My Adventures in Internet Dating- A Relationship?

At some point we’ve discussed when it’s okay to have sex.  For me there are a number of factors, but the prime one here is that if I’m going to have sex it’s within a relationship that is by agreement, exclusive. 

Our next date is a Monday evening.  I go to his house for supper.  He makes a fabulous meal.  And we end up in his bedroom…

He is every bit the gentleman one would hope.  He assures himself that I am fully on board.  We agree that we are falling for each other.

After I tell him that I know it’s crazy to ask him not to see other people at this point, but that I don’t want to know about them.  He says “If that’s important to you”. 

We see each other almost every day that week.  On Saturday I will not be seeing him as he has his child coming for the weekend.  And I have plans.  Weeks before I had begged friends to set me up.  One of them came through about two weeks ago and dinner at their house for me and a male friend.  I’m not going to cancel, partly because I begged for this introduction.  And partly because as far as I know, and I don’t want confirmation of this, PysicallyAffectionateGuy is seeing other people.  As long as he’s doing it, I’m doing it too.  And he hasn’t asked to not know about them, and I won’t lie.  So when he asks what I’m up to for the weekend, I tell him.  He tells me to have fun and be safe.

Dinner is fun.  I enjoy hanging out with my friends and SetUpGuy is nice.  He’s interesting and he’s brought veggies for dinner, which are quite good.  I enjoy hanging out with him.  I’ve never really considered dating more than one guy at a time before, but I begin to wonder if I could do it.  The friends leave us alone and SetUpGuy and I talk for hours.  I would totally date this guy.  Eventually we end up leaving the friends’ house and heading to a larger town to find food at 11:30 at night.  Sitting on the trunk of his car at midnight, eating gyros in the ghetto, I want SetUpGuy to kiss me.  It’s not the first time the thought has crossed my mind in the last few hours.  He doesn’t and instead invites me to get coffee either at his house or at a nearby Denny’s.  I opt for the Denny’s and we continue to talk until well into the morning.  When we say goodbye I once more am hoping for a kiss, but I don’t get one.  Driving home I’m convinced that he wasn’t interested, although it seems weird that he stayed out that late if he wasn’t.

In the morning I get several texts.  SetUpGuy and I are texting a rehash of the previous evening.  He tells me that he wanted to kiss me, but was nervous.  We agree that we should see each other, but very casually as he hasn’t dated in awhile.  A little later PhysicallyAffectionateGuy texts asking about last night’s date.  Somehow as a result of this he and I agree to see only each other.  Crap.  Awkward text conversation alert!  SetUpguy is very nice about it when I tell him of the change of situation.  I’m not sure I would be so nice.  He and I agree to continue talking as friends.  PhysicallyAffectionateGuy is upgraded to The Boyfriend and I am somehow in a relationship.  This was not actually the plan for internet dating.