Read Part 1 and Part 2 here! 

Circa 2007, in our dating years
I sent an AIM message to the girl who was interested in him saying I needed to talk to her. These details are a big foggy but we spoke about what her interested level was and I mentioned that he expressed interest in me earlier that evening. She immediately assured me that her crush wasn’t very serious and said it was okay for me and him to start down the path of dating.
I can’t remember when I told Justin, I imagine it was that next day when I saw him on campus, but what I do remember from that conversation was me telling him I wanted to move slow.
I had just gotten out of a long term relationship and didn’t want to jump into another one too quickly. It basically killed me inside to say this, because I was so smitten with him, but I felt it was the right thing to do. As only young people would do, we decided we would come up with a “term” to denote when I was ready to call him my boyfriend. We decided that when I was ready, I would tell him by telling him that I wanted to get pizza. (recalling this memory is so hilarious because it would make so much more sense to just shoot the man straight but for some reason we decided this was the way to do it!)
We were spending time together, almost daily like we had been beforehand, and on a random Friday night I was genuinely craving pizza. I didn’t mean “let’s be boyfriend/girlfriend pizza”, I just wanted regular pi...