checking on a new boyfriend/girlfriend

I have noted before that back in the day when dating was appropriate, I was pretty rotten at this social skill. So my suggestions in regard to this matter would be worse than useless.
However, I will give you an anecdote about how Ms enna and I found out about each other.
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I joined EP/ILIASM in Feb 2009.
As I was cruising around, reading stuff, the name "enna30" came up a few times as the writer of comments, most of which struck me as being pretty smart. One posting in particular I was very taken with, so I sent her a PM saying so.
She replied thanking me for my PM and enquiring about the huge bushfires that were raging in my jurisdiction at the time, and I replied.
These initial skirmishes revealed some basic info about where we lived, age, work, marital situation etc.
For my own part, I couldn't be arsed embellishing the truth or telling fibs when we conversed, and played it straight down the line, as you do with friends.
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Weeks went by with us still seeing each other around EP and exchanging the odd PM about various posts. I started becoming quite impressed with her smarts and looked forward to our exchanges. A friendship developed. enna30 at that point had not shown her hand about her sense of humour, so one time when we were exchanging messages, I worked in to it one of my favourite jokes - of a highly distasteful politically incorrect theme - to see how she would react.
She thought the gag was very funny and responded with a joke of her own.
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By this time, I had formed a mental picture of enna30, what she sounded like, what she looked like (all turned out to be totally wrong later !!!) and we also began to email each other independent of the EP site. (she was using a 'throwaway' email add, I was using my one and only email add). She sent me a photo (nothing like what I had been imagining).
I sent her a photo of me, and she responded saying I was a good looking bloke. That added more info to the situation and revealed that she obviously had vision problems !!
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By now, I was feeling a lot more attracted to her than "a friend", but I kept that to myself. Unbeknown to me at that time, she was similarly afflicted. But the tyranny of distance, the fact that we were still both married at that time said to me that this was going no-where, and never would, so it would be best to keep it at a friends level.
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She asked me for my phone number. I dithered about for a couple of days, rather unsure of how smart a move this might be, then sent it to her. We spoke for the first time shortly after (her voice was nothing like I had imagined either) This would have been about May 2009 as I recollect.
For my part, at about this time I was thinking that when I got out of my ILIASM deal (my exit strategy was to be out by Jan 2010), and "if" I ever had another relationship, that a chick exhibiting qualities like this enna30 woman could be a pretty cool thing "if" there were any chicks like that about in my jurisdiction.
But of course, it wouldn't be this enna30, too far away, already married (but about to get out) etc etc etc.
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I got an email from her. She put her feelings right out there on the line.
They paralleled what I was feeling at the time too.
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We thought - "we are going to have to meet, to see if there is a "BING" between us IRL as there is on the net / phone".
So we started working on the logistics, won't bore you with those details.
In August 2009 we met.
That was that. HUGE "bing". Intense connection.
The rest is history.
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And all this happened when I wasn't looking for another relationship, doubted that I would ever have an opportunity for another relationship, and didn't particularly care if I never had another relationship.
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Weird shit.
Just blind luck.
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Possibly, at the core of all this, is the fact that neither of us were in to bullshit, and were not trying to "impress" each other, or running some sort of hidden agenda. We were both in our 50's, had been around the block a few times, and were not looking for a relationship. 
We were just being ourselves, and as it turned out, by just being ourselves the chemistry bubbled up into a great mix.
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Addendum.
As you can see, this process started in Feb 2009. We physically met in Aug 2009, we were an item after that.
I would imagine that this sort of timeline would NOT be what most potential "daters" would find acceptable.