Hi GRacia!
i was like erve. i didn't want my husband to call me when we were dating on the internet. for me it was just a waste of time and money because i couldn't understand his accent properly that time. so i preferred email and chat. he has never texted me until i came here in uk. he's not that type of person. but he showed me his love in other ways.
I think your bf-to-be is just a sensible guy, the type of guy who doesn't say he loves all women he chatted to and who is also looking for the right woman to come. wait til he met u in real. early next year? it's not long from now. he surely has feelings for you but want to see you first in person. my then bf hubby told me he wanted to make sure i was genuine and that i was not pretending to be a woman before he let himself drowned in to me. we never had this bf-gf relationship before we met in real.
Just enjoy chatting and emailing with him. he probably thinks that if you can wait, then you are the right woman for him. if you tell him frankly what you want, he might think you're such in a hurry. if you do that, then maybe he's not the one for you as well. we don't really know. I think you better go with the flow.