Well, he loves me. I know this because he looked straight at me and said, �I love you. I�m in love with you. I wasn�t planning to fall in love with you, but I have, and I�m so happy.�

On Friday, just before noon, he came to my office with a bamboo plant for my desk. No reason�-he just wanted to bring me a little surprise. Then he took me out for lunch, and then we left for Indiana. That night, after dinner and a raucous sing-along piano bar, the two of us called it a night and his friends went out to a party. We inflated an air mattress and collapsed into a snuggly, pajama�d, exhausted heap. We curled up with our pillows and blankets and started to kiss. That�s when he said it. It startled me. Just a few minutes before, when I was digging around in my bag for my toothbrush, he came in to ask me something and kissed me. We were standing in front of the sink kissing and laughing about funny things that happened at the piano bar, and my mind wouldn�t stop saying I love him, I love him, I love him, which annoyed me because I knew that if I tried to say anything, I would blurt out, �I love you,� even if what I really meant to say was, �May I please use some of your toothpaste?� So when he said it, it was a shock to hear my own words said out loud by someone else, as if he had read my mind.

For a second I thought, �I hope he didn�t just say that inadvertently, in the heat of the moment.� For a few more seconds I just looked at him. And then I thought I think I love him. So I said, �I love you too.� I felt a little dizzy, because it seemed absolutely loony to say I love someone I�ve only been dating for a couple of weeks. I can only keep the dizziness at bay by continually reminding myself that while the dating is new, the friendship is not.

The rest of the weekend was fun; we hung out with his friends and went to the game, and Saturday night had a very nice dinner alone together, then dragged our air mattress into the living room to watch TV and go to sleep early. Sunday morning we let his friends sleep late, and then we headed back to Chicago. We had a late lunch before he dropped me off at my place, and a few hours later he came over to spend a quiet evening with me. We ate a frittata and some green peas with pearl onions, drank a couple of glasses of wine, watched a little TV, and spent the night together. It was really, truly lovely.

My friend Catherine said, �Okay, maybe you didn�t feel the spark in the beginning. But I think you guys are doing the slow burn now.� And that sounds about right to me. Whatever I thought was missing has now developed in a big way. We have the friendship, the fun, the humor, the honesty, the caring, the respect, and the chemistry that makes us weak in the knees. Does that sound like love?

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