Dating?

Our emails these days are peppered with phrases like, "If we were to date..." and "If we don't end up dating..."

I don't know why we keep dancing around the phrase like that. In my mind, we're already dating. Or pre-dating. We're doing all the things that daters do when they live 800 miles apart: emailing, chatting, talking on the phone, bearing our souls, making plans, flirting. I'm not saying we're boyfriend/girlfriend or that we're in a relationship or ready to change our Youface statuses to "tinglies."

But it's clear we're both open to seeing where this can go. And isn't that what dating is?

Overall, I'm much more calm and confident now than I've been the past three weeks. We talked for almost three hours on Saturday, and then she sent me a long email on Sunday. I'm starting to get over the feeling that she's about to drop me for some stupid thing that I've said or written. (Although it terrifies me to write those words, as if I'm tempting fate or jinxing myself. Hopefully this disclaimer will ward off the jinx.) I guess I still have some residual feelings left over from my divorce-- the fear that someone close to me can leave at any moment.

In four days we'll have our first official date. A three-day-long date. Things could still go horribly wrong, like with any first date, but we also know each other much better than most first daters do. I truly have no idea what to expect, although I have a lot of fantasies.