intro: this girl has been a major part of my life for about 5 years (since freshman year) and we both "seperated" to go to college. She's up near Canada at Western Washington and I'm near Mexico at Universal Technical Institute.

We talked for about 3 hours last night!!!! I got an AIM message that she was going to get drunk and partay so i called her, she didn't answer so i left a message telling he to call me back (i was kinda worried). She called at about 1ish when she came back and she didn't have anything to drink... cuz one girl bailed (their supplier) and all this one gay guy had was peach shnapps (pepermint is soooooo much better, liquid candy cane!). She tried it and didn't like it.

So after talking for about 10 min, she said she was kinda tired and then she told me something I never thought I'd hear her say: "Do you realize how many people say that we will be married?"

Yeah... married. My whole congregation thinks (some "know") that we will be married in the future. Most of her friends think so... some of mine think that too... I've never thought about it until she actually said it. She then proceeded to tell me that I shouldn't be worried about her dating other guys here because they all either do drugs or are plain stupid/ugly/whatever. She misses me and kinda wanted me to come back.

Well, another hour down the line and she says that we should take a little vacation at a little village in the Cascade mountains for a few days. Just us (well, a few other people will be living there too), in the snow, together for the winter. it's either that or Cannon Beach in Oregon during the summer when I'm done with school.

This girl is amazing... I miss her so much! <3!!!

Personally, marriages or long-term commitments can work for any "brand" of couple. They can also not work, and that can be the case with people in their teens and twenties, or people in their fifties. It's pretty equal opportunity.

But small steps, ratherthan giant leaps, tend to help with that. Like being at least in the same town for a couple years before talking marriage, and living together first to see how it all goes in that regard (because cohabitating and dating are two very different things).

This statement, kind of hit me strangely: "She then proceeded to tell me that I shouldn't be worried about her dating other guys here because they all either do drugs or are plain stupid/ugly/whatever."

She may or may not have intended it as such, but I personally don't take that kind of protestation as a sign of commitment simply because someone says they won't date anyone else because there's no one else appealing --not because they are willfully choosing to be with you, even should appealing others be present.

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Heather Corinna
Editor and Founder, Scarleteen

As for the giant leaps, i'm not planning on taking them anytime soon. Little baby steps are the key and thats whats going to happen... once i'm done with school, I'll be going back up to washington to work and live there. She'll still be in college so we might room together with some of her friends too.

Commitment is actually from an action verb, "to commit." It doesn't happe with a ring, it happens with dealing with the good stuff and the bad stuff, et cetera.

I guess 'm not sure what you're asking here, but if you're taking small steps, and seeing how it goes as it goes, there's really little to fret about.

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Heather Corinna
Editor and Founder, Scarleteen