Boyfriended

It's official. I have a boyfriend. I'm boyfriended officially. For realz. Status change on Facebook and everything (though he preferred to keep it off Facebook so I didn't connect him, but still.). The first one in three years (THREE!). This is significant! And good! And there are lots of smiles and all kinds of happy between us. It doesn't suck. No, not at all.

After giving The Professor the room to do whatever he needed to do (think, process, determine I was the more awesomer person he was dating because duh..), he sprung the idea upon me after a lovely evening together of canoodling at a fight show I was stage managing, canoodling at after-show drinks and dessert and canoodling horizontally that's a little more than canoodling if you catch my drift and I think you do. He just looked at me and said, ‟I want  you to be my girlfriend," very matter-of-factly to which I, of course, paused appropriately and then responded with a friendly reminder that there was still one other person involved and that would make being exclusive a bit awkward.. well, for her anyway. He said he'd tried to resolve that by phone that day but they ended up playing phone tag. He promised to address it as quickly as possible though and he did a couple days later. In the meantime, I squeed, giggled, did a little horizontal happy dance right there (let's keep it clean folks.. I was happy) and proceeded to call him Boyfriend every chance I got for the next 24 hours. And adorable as he is, he called me Girlfriend in return. I know.. it's cute. And gross.. but that's ok because I get to be gross. I did mention it's been three years right? THREE YEARS, PEOPLE, OK?!

I'm still surprised that this feels so good. We didn't suffocate each other by spending too much time together. We didn't lose interest because we only spent one day a week together at first. But suddenly there were a couple days a week and then most of a weekend, his birthday, overnights that lasted til the next afternoon, the losing of first names to ‛babe' and ‛sweet girl' (seriously, that one weakens my knees) and even a big chat the weekend before the labels about kids and if I wanted them or not. That was a doozy, but it didn't scare me, clearly didn't scare him since he was the one asking, and it made me think of a possible future I hadn't thought of with anyone in a long time. It felt real.

I'm sure we're at the beginnings of the honeymoon stage, but this weekend the hormones hit again and I've been irritable off and on and still, the man joked around, called me cantankerous while hugging me until I laughed at not being able to wiggle free, and refused to allow me to wallow in negativity. It was nice to have him there for balance and it made me feel very lucky because though I'm happier by the minute, this is so easy and natural and honestly, fun. It doesn't feel crazy honeymoony to me because it feels normal and lovely and kind of everything I want.

We can now talk about future planning.. say travel plans for Burning Man since we're both going, his trip to Germany in June for five weeks without being scared if we're together or not or who he's coming back to, meeting family.. that sort of thing. It's reassuring to know where we stand together.. because we're standing together. I dig that. And though love wasn't mentioned during that first conversation and I haven't had a boyfriend in recent years I didn't have that with before we were exclusive, he knows I'm already pretty close and feels he's headed there too or he wouldn't be in this.

I love that he directed the tempo of us and that I recognized that sitting in just a little bit of caution and making sure it was the right thing and wasn't fleeting could work. I've never had that kind of normalcy in the beginnings of a relationship, where protecting ourselves and being careful with our intentions actually felt romantic.. even if I was a little uncomfortable with the idea. Because now? The payoff is that I feel secure. I'm reassured all the time because I can see this is what he wants, not something I talked him into. I feel spoiled, I feel adored, I feel comfortable. He rarely stops touching me, tells me often how great and beautiful I am, is focused on me when we're in public, and everyone seems to like him.

I'm happy. I'm a girlfriend. And it's pretty fucking wonderful.