How to Stop Overthinking Early Dating

Read the opening

It is a quarter past eleven on a Wednesday, and you are sitting up in bed with your phone, looking at a message that says, Had a really nice time tonight. Sleep well. You have read it perhaps nine times. You have noticed that there is no kiss at the end. You have noticed that he said really nice, and not great, and you have wondered whether really nice is a warm phrase or a polite one. You have opened the notes app and typed three possible replies. One is breezy. One is a little warmer. One you deleted because it had an exclamation mark and you felt it looked keen. You have checked the time he sent it, and the time you got home, and done a small calculation about what the gap means. And at some point in the last half hour, without quite deciding to, you have also looked at his Instagram, found a tagged photo from two summers ago, worked out which of the women in it might be an ex, and looked at her profile too. You have met him three times. If this sounds familiar, I want to say first that there is nothing wrong with you. You are not desperate, or needy, or too much. What is happening is extremely common, and it happens to calm, competent, sensible women all the time.