My First Kiss

Yep, I’m going there.

And for all of my more traditional family members who don’t want to think about me kissing a boy til marriage, turn your computer off before it explodes from my sinful nature expressing itself in an unmarried kiss.  It happened, and I’m gonna talk about it only because it was one of those defining moments in life that turn out to be a little less than you expected.  Well, a lot less. Awkward dissappointment may be the right terminology.

My first kiss happened in 6th grade, I was just a few months shy of 12 years old. I was “dating”  a boy named Nick Green.  Some of you knew him, know him, dated him… let’s just call it like it is. He was my first boyfriend.

Wait, I take that back… I had a boyfriend in 4th grade, too.  His name was Craig Engfer.  Oh yeah.  Engfer. We both liked each other the entire school year and while all my other friends were hopping between boys (in 4th grade, that’s crazy!) I was only interested in Craig. [insert dreamy eyes] I wrote in my journal the day he asked me out that he was so cute and adorable and sweet and kind plus about 50 other words to explain my infatuation.  Two weeks later the school year was over and I guess we broke up.  I wrote again in my journal how mad I was that “HE ASKED ME OUT  and WHERE DID HE TAKE ME? NOWHERE!!!!”  I don’t know what I expecting from a 9 year-old boyfriend but apparently I had high expectations.  I also used a lot of capital letters. I think I was just heartbroken that I finally had such a sweet boyfriend and then he dumped me 2 weeks later. I found him on facebook a few years ago, so hopefully he won’t find this ranting about his 4th grade girlfriend.

Anyway, back to Nick.  I say the terms “boyfriend” and “dating” generally because in the 6th-grade sense of the word, it means we hung out on the weekends with a group of friends, saw each other in school, sat together at lunch, and held hands on our way out to the school bus. We probably also bought balloons for each other on our birthdays because that’s what we did in middle school.  (Birthday balloons were like a popularity contest and whoever had the most balloons on their birthday was obviously the coolest person ever.  I was in Chorus, not soccer. I was more interested in singing opera in a recital than running for SCA President.  I never had the most balloons.)  Nick and I also went to a couple school dances together, dancing all the awkward slow songs and watching the drama unfold as other couples were breaking up and making up and making out all in a 10-minute period of time.

So onto the first kiss, sorry for wasting your time on all my 11 year-old social nonsense.  My introduction to the world of physical intimacy occured next to my school bus, which was in a long line of school buses, while hundreds of kids were looking and gawking and passing by. Cause THAT’s not awkward. I had been anticipating this kiss for weeks because it’s tradition that the boyfriend and girlfriend meet in the hallway by the main section of lockers before walking out to the buses so they can hold hands on the way out.  And you have to hold hands with interlocking fingers, not the way you hold hands with your Mom.  That’s social suicide.  We held hands the right way.  And on our way out I was feeling more and more nervous about this kiss.  HIs friends had probably been riding him about it since we started dating, so I knew it was coming.  He walked me to my bus, like such a gentemen, and in the moments between arriving to the bus and me turning away from him to hop up the steps, he grabbed my body in a really tight and awkward hugh and gave me a quick and kind of hard peck on the lips. It was not sweet. It was not cute.  And it was not romantic.  But hey, I could say when I got on the bus that I’d had my first kiss and I guess that’s what makes it so memorable.

Thanks, Nick.