Well since Sam, I have remained single. Yes, I was messing around some with a girl on campus, but that was just to satisfy my physical cravings, and nothing more. It was sex, and in many ways, I do regret it and wish I could take it back, but the past is the past, and all we can do is learn from it...

Anyway, back in high school, I knew a girl named Diana. She is two years younger than me, and dated one of my ex-high school friends back then for two years. I always felt like she was giving up so much by dating him, especially with how he treated her, and on top of that I was suppressing my own feelings towards her.
Time passed, and we stopped talking as I went to college and she continued in high school. In those two years we have not talked, she broke up with the ex-friend, and has dated a few other people, as have I.
When I discovered she was interested in hanging out again, I remembered the feelings I had suppressed, and felt an above-average desire to spend time with her, catch up on old times, and see how things have changed. We hit things off well in our first conversation, which was to be expected, and soon enough I was getting vibes that she was interested in me. I wasn't sure of my chances with her, since she apparently has many people interested in her, but I gave it a shot, and gingerly asked her out, to which she agreed.

In the time just short of a week that we have been dating, we have grown closer. Each time we hang out isn't a movie 'giddy and ecstasy happiness', but instead is a relaxation, a comfort and feeling that as long as I am with her and her with me, nothing can happen that we can't handle. Instead of the discovery of flaw after flaw in one another like I had so often experienced with Sam, Allie, Erika, and so on, I find our conversations to contain less dialect, but a much deeper understanding and mutual comfort with one another. We find ourselves not tiring of one another as the time we spend together increases, but instead sinking into a serenity, a peace that surrounds and engulfs us.
We both realize we have made many the same mistakes in our pasts, and we discuss these at length, from the overuse of 'I love you' to the mistakes we made in our naivety. We know that love is not an instantaneous thing, it doesn't happen overnight or at first sight, kiss, or breath, but that it grows and builds, and that it is a phrase we should not toss around. Like with all things of importance, they lose their effectiveness and sincerity the more they are tossed around, dulled by the dirt and grime they fall in to.

We are having sex, which can lead to problems, but unlike sex with Sam was, with Diana sex is much more involved and emotional, and not just a physical act of lust. Yes, we do have sex for the pleasure, but when I am the first guy to make her climax, and when our cuddling afterwards, silent and filled with meaning, greatly outlasts the duration of the sex, there is something more there. For the first time, I have felt completely comfortable sitting completely naked, wrapped up in the arms of another, and she has expressed that she feels the same way.

So what is love, and have I fallen in? I don't know what love is, I cannot honestly say that I have experienced it first hand, but I can say that love is not a lake you cannonball into, but more like a sunrise, which at first comes slowly, only hints of light peeking over the horizon of the future, slowly building until it burns bright, heating the atmosphere of life slowly to a warm comfort, only to rise higher as time goes on. Love has alluded me thus far, and while I can only hope for the best, I plan for the worst, and live in the present. Only time can tell how long this will last, and only time can truly test the feelings we share, and the happiness I am finally experiencing again, for the first time in years.