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The daily countdown finally reached zero.  For us, that meant a 1,000 km flight to quite literally the most Easter-ly point in North America.  (cue sad trombones and le fromage as my girl is fond of telling me for my holiday entendre).

My nearly empty plane bounced into the gate to deliver me into her awaiting arms.  Awkwardness for our second meeting? None.  We were so excited and genuinely happy to see each other again. 

This was another really important weekend for us in the early going of long-distance dating.  Our trajectory is steep and we are very cognisant of moving too fast.  This brings us to today’s topic, which is, when is the right time to say the words “I love you”?  

This is obviously one of the biggies in the dating world.  I worried that if said too soon, it would lack conviction, credibility, or maybe even scare.  But if said later, well that too would have sent the wrong message that perhaps I wasn’t picking up on the obvious cues we were sending each other.  In truth, I had been bursting at the seams to tell her just how much I adored her. There is only really one way in the English language to convey that quite so succinctly.

In the week leading up to my trip,  I had been telling her openly how I love everything about her – that thing she does when she scrunches her lips, her love for her family, her wicked sense of humor, and on and on.  The “list of  loves” just kept growing with every passing day. However, I had yet to admit that I loved, well, just Her. 

It was two months to the day since we met when I arrived (Le Fromage was thick).  But still, I’m so amazed at how close we’ve become through our texts and our calls. So in our darkened room, late that first night together, I let Those (yes capitalized) words spill out laying next to her from nary six inches away. 

She closed her eyes burying her face down into her hands unwilling to give anything away before gathering a cautious response, “Really?”

“Yes really,” I replied with soft conviction.

And there it was – Those words hanging out there nakedly for acceptance, rejection or maybe something else.  The room was perfectly quiet for a few more seconds.

“I love you too,” came her whispered rebuttal.

The silence enshrouded us, each of us weighing the enormity and the implications of such an admission.  We love each other?  Both of us together?  Wow.  Turned out to be the first of many Wow’s this past weekend. 

Have you ever seen an actual iceberg?  We did some iceberg hunting on the weekend ourselves.  Driving up and down the coastline looking for those elusive majestic wonders of nature that most only see on water bottles and beer cans. 

The landscape in this part of world was so absolutely unbelievable.  A gargantuan ice flow from the Arctic had blown south, something that only happens every decade or so tells the locals.   I found myself just repeating over and over again, “wow, Wow…..WOW!” as we made our way around each bend in the road past another cove jam packed with jagged ice.

But the thing about icebergs is that you only see about one third of the entire arching structure above the surface of the ocean.  There is so much that remains hidden from view. 

When you say Those hallowed words to someone you’ve truly fallen for, it’s an invitation to go deeper, much deeper below the surface. What I’m discovering with each passing day is that what I know of my girl is just the proverbial tip…

Today’s dating advice is really just encouragement to those of you who find the one that grabs your attention and steals your heart.   When you find that someone as majestic, rare and beautiful as an iceberg, I hope you find the courage to admit your deeper interest.  “I love you” is like asking permission to see the whole iceberg, including those facets that we’ve hidden from our dating profiles and superficial texts and chats.

In the days that followed, it prompted very real, very deep conversations about future possibilities together. Stay tuned.

Well nary have three days passed and plans for the second reSMUnion are underway.  In fact, the third meet-up is also pretty much in the books.  The fourth, fifth, and sixth are under discussion.  Life in the fast lane, no sign of smokey yet.

Oh my god she makes me laugh.  She told me about this app called DubSmash.  Now I can hardly get any work done.  Today’s dating advice to dating men and women everywhere, if you want to have fun with a potential someone and show them you have a sense of humor, send them a DubSmash. It’s hysterical and shows you aren’t afraid to show a little vulnerability.

So back to the story, I’m flying over to see Megs next weekend for Easter.  We are literally counting down the sleeps until then.  What are we, 6 years old again?

But Easter is a bit of a tricky holiday, particularly if you have a family, which I do.  While I’ve been single for not quite a year now, I still have a three kids and a very sensitive ex to consider.  In fact, if it wasn’t for the ex deciding to take the kids to her family for Easter, the second reSMUnion would have never gotten off Easter Island.

“Experts” say that children should never be brought into new relationships and certainly for one that is only a couple of months old, that’s good advice.  But what is certainly less clear in my mind is what you tell the ex with whom you are attempting to parent along side.

The easy answer is to say nothing, but when you say you are travelling 1,000 km on Easter weekend to a place I rarely travel to and have historically known no one, well that just begs more questions than it answers. Questions were raised.

Let’s say it’s been a week of “interesting” conversations that I’m sure many 2nd and 3rd timers have had to deal with in due course.  I’m kind of just addressing things head on.  While some of these conversations aren’t easy, it’s refreshing after years of not talking about issues to deal with issues frankly, even if painfully.

More importantly though, it’s another step away from the past and forward to the future.  It’s not even Easter yet, but I feel as though I’ve already found the golden egg.  She’s sweet too.

When you meet someone from the Internet, you just never know.  For the home players in our midst, Megs and I have spent the last few months texting and calling each other which culminated in her travelling a 1,000 kilometres to visit me after her father’s passing.

To. Visit. Me.

Yes, the enormity weighed heavily on that sort of crazy gesture with a complete stranger.  Plenty of promises were made to reduce expectations.  I love when she tells me “you are at a 10 and I need you at a 2.”  Turns out I love a lot of things she tells me now.

I promised to be the perfect gentlemen and that lasted most of a day.  When we kissed for the first time, she was “what the hell took you so long.”

“I wanted you to know you could trust me,” and that really was the only reason I waited.

This was one of those rare instances where the connection we had carefully cultivated online, blossomed so fast in those first few hours.  With each passing hour, the “2” referenced earlier became a “3” followed by a “4” then a “5”.  We were a 9.5 by the time we went to sleep next to each other and an 11 the rest of the weekend.

The distance between us forced us into hours of “fail-early” sort of conversations.  No one – not her, not I – wants to sign up for a long distance relationship unless every single other due diligence box is ticked.  It made for extremely interesting discussion and really getting to know each other our prime objective.  On reflection, we communicate so well together (huge tick). The remainder of the ticking and bopping equally validated what days before were just hopes.

This post could have so easily have been the end of this series had a red flag emerged, but not so.  In fact, I think you, as one of our adoring fans, find yourself closer to the beginning, than the end of this particular story.

My dating advice for you today… go long the airline stocks this summer.  This shit is about to get real.

The plot thickens.  A meeting between us is afoot – a fortnight hence (well actually less than that but I’ve always wanted to use “fortnight” – some of you are now googling just how long is that exactly.  Read your Shakespeare people!).

What happens when time zones collapse and Tinders collide?  Popcorn and 3D glasses for sure for the voyeurs on the net – that’s what.  Don’t even ask for pictures, this is an advice column, not a porn site.

So many interesting conversations for us to have face-to-face.  Some extensions of conversations we’ve had already and others turning over new soil.  That’s not to imply they may be dirty, but one never knows what’s under the sod? (Oh, that is totally edgy – eek).

So the plan is a foot.  Thus far, I’m picking her up at the airport.  The cricket symphony is playing a tune for a few days yet, but between now and then, I’ll brilliantly figure the rest out.  To say I haven’t thought about the rest would be a total outright lie, but I like to let the ideas ferment a little more before divulging my secrets.

She’s got the biggest eulogy of her life to deliver tomorrow and I know she’s going to stop the earth’s rotation for just an instant or two to share a moment of gratitude and inspiration for anyone lucky enough to be within earshot.  No distractions because that is truly what’s most important right now. The rest is just the Dunphy distraction.