Cuffing up

The other day on Facebook, a status update with an unfamiliar phrase caught my eye:

Ooooooh baby... Do u not feel that cuffing weather outside right now????!! The season is in full effect!! How many of ya'll cuffed up right now?! Lmao S/O to all my couples that's cuffing up tonight!!! LOL

I had never heard the term "cuffing up" before, so I Googled it. According to urbandictionary.com, it means "to be in a relationship or flirtationship." And that's the story of how I discovered my new favorite phrase. It might be a common expression among some people, but not among my acquaintances; everyone I've floated it by so far has been unfamiliar with it.

Anyway, my Facebook friend is right. There is a chill in the air and a slight orange tinge to the trees, and people are indeed cuffing up left and right. The Sensitive Bostonian's Brother went on his very first OKCupid date the other evening, and is already cuffing up with this girl. I was at a party this weekend with two other newly-cuffed-up friends of friends. It's spreading like wildfire.

I too seem to be happily cuffed up, for the moment at least. I'm still not making any long-term plans with Dreamy, or calling him the B word (when did "boyfriend" become such a loaded word??). I had to remind several people this weekend that things are still very tenuous: my sister and Slinky asked, back to back, when they would get to meet him; the next day my dad posed the same question. When I told him it might be a while seeing as we've only been out four times, he made a comment along the lines of, "Oh, so it's been a four-date, 200-blog-post relationship so far." Yes, Dad, that's exactly right. It's a little condition called "diarrhea of the mouth" that I inherited from my mother.

In fact, Dreamy seemed to be thinking along the same lines as my sister, dad and Slinky, and sent me a text the other day asking if I would join him and a group of his friends for a viewing of Jaws. I agreed excitedly; in fact, I was so excited that I had trouble sleeping after receiving his text, like a kid on Christmas eve. A few hours later, though, he had to cancel: something had come up at work.

It's not a big deal, and I quickly overcame my disappointment and was glad for a restful evening at home. I need all of those I can get these days. He asked if we can have a phone date instead, and we planned to get together another evening this week, before he heads off to a far-off country for a 9-day work trip. Still, it was a reminder that, while I know that he is a very sweet guy, there are still many, many things I don't know about him. Like, if he really has time to have a girlfriend.