Rollercoasters and Relationships

For about two months now, I have been engaged in what I privately refer to as a Facebook Flirtation.  On an impulse I still haven't figured out, I looked up an old friend I hadn't seen since college, but had often thought about.  Lo and behold he was on FB, he responded to my message, and things took off from there.

We talk every day. We have good conversations and bad conversations. We have inside jokes. I tell him things I don't tell anyone else. We talk about work and family and plans and coordinate schedules. When something important or funny or interesting happens, I remind myself to tell him about it the next time we talk.

We have a undefined "something more" that we acknowledge in a roundabout way.

It has been quite a rollercoaster ride.  On the up side, we have reminisced about old times, caught up on the years since college, had some pretty deep conversations, and gotten to know each other all over again.  On the down side, we have had some misunderstandings, intrusion from real life, and some back and forth about what it is we are doing exactly.

Each time the rollercoaster comes to a stop, we're a little dizzy and we don't immediately exit the ride.  Instead, we try to make sense of everything.  So I say we aren't doing anything wrong, and he says he's willing to hang in there.  We laugh and sigh and say we don't know and before we do know the ride has taken off again.

This time the rollercoaster seems to be taking longer to get going again.  It's not a bad thing to be thinking with my brain instead of with my heart in my stomach, it's just not as much fun, and it gives me more time to think.  On the drive home today, it occurred to me that as much as we have debated what to call this thing, or not to call it, it suddenly feels to me like - deep breath - a relationship.

I am not sure what I hoped for when I first contacted him, but I didn't expect it to become a relationship.  A relationship is bad and good, involves more feelings, takes time and effort, and...well, hell, a relationship is work.  It's harder to tell if those things up ahead are highs or just big obnoxious bumps.  I don't know if I am alone in thinking this has become more than a crazy rollercoaster ride.  I do know it's easier to exit a rollercoaster ride than it is to exit a relationship, if that's what this is becoming.