You asked, so here is "The dating scoop"

Meet Scott. This picture was taken after church two weeks ago - our first picture together. He's about seven inches taller than me, and I'm about 9 months older than him. He's from El Paso and moved to Dallas last year about one week after I did so. And up until two weeks ago lived less than a mile from me. But instead of running into each other in traffic or at the local Walmart, we met online. Yes, I said it. We met online. Gasp if you want, but it really is the new wave of dating, especially if you go to a church with no available men your age and lead a busy life - that's me. You just have to be smart and not stupid and it's safe. I submitted a profile on match.com towards the beginning of June after being encouraged to do so by a long-time friend (Celeste) and her cousin. I was a non-paying member for about two months, but towards the end of July I decided to pay so I could actually communicate. Two weeks later Scott winked at me, I winked back, he wrote me, I wrote back, he wrote me again, I wrote back, he called me, I answered and the rest is history.

Scott is an executive manager for a safety footwear company. They sell steel-toed boots, electrostatic footwear, etc. His office is right down the street from my school, but he's not there very often. He travels a whole lot during the week, selling shoes out of one of the mobile units or checking on a store in one of the other 10 states in his territory. So far that's okay though because it allows me to focus on school during the week without too much distraction. At least until after 9 pm when he calls. And then we get to spend time together on the weekends. Of course, we've already had to have a couple of study dates since school is a priority in my life right now. And yes, I did study. He's good about that.

For the first date, he took me to Red Lobster and then we went to the movie to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He was a perfect gentleman. On our second date he brought me roses, took me to eat Chinese, and we hung out and rented a movie. We tried to go to the park, but the mosquitoes were out in full force. During one of our phone conversations the next week, I caught him referring to me as his girlfriend when talking about introducing me to his friends. That's when I decided to be silly and write this note, with the help of my friend Amy. We became "official" that next weekend by deciding to hide our profiles on the dating website, and yes, Amy and Chris, we had already held hands by this point. I'm glad he wanted to hide the profiles because I would never be comfortable dating more than one person at a time and was glad to know he didn't want to either. He moved to Plano the next weekend, and I helped, though I was sad to see him move far away. He assured me he had a surprise to make the 30-minute commute easier.

The past two weekends have been full of moving him and unpacking and there hasn't been much time for dates, plus I had a project this weekend. We did spend a lot of time together anyway and were able to catch Red Eye at the theater on Sunday. It was a good movie. Scott thought it was a little too predictable, but I know he liked the fact that it made me jump a few times. In the meantime he calls me every day even as he's away on business. And Sunday I got my surprise - he gave me a Toll Tag. It was cute how he did it too. He used my computer while he was waiting at my apartment for me to change after church, and he called out asking what year my truck was. I was confused but responded. Then I approached him and saw my liscence plate number as a note on his PDA. "When did you get that?" I asked. "Yesterday," he said. Sneaky. And then he showed me on the computer that he had just transferred one of the passes on his account to my truck. I thought it was very sweet. Check out this map. The red line is the way I used to have to go, but this Friday they are scheduled to open a new segment called the Super Connector (the big arrows along the green line). That will provide a direct route and knock at least 5 minutes off the commute for both of us.

So, there's the scoop for you. It's easier to share here than in individual emails. We'll see what happens.