I have a boyfriend!

I went to Atlanta a single woman, not looking forward to seeing her ex and worried about a guy that I had just broken things off with back at home. The last thing on my mind was "Hey, maybe I'll meet someone..." But, that's exactly what happened! I met him on Wednesday night and forgot his name like five seconds after he told it to me, which he gave me a hard time about...

Then on Thursday, I sat next to him at lunch and he proceeded to give me a hard time about just about anything I said! In fact, Michael, John AND Athens (that's what I'm calling him) were ALL giving me a hard time and I was loving every minute of it! This lunchtime was a pivotal point because I ended up getting a lot of facts about him. I already kinda thought he was cute and his personality seemed good... He mentioned that he had just bought a house in January (good...), but that he hadn't had time to really work on projects because he was too busy with church, gaming and volunteering. Yes, in one breath, he named three interests I would LOVE to share with a boyfriend/husband!

On our way back from lunch, Valerie intercepted me for a debriefing in the ladies room about various items (more on that later), one of which was that she wanted to impress upon me was that he was single, looking, an overall great guy and definitely wants to have kids! Also things I'm looking for... (Valerie, for the record, is an awesome wing woman... she really helped me out a lot this past weekend!) In fact, when compared to the Ideal Husband Checklist, so far, he's passing with flying colors. No negatives and a few unknowns still, but based on what I know about him so far, they most likely will be checked off. I think I'm going to have to assign bonus points for being an Eagle Scout too.

In fact, throughout the entire weekend, he didn't say or do anything that was even remotely flag-raising... We spent almost four whole days together and the only thing we could find that we're not in huge agreement about is music tastes and he's a hardcore Bulldog and I was born a Gator (although truth be told, I'm fine with switching because I look better in red anyway). Every time he opened his mouth or did something, it just got better and better.

Things that he did that I adored...
He opened all my doors for me, carried around anything heavy if we were walking somewhere, kept my mom company while I said good-byes and paid my hotel bill, killed two bugs for me that happened to cross my path, paid for my lunch on Sunday (and then said, "I've been trying to do that all weekend but everyone else kept buying your food!"), didn't hesitate to try to rescue me from a conversation with 42, (even better) didn't get jealous at all when I talked to 42, reminded me to send a postcard to my friend, and just overall is really cool.

We spent a lot of time talking over the weekend so I feel like I really got a sense of who he is. He is a really solid, dependable, upstanding person. I really admire him. Like Tim said... spending four days together at a con is the equivalent of a month of regular casual dating... I can't wait to spend more time with him. We talked about that and it looks like I'm going to go see him after Gulf Games for about five days. Possibly longer, but we'll wait to see on that. The sucky part is that that isn't until the beginning of August.

As for the boyfriend/girlfriend thing... We talked about it today and decided that it's "official"! And just so I didn't run into the same problem as with 42, I clarified to make sure that us calling each other boyfriend/girlfriend also meant we weren't seeing other people, which is exactly what he meant. (I never would've thought to ask someone that until that happened with 42...)

Because Valerie was instrumental in the whole pointing us at each other, I texted her to let her know that we were "officially" a couple and she was thrilled. I started getting texts from her, IMs from Dale and more texts from James (they're all at Origins together) until finally Valerie just called me and put me on speakerphone so I could tell them the whole story and fill them in on the details! Then Tyler piped up with "Did you change your status on MySpace?" I couldn't stop laughing, mainly because I hadn't (since it had just happened), but I had already been considering changing it even though it wasn't official. Yesterday, I contacted eHarmony and told them to quit sending me matches because I knew I wasn't interested in anyone else at this point. I did change my Facebook and MySpace status. It's funny! It's like a big announcement to everyone who's on Facebook! I told FaceBook that Athens was my boyfriend and they sent a request for confirmation to him so he could OK it. I guess it's a good thing I never tried to falsely say Josh Charles was my boyfriend! :-) But I can assure you, Josh Charles ain't got nothin' on my boyfriend.

The best part? It's completely mutual. We both really like each other, I'm not stressed at all when I think about him (a new feeling or rather lack of feeling) and there's no doubt in my mind about how he feels about me because he lets me know often. He's very communicative which is something that is a must-have for me.

All I can say is that I know it's good when I find myself laughing and giggling when alone in the car and thinking of him. I can't wait for all my friends to meet him! No set plans just yet on when he's headed this way, but hopefully soon!