What Happens When He's Still A "Frog"?

Hi all, Brown Baby aka BIg Girl Panties here, finally. The posts have been so good I just haven't wanted to bother putting my own %$^ up here.

Psyche!!...I'm just a lazy ass mofo. My story isn't as lighthearted as some here so I apologize for bringing anyone down to our pathetic realities:

For a little over a month now I have been going out Boxer. He has a great smile, tall, dark, and handsome, makes me laugh, someone I enjoy so much that I break my cardinal rule. Yes, folks, I talk to him on the phone for more than 30 seconds. Anyone who knows me well knows I hate talking on the phone. I don't know why, some 21st century form of ADHD. I'd rather you email and text me plans to meet up to gab rather than talk on the phone. I'd just always rather do something else. I only break that rule for lifelong friends and relatives, especially the elders. But Boxer has had me on the phone for over an hour - gasp - and laughing - gasp - and not wanting to get off the phone - GASP!

While we have fallen into the inevitable "your place or mine" movies and chicken get-up that occurs once a dating couple starts knockin' boots, he still likes to go out and do fun things. His fun attitude towards life is one of his best qualities and his insightful nature and emotional maturity are astounding for a man (sorry).

So what could possibly be the problem? Here's a guy who's great in bed AND wants to be with me AND is great in bed? The problem is the same centuries-old bullshit: the double standard. If Boxer were a female and stripped at every nightclub in town and my name was HUMAN WITH PENIS getting my doctorate at an Ivy League, there'd be no problem. Because it's ok for men to, ahem, "date down." But when I, HUMAN TIED DOWN BY HER VAGINA, fall for an unknown pro-boxer who pays the rent by training NYC clientele, got his associates in dentistry from community college, who once ran with a very well-known still-thriving East Coast gang and only got out when his best friend was killed, who has tattoos all up and down his arms (ok, actually I find that incredibly sexy), and, sigh, a small diamond jewel on one of his canines in his gorgeous smile...it's all kinds of bad.

I went to a small top ten-ranked private girls' school, he was held back when he emigrated here from the West Indies because of his problems translating and reading. I grew up as the quintessential Washington, D.C. black middle class princess. Now black middle class is different than white middle class in some important ways but for the most part I grew up rarely wanting for anything save my mom's sanity to return. Though D.C. was still Murder Capital when I was there, most of the violence I witnessed was on the news or heard of at the kitchen table. He grew up witnessing shootings on a weekly basis. Yet, all we have together is fun, we talk about his life, my life and there's never any awkwardness. It all feels like one big learning experience and its core is a great emotional intimacy.

There's all kinds of potential societal problems the both of us have acknowledged (my heart ached when he looked up at me once and said "do you really think you could be with an average joe like me?").

Sometimes I think I haven't felt this close to someone since my last significant relationship that was almost three years ago. So when all is said and done I'd be a damned fool to pass up any opportunity to be close to someone because of what others may think......
......still, I am not in college anymore. I am 25, he is 28 and we'd also be damned fools to think the gap between us isn't real enough to ignore.