My concerns with Dreamy being critical on a past date have, thankfully, been a non-issue since then. He also has fortunately been smelling nice and clean. Often when you have a couple of doubts about something, they snowball into progressively bigger doubts - but I'm relieved to say that my negative feelings were short-lived.
He brought me to a party recently, which was the first time I met his friends. I was wondering if anyone would ask how we met, but luckily they did not; he found me online, and we had never discussed the story we would tell people. I was also curious if our "label" would come up, but he simply introduced me as M.
He does love to playfully make fun of me, and last night, while he was imitating my Northern pronunciation of certain words, he let the words "my boyfriend" slip - in reference to himself. The non-confrontational person that I am, I didn't react to it, and he didn't bring it up formally either. I'm not in a hurry to define anything. While I've been guilty of viewing guys I dated as "perfect" in the past, I am beyond that feeling with Dreamy, and I'm fine with continuing to explore if we are a good fit long-term. He is also fretting because he hates when his [older] female co-workers probe into his personal life, but soon he has to tell them - for RSVP purposes - who he's bringing as his +1 to his company Christmas party. While he is very direct about most things, he is shy about these relationship-type moments - and so he indirectly told me that I will be his +1.
In other news, the awkwardness with DC has finally ended. We avoided looking at/talking to each other all this week, but on Thursday, as I was waiting for my lunch to finish in the microwave at school, he walked into the room. He started a conversation, and we were both able to interact normally. I'm glad things feel comfortable again - it is so weird to revert back to the middle-school-esque practice of ignoring a guy.
One other thing I'm worried about is that I've been doing a lot of recruiting-related travel lately, and I think it's very likely I could move to another city after I graduate. It wasn't my initial plan when I started school, and a few weeks ago I told Dreamy that despite these trips, I wasn't interested in moving. I've gone through a lot to find a good guy, but now I'm really considering job opportunities in two other cities. I guess this will be have to be one of those things where time will tell - there's no sense in making contingency plans now, because it will be at least nine more months until I would have to decide. Career is one of my top priorities in life, but love is the other - it's a shame they might have to be at odds.
