner give it a trial workout or two and see how it goes. If you both kick ass and take names during those workouts continue to train together. But if your chatting more then training and barely breaking a sweat then it is time to move on to another partner or to train alone. Currently I train alone because working at a commercial gym 95% of the members lift like bodybuilders and would never think of throwing around heavy kettlebells or sandbags. Does my training suffer? On occasion I will have lackluster workouts where a partner could have lit a fire under my ass but it is much better then every workout being crappy! I would like to wrap it up by congratulating my boy Jesse on his recent appearance in muscle and fitness and am looking forward to seeing you on the stage again soon!