There comes a point in every relationship, I think, where things just become. You’re not just acquaintances, you’re friends, and drinks and phone calls and margaritas and late nights become de rigeur; you don’t just recognize that checker, he becomes your checker, says “hi, magda,” and recommends good cheap bottles of wine (“I’ve noticed you shop in the under $10 category…”).

But where do you go once you’ve jumped off that high-dive to fall in love? I’ve claimed to have been in love a couple of memorable times in the past, but the love has come after the relationship. I’ve been a girlfriend and then, once that status has felt comfortable, I’ve introduced and entertained that loaded l-word. It’s different with the PhD. I was in love with him from that first night on the Potomac. I’m even more in love with him now. It’s one of those bam, it’s love fairy tales, starring me—hold out for this kind of love, girls, it happens and it’s real—but it’s leaving me in something of a lurch where definitions are concerned.

I suppose technically, he is my boyfriend. Something about that term just isn’t clicking, though. Boyfriend and girlfriend—seems so temporary, so test drive-y. I’m not trying him on or trying him out; he’s mine, it’s just that we’ve got some getting-to-know-you games still to play. Thing is, I’ve never hesitated calling someone “my boyfriend” before. In fact I have, at certain points, been proud of the term, and trotted it out like a badge of honor: I’ve peppered sentences with references to that lucky boyfriend till friends of mine were certainly blue in the face. Yes, magda, WE GET IT. You’re dating. Woo for you. Something, though, is causing me to recoil from applying the term to the PhD. “We’re in love,” I’ll tell people. “I’ve fallen in love with the most amazing man.”

I was totally tripping over myself when I was talking to my coworker a moment ago. I’m driving up to New York straight from work tonight, and she was asking why. [I got my EZPass in the mail last night, as something of an aside: it’s official, people. I’m an east-coaster now for real. Woo!] [Also in the mail: (a) the Nordstrom sale catalogue; (b) TWO crate and barrel catalogues; (c) a nice love letter from the PhD. BEST mail day EVER]. But back to the point: I just couldn’t stomach saying “I’ve driving up to see my boyfriend.” It just didn’t sound right. I settled for something in the “well, see, there’s this guy … ” family, then promptly started babbling up a horrendous chorus of gratuitous “likes” and “you knows” as if I was 12 all over again. (Yeaaaah … need to work on my delivery a little bit, I think). He’s my him, my PhD, my one. That’s the way I like it, and I don’t want to catch myself bending for the mere sake of meeting whatever categories the world wants to impose. Our love really is unconventional, in loads of different ways. I just wonder how long I can hold out, dancing around this lexicon of early love.