Back up "boyfriends," reunions, crazy wives, and a delicious breakfast

Dreamy and I went without seeing each other for longer than usual. At first, and for a while, I barely noticed - grad school has been busy with lots of homework and social events. However, I started to feel weird after a while, and I was able to put a finger on it pretty quickly: I'd been without any human touch since the last time I had seen him. I hadn't even hugged a single person, and it didn't feel right.

Prior to this realization, I had been doing some disaster planning in my head. My grad school class is fairly small, and most of the guys in it are married or are committed to very serious girlfriends. This made it difficult to figure out any "back up" targets, should anything go wrong with Dreamy; however, I did identify one. In spirit of not having my eggs all in one basket, I have this school crush to keep me entertained during the time I'm away from Dreamy. While I'm sure Dreamy wouldn't like this idea if he knew about it, I think it's a healthy practice for me, so that I can continue not to overthink things with Dreamy.

I was reunited with Dreamy this weekend. As soon as I saw him, it felt like we had never been apart. He had candles lit in every room when I first entered his apartment, which was adorable. (He tried to talk it up later that he likes candlelight as his lighting preference, as if he didn't do it for me - but I still think he did!) We had a couple of drinks there then walked to a nice restaurant nearby to have dinner on the patio.

He often mentions his best friends who are married and how he's less able to pin them down to have guy time these days. He describes situations where his friends' wives act in a controlling manner and often contribute to preventing their husbands from hanging out with friends. I always express my disagreement with the way the women act, hinting to my beliefs that a guy should still have his freedom and not be controlled in a relationship.

Dreamy treats me so well - he's so generous, attentive, and kind to me. I think I've done a good job of communicating to him that I'm not like his friends' wives and girlfriends, and I think he knows that fact himself. Dreamy continues to do everything to demonstrate that he's very interested in me, but his comments about his friends make me wonder about his real thoughts on marriage and if these women are tainting it for him. I haven't been upfront enough to ask about his direct beliefs about such things, which is very usual for me. He's an incredible guy, so I acknowledge that I'm lucky to be the girl taking advantage of his non-married status. I can see that he values spending a lot of time with the girl he likes, yet still, he's the only one of his good friends who is single. I suppose I'm answering my own question, but I think it will just take him a little more time to see that serious commitment doesn't mean ending his autonomy.

He cooked us an amazing breakfast the next morning, and it's quite a relief to see that he values great food just as much as I do! The home-cooked meals we've had so far have been incredible. Despite the issues I wonder about, everything is great with us. A bunch of my classmates are planning a day trip to an upcoming racing event (the kind that starts with an N and has a cult following of people that get made fun of often, haha), so I'm thinking of asking him if he'd like to come along, just to do something different. I'm a little scared of inviting him, though, so we'll see - but I'm sure it would be a highly entertaining day!

Not going away

It's tough to decide what to write about when things are going well! In older posts, I've talked about being excited after a great first date, about feeling insecure about whether a relationship was doomed or not, and about annoyances arising from various offenses guys have committed against me...

But things really are going well with Dreamy. We continue building on our inside jokes and come up with new things to tease each other about. He's still decisive and thoughtful about planning dates (we've been on nine now!), and he still takes me to awesome restaurants. He remains the kind person who appreciates the world around him and everything he has. He amuses me with silly words he uses and nicknames he gives to things. He's also super cute - something I'm not convinced that he realizes. ;)

I'd say he knows me pretty well by now, but he is trying to learn more. I'm a very private person, so usually once I hit this point it's hard for me to talk about deeper things and the thoughts and feelings I rarely vocalize to anyone. For me, it's pretty much wading into uncharted territory. He makes it easier though...he asks follow-up questions, validates what I say, and lets me know he really does want to know. And he likes that he's found something that makes me shy. For some reason though, it's easier for me to express some of those things to a really close girlfriend than it is to the guy I'm interested in.

At this point, I know he likes me from his actions, and I'm not worried about him disappearing. I'm not anxious about things getting the "official" stamp. I know all is well - I don't need that reassurance yet. We still have milestones to hit - he finally met one of my friends (who just moved in with me), and I have yet to meet his. It would be fun to go out together with a group. We haven't had our first dance, and we've been mostly sober on all our dates. I'm glad we don't use drinking as a crutch while we're together - Do you ever find that you can't remember what you talked about on a second or third date because you had several drinks?? - but it would be fun to get the buzz on a little more sometime.

I'm happy though, that we have things to look forward to!