Sucker for a Love Story

Well, here I am on another lunch break. People kept asking me if I was coming to lunch (in the lunch room, that is) and I was like "no, I want to eat by myself today." Sometimes I just don't want to go to the lunch room, I'd rather sit at my desk or another office and eat by myself. I know what you're thinking "you don't want to talk to anyone, so you're talking to everyone?" No, I do not believe writing on your blog counts as talking to people.

Man, the lady in the cube next to me is almost always on the phone, half the time it's work related.

I've been finding myself reading these silly dating articles on MSN after I check my hotmail lately. I find them all so humorous. Some of them are touching. Some of them are flat-out lame. Like today, they were giving tips to divorcees on how to get back into the dating pool, but the title of the article clearly implied that they were talking about "break-ups." Breaking up and divorcing are different, if you ask me. Anyway, then there was this other one about avoiding your ex (bf or gf, that is) in public. Funny. I guess I'm a sucker for a love story.

Speaking of love stories, I'm dating now. I almost made it 3 years (dangit!). Ben, my NEW boyfriend, says I can borrow a few of his months (over 4 years) to add to mine to make it a full three. What a nice guy. We've been dating 15 days now. (That seems like a long time... maybe it's because it's compared to the 3 years I haven't been dating leading up to this?)

So dating is interesting. I'm suddenly reminded of why people do the silly things they do and say the *stupid* things they say when they're dating. I had forgotten. They don't seem so stupid anymore because now I want to do them and I want to say them! I kind of surprise myself! I'm all "oh, I just thought that (or said that). I HATE it when people say stuff like that. It's so lame." ;-) I guess I had forgotten that love (not that I'm in love yet, but you know, the potential) is good, dating is good, making a fool out of yourself and getting all girly about a person is good, etc. Really, I just think being with Ben is good. =) Also, I suddenly have this new thing in my already busy schedule and I'm kind of going "okay, now how's this gonna' work?", but the fact is I want it to work, so I will make the time. In addition, it's going to be long-distance, so I will have to consider the gas thing in my budget (good thing I'm car pooling now, hey?). 70 miles to Milwaukee is not so bad.

Anyway, yes, being with Ben is good. We've been such good friends for the last 3 years, so it's nice not to have to do that whole "I gotta' impress them" thing nobody ever means to do. If we did that, we'd completely see through it because we already know each other so well. We have both been praying about each other for 2+ years now, but we had never talked about it till this winter. That's pretty crazy - and cool. (Pause, I did tell him once last spring that I had become attached and wanted to know how he felt. He said that although he had feelings in the past, he wasn't interested at the time and he didn't think he'd be interested in the future, either, but added "but I'm not sure about a lot of things right now", which was an out-of-character comment for him. After that, I let go of the idea and tried to let go of the hope, but the fact that I felt drawn to him and was attracted to him did not go away.) So this winter he approached me and we eventually began talking about it. It turns out that he had liked me for 2 years also, and he had a theory/explanation for where he was last spring that made sense to me. Through the course of our conversations we realized we really wanted to, or needed to, date in order to find out if we really could marry each other or not, but when we prayed about it, God said "Not yet." So we let it go, possibly forever. Our good friendship remained and surprisingly, it never got weird and we truly stopped talking about it. We both felt that if we would ever revisit our conversations, it would be months away. Little did we know...

Apparently Ben got to this place a few weeks later where he just realized that he wanted to be with me and he didn't want to be without me any longer. :-) He also felt like, although he's moving and starting a new job in a new city soon, he wasn't interested in dating any other girl - I was the only one he wanted. He actually said "I got to this point where I realized I didn't WANT anything else." I realize this sounds conceited, or whatever, but I'm just telling you like it is. It's a blessing and a gift, not a result of anything that I've done. I feel so blessed. :) So anyway, he brought it up to me and we talked for HOURS about. I saw no reason to postpone it any longer, but said that my "yes" was a tentative "yes" because we needed to seek God for a few days on it. Both of us did that and God confirmed to us individually that he was giving this to us as a gift and that we were now free to date... My goodness! :-)

I've been learning so much already. Not dating till I knew I was ready and it was the right person was the best dating decision I could have ever made. I'm not saying we're getting married, but I can see that God's hand is in this and is guiding this, which means that it's going to be good, no matter what the outcome. I'm not banking on marriage, but I'm banking that it's going to be a good process, either way. I closed an e-mail to Ben last week this way:

I am praying about our relationship. I want to keep doing this the right way. (Romans 12:1-3, 9-12) I guess I just feel like whichever way this turns out, I want to do it with honor. If I get to keep you, I want to deserve it. If I don't, I want you to be a better man because of it and I want to be a more Godly woman. At the end of the day, there's no point to it unless we understand God better and fall more in love with Jesus. Therefore I will pray and ask God to be near to us, to speak to us, and to be Lord over this process... and I have faith that he will because of his grace and lovingkindness.

That is how I feel and that's how I want it to stay.

Toute la gloire à Dieu.