The language or the kiss

There's just way too much reminiscing going on lately in the blogs I read -- year in review posts, high school stories, and (my current inspiration) this post from the bloggernacle about the politics of teenage romance and the necessity of kindness. All of these have a thousand stories spinning in my head (though I'll only share a few)....

This has the potential to be embarrassingly personal; feel free to stop reading right now, lol.

No. 1

Because grade school crushes and kissing tag don't count, we'll say my official first kiss came the December after I turned 15. I felt like such a late bloomer (although in the context of my very conservative community and my circle of friends I probably wasn't). My sister -- a mere 11.5 months older than I -- had been locking lips for years already; she had cool friends and knew all the cool boys while I couldn't figure out how to sustain eye contact with members of the opposite sex, let alone flirt with them. And yet somehow that winter I ended up with a boyfriend. Sort of.

A casual friend from gym class had a brother a year ahead of us in school. We used to joke around that I thought he was hot -- he wasn't bad looking (big eyes, floppy hair just the way I liked it), but I honestly didn't have any romantic interest in him -- and one day he overheard us. He got in on the joke, buying me a plastic ring from a 25-cent machine; I didn't feel threatened because it wasn't serious and I didn't really like him and I knew he didn't like me. "Will you be my girlfriend?" he asked in the cheesiest way possible. I said yes, oh yes, my dream has come true. Probably with a roll of my eyes.

It didn't mean anything, but I started spending more time with that friend and her brother. One day after school I went with them to the art gallery their father owned, and this boy took me down to the basement on the pretense of getting a soda. But apparently adolescent boys deserve their reputation, and he got me on the couch and kissed me before I knew what was going on. "Huh," I thought. "This is what the fuss is all about?" We kissed a little bit more before his sister called down to see what we were up to.

Frankly, I wasn't impressed.

And yet.... We kept hanging out, and he kept kissing me. And as it turned out, I grew to enjoy it quite a bit. I didn't enjoy the fact that we had nothing in common, that he often couldn't remember my name, that his sister and I referred to him as "C" the Whore Monger (because he'd go for anything that moved). If he was a whore monger, what did that make me? I knew the answer. But I liked the kissing. I -- the ugly duckling, socially awkward, terribly insecure and gullible little girl -- liked the attention I knew I wouldn't otherwise get.

The turning point came at a church dance he took me to, where we sat the entire night in the foyer making out (while the chaperones were inside, making sure all slow dancers stood a Bible's width apart). Afterwards, my neurotic imagination ran wild: If I liked the kissing this much, what next (*wink, wink, nudge, nudge*)...? I was sure to end up the subject of an after school special on the perils of teen pregnancy before too long. So I broke it off. I wrote him a note in Biology -- something to the effect of, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings (if I have), but this was supposed to be a joke and I don't know when it turned into something else. I can't hang out with you anymore. Sorry.

I vowed never to kiss a boy again until I meant it.

No. 2

Next came my first love. Mad, passionate, totally unrequited love. I got to know him through my sister, I think, but bravely forged a friendship of my own with him. We shared a love of beaches and beatniks, poetry, art, and music. He had soft and deep cow-brown eyes, dark floppy hair, full lips; he wore a hippie seed bead necklace and Tevas. He introduced me to jazz and Jack Kerouac and I knew -- I just knew -- that he was the only one for me, ever.

The feeling wasn't mutual. We hung out a lot, and even went on a few of what you'd call actual dates; I think most people, including my friends and family, thought he was my boyfriend. But he never was. He knew how I felt, eventually (I wrote him a love letter after a year of this sweet torture), but though he liked me, he didn't like me like me. He'd come and go (easier after he left for college, a year ahead of me) -- allegedly so as not to lead me on, but I suspect he enjoyed knowing I'd always wait for him like a smiling, stupid puppy if he wanted to take me out. What an ego boost I must have been for him.

There is so much to say about this boy, so many stories both bitter and sweet.... I loved him all through high school and for years afterward. I didn't want to; I couldn't help myself.

He almost kissed me once. We were sitting in his car in front of my house, trying to avoid saying good night. Talking about nothing in particular. Reading poems we'd written, maybe (he shared my brand of pseudo-intellectualism). It was Spring, the air warm and the apricot tree, heavy with blossoms, a shock of white in full moonlight. I had cut my long hair into a sassy bob recently, and he complimented me on it. "I like the way it curls there," he said, touching my hair, letting his finger graze down the side of my face to where the hair hit at my bottom lip. He leaned a little toward me as he did it.

This was it, the moment, the touch, the lead up to the pitch. And I -- paralyzed by fear of mistaken cues, fear of rejection, paralyzed as much by my longing -- freaked out. I jerked back the other way and started babbling quickly and incoherently that it only curled because I tucked it behind my ear all day and really my hair is stick straight and I can't do anything with it though some of my sisters have curly hair and I'm not sure where they got it except maybe from my dad I guess but I'm glad you like it short so do I and -- Oh, crap. Sorry.

"Never mind," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow, I guess." I got out of the car and went inside.

That was the only time he ever tried.

No. 3

This boy -- my missed opportunity! -- restored my faith in men. He was sweet and wholesome, adorable and kind. My friends and I got to know him toward the end of high school; we'd talk and goof off in journalism class under the pretense of brainstorming stories for the school paper. One day, as prom season approached, he absentmindedly put his hand over his heart and sighed a heavy sigh.

"Guys," he said (K2 and I still reenact this sometimes, it was so cute), "I need a girlfriend."

I wanted to let him know how much I liked him -- I wanted to raise my hand right then and volunteer for the job! -- but I couldn't. I didn't know how. Terrified of the inevitable rejection, I merely smiled. Probably reassured him that a great guy like him would find someone.

Several years and some distance later, we went out for ice cream to catch up and stumbled upon the topic of first kisses and past relationships. When he asked about mine, I lied: Using the Cosmo (ca. 1960s) Rule -- regardless of the actual number, a girl should admit to more than one lover (so as not to seem naively inexperienced) but not more than three (so as not to appear trampy) -- I told him about boy No. 1 and claimed No. 2 as my kissy-faced boyfriend with whom things just didn't work out. (Hey, it was almost true. It should have been true.)

Then he told me about his. He'd been nervous, but I guess his hussy of a date (lol) had made it easy on him. "You know," he said, "the look that girls get when they want you to kiss them? You know that look." Sure, I said, and he continued on with his story -- while I wracked my brain, trying to figure out what that look might be and how I had missed that obviously standard bit of girl training. Not wanting to attempt the secret signal and give him crazy googly eyes by mistake, I let the moment pass; he never knew that I would have kissed him, and meant it.

My experiences with the first two boys were complicated, and I continue to feel conflicted about them as I look through the lens of my revisionist history. But No. 3? I think of him with nothing but fondness.

No. 4

Ten years after making out in the church foyer -- or, in other words, ten years since the last time I'd kissed somebody, anybody -- and a thousand miles away, I met the fourth and final boy in this sordid history. He spoke softly with a lilting Southern accent; his eyelashes went on and on and on. I watched him from afar at church (or as afar as you can get in a singles' congregation of ~15 people), and slowly got to know him in a New Testament class we took that fall; as a new convert, his spirit shone. He utterly charmed me, without meaning to, without even noticing my presence (let alone my reaction to his).

I figured the old adage was right: If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got. Tired of letting all that raging insecurity and fear rule my behavior, I decided to ask him out. It took me a month and a half to screw up the courage (and K2, my roomie at the time, will tell you I remained a mess of nerves for long after, lol) but finally I did it. And he said yes.

I don't think I could have mustered the strength to remain the aggressor, or even have played it Dutch (taking turns asking each other out), so imagine my relief when he -- this smooth older man with different, shall we say, life experiences behind him -- took the lead:

Our third date. He stayed a while to chat after dropping me off at my apartment; we sat on the orange couch talking as the time ticked away into the wee hours ... and then a lull in the conversation. He leaned in and -- simple as that; after all that time and all that angst it was as simple as that -- he kissed me.

Ever the gentleman and unsure, perhaps, of Mormon dating rituals, he apologized. "Should I have asked you first?" he said.

No, I told him, and then I kissed him back.

THE END.

Oy, what a confessional post! But a fun one to think about. I dare any of you, now, to write about your first and/or almost kisses. Go.


~RCH~