After a lot of overanalyzing, I knew that my boyfriend was a nice guy.

On our first date, he suggested we go ice-skating. I hadn’t been ice-skating since I was a little kid and being the un-athletic person that I am, I knew I wouldn’t last long on the rink. He on the other hand, being the outdoorsmen extraordinaire, would clearly survive longer than I would. He would thrive, and blossom on the rink; I would just think about all the ways I might hurt myself and get tired. Putting my pre-judgments aside, I decided to go with it.

He was incredibly nice on the date – a complete and total gentleman. As we were walking back to our cars, he invited me back to his place. This is when panic began to set in. At the time, I had a tendency, or skill, some could say, for moving too quickly with the guys I dated. I thought that the key to their hearts was sleeping with them, basically immediately. Don’t do this. It is not the key to their hearts; only to their pants. Think about it. Do you want a key to someone’s pants? I didn’t think so. I made a promise to myself that from then on, I would take it slow and not rush into things. I wanted to make sure that the guy I dated was more interested in how many pounds of bacon I’ve eaten at once (2 in case you were wondering) than he was in immediately jumping my bones.

“I will not sleep with him. I will not sleep with him”, I chanted to myself over and over again as I drove over to his house.

Everything I thought would happen, didn’t. I thought he would take me into his room and close the door and turn off the lights…because sadly, that’s what I was used to. Instead, I met his roommates and his dog. He showed me pictures of his family and we listened to music. It was a good 2 hours before he made a move and I started to wonder if I had fallen for a gay guy again. Then, he kissed me. When things began to, you know, progress, I stopped him.

“I uh, um, I want to take things slooowly”, I told him.

He said that was, “ok”, and we got back to talking. Later he walked me to my car and said he’d call me. Now, EVERY GUY says they will call you, but this one actually did and I was COMPLETELY surprised. Not only did he call me, but he didn’t play any weird waiting games; we talked the next day. After this, I knew I had found someone special.

As we continued to date, I realized that I had been missing out on something very important: small acts of kindness. I used to date a guy who thought it was a problem to do the smallest thing for me. If I asked him to read something I wrote, he wouldn’t. If I asked him to listen to a song I thought he’d like, he wouldn’t. If I needed help with something, it was always a hassle. If I ask my boyfriend to do something, he just does it. No questions, no fights, no problems. He even just, offers to do things for me without me even asking to! It’s insane. I didn’t know people like this existed…and now he has become my slave to do my bidding.
So what’s the point? Figure out if he wants to know you first, above anything else. Well, figure out what YOU want first. Learn what’s important to you and what you won’t negotiate on so you can weed out all the bad guys to get to the nice ones.

Photo found on http://amigodoacaso.tumblr.com/post/11104401370

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