“So, have you been sssssssexting?”

“What?” I was engrossed in RJ’s credit card statement, trying to reconcile his expenses.

“Sssssssexting,” Archie said again. He leaned over my office cube wall. “You and Jonathan. Have you been sssssssexting?”

I looked up at him. “Why are you saying it like that?”

“Because it makes it sound ssssssssexy.”

I squinted at him. “Are you drunk right now?”

“No.” He straightened up. “I’m on my second Jamba,” he said and shook his cup at me.

“Oh,” I said. “Well, in answer to your question. No. We are not sexting. That would be a little weird considering we barely know each other.”

“It’s a great way to get to know each other,” he said. And then he wagged his eyebrows at me.

“Oh geesh.”

“Hey,” Lux said, as she approached my cube, carrying a big Starbucks. “Can I pick up my exercise ball?”

“Large or small?” I asked.

“Large.”

“Okay,” I said and turned to the supply stacked behind me. Seth had started a new company-wide Health and Wellness program (of course I am on the Committee!!), so we were giving out exercise balls for people to sit on, in order to promote good posture and a more stable core. “You’ll want the use the bigger pump I ordered. The one in the box is useless.”

“Okay,” she said and took the box from me. “Sooooo, what’s the latest with Jonathan?”

I sighed. “Is this all we’re going to talk about from now on?”

“It’s better than The Cat,” Archie muttered, as he chewed on his straw.

“Well, there is no ‘latest.’ We’re just getting to know each other. You know, taking it slow.”

“So no visit planned?” asked Lux.

“Noooo. It’s still too soon for that,” I said.

“Wait, are you still going to go on Match and all that? And write about it?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“How’s that going to work?” Archie said. “Won’t that be weird for him to read about it?”

I shook my head. “No, we’ve talked about it. It’s way too early to start making demands on each other. He doesn’t mind reading about my dates.”

In fact, when Jonathan and I had talked on this subject, he’d said, “If you meet someone else, then I’ll be happy for you. And if you don’t, then I’ll be happy for me.”

“Well,” said Lux, as she tucked the box under her arm. “This should be interesting.”

“Indeed,” said Archie.

One of the (many) mistakes I’d made with My Ex was that I’d pushed the relationship too fast, too soon. In fact, if I remember correctly, the first night we reconnected I was telling him I loved him and planning for us to see each other.

I shouldn’t have done that.

I believed (erroneously) that because we’d loved each other for 27 years that it would be the same, that we would be the same. I didn’t think we needed time to get to know each other.

I was wrong.

So when I met Jonathan, I vowed I was not going to make the same mistake. I was going to let it evolve naturally and just go with the flow. See what happened. Just get to know him. You know, be chill. Be normal.

And I stuck to this plan heroically.

For about a week.

After that, I started to get a little hysterical with him.

As the days went on, I was reminded that I’m not in any way a ‘go with the flow’ kind of person. Especially in circumstances like this. For a variety of reasons that are only interesting to me, my relationship with Jonathan escalated faster than was appropriate within the time-frame that we’d known each other. It was a little worrisome. It felt completely comfortable but I knew it was completely unnatural. I realized I couldn’t continue at this pace without some sort of discussion, at some point, about us seeing each other again. I fretted that I was wasting my time and setting myself up for disappointment. I didn’t know if we should try to slow things down or what. Or even how to do that.

So I talked to him about it.

Jonathan has said to me that whenever I get in a fervor about things, that if he just let’s me spin around and around and around and talk it out and out and out and then sleep on it, I’ll eventually figure out what I want to do. And I guess he’s right. Because the next day I came up with the plan that we would continue to talk, continue to get to know each other and then if things were still going well in a month, then we would discuss seeing each other again. He was fine with that. Of course he was. He actually is a ‘go with the flow’ kind of person.

So. One month. Then a plan will be made. Surely I can keep it together for one month. Of course I can. And not pressure him and not try to control things or push things. I can be breezy and adult-like and Zen and just walk through the experience and enjoy it, like everyone has told me I should. I can just go back to my old life, trying to date, writing, whatever. Business as usual. I mean, it’s just one month. I’m sure I can do that.

I can totally do that. Totally.

Of course.

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