Dear Meredith,

Love the blog, love you, love the readers. However, I noticed there was a shortage of letters about gay people for whatever reason, so I decided to write in about my situation and try to bump up the stats for Love Letters. Well that, and I also need some advice.

After a rough breakup last year and then several months of not dating, I felt like it was time for me to get back out there and try to meet some new people. I went to Meetup events, created an online dating profile, kept an open mind about being fixed up by friends, the whole nine yards. I met some really interesting people and eventually I started going on dates. Some of them were trainwrecks, but some of them have been great.

I met one of the great ones three weeks ago. He’s funny, cute, smart, and overall a really nice guy. Since we clicked right off the bat, we have gotten together a handful of times and have had a few sleepovers. When we crashed at each other’s places, even though I am attracted to him, I knew in my mind that I wasn’t going to have sex with him just yet. However this past weekend, he stayed over and we did have some late night grilled cheese (I am a guy after all …). He definitely tried to take things further, but I resisted. When he asked if everything was OK, I basically said, “I like to get to know someone before I have sex with him,” which elicited a slightly surprised reaction from my date.

My question is this: Is it really such an outlandish concept to want to get to know someone before you have sex with them these days? Don’t get me wrong — I have been dating for over ten years now and I definitely went through the phase where I threw around the term “date” very liberally, as many of these were clearly one night stands. But at this point in my life (I’m 29), I feel like I want to find out if this person has the potential to be in a relationship with me before we just dive right in. And I don’t mean waiting three months; I’m talking about maybe another two or three weeks while we are still getting to know each other. I don’t think that is unreasonable, but maybe I am in the minority here. How, if at all, do you think I should bring this up to him? I don’t want to make a big dramatic scene about this. I just think it would be better to have a brief but honest chat about what is going on rather than sending mixed signals or making him confused.

Any advice from you and the readers will be much appreciated. Thanks!

– Wanting a Bit More Time, Boston