Full-Court Press and Half-Hearted Yes

Immediately after our first date, Thanksgiving Break forcibly separated me and Latin Muslim. I crammed three classmates who offered to help pay for gas into my hoopty Ford Escort, and off I went to spend a week with my real mother in South Carolina, dropping each classmate off somewhere along the way.

Latin Muslim was on my mind all break ... but not in the loving, breathless way you might expect.

All I could think about was how to protect myself from him. What I'd say and do if he started acting possessive and jealous, how to tell him to slow down, what I'd do if he ever tried to hit me. Did I mention that I was terrified of, and absolutely didn't trust, men?

I dreaded the thought of his two and three phone calls a day so much, I took my mother's phone off the hook.

His rehab house only allowed him 10 minutes at a time on the phone, but when he finally reached me, he completely laid all my fears to rest in 10 minutes flat. Without me even having to struggle through my tentatively prepared "slow-down" speech, Latin Muslim volunteered that he "was not going to mention 'relationship' for the time being" and that he was going to show some restraint.

So when I got back to New Haven, we picked up where we left off.

We had a Sunday daytime date, where he honeyed my ears with more talk of how I was the one for him. How he didn't care if he had to wait until I was 39 years old, because he knew one day I would wake up and realize that I had a good thing with him. That he'd never hurt me or run out on me. That he'd never stand in the way of my goals. That he'd follow me wherever I chose to go.

He'd even let me fool around if I ever decided that I needed to do that in order to make up my mind.

All because he believed deep in his heart that we'd be together "at 39, 60, and when we go, we'll go together."

It was all so very Catholic. (Except for the freedom to fool around part. That was a sin, Sin, SIN.)
He asked me formally, "Can I be your boyfriend?"

Of course, I said yes.

That night, I wrote in my diary, "I think I'm half in love."

(Virginity Diaries Part 5 of 11: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Lessons Learned 1 2 3)