A french kiss, in more ways than one. Via philippe leroyer @ Flickr.
I was not the type of little girl who dreamed about my wedding day, or spent a lot of time writing “Dorklet Jones,” “Dorklet Smith,” “Dorklet Pierce,” or whatever combination of my first name and my crush’s last name (thank god I never liked a boy named “McCorkle”). But I did think a lot about kissing. I never went through the “ew, boys” phase, and even before I had any business kissing, I thought it would be pretty great. A boy named Gerald gave me a peck on the cheek at a party just before I started sixth grade, which sent me into perfect spasms of “eeeeeEEEEEEEEeeeee!!!” so I figured that a real, on-the-lips kiss would be The Height of Romance.
And so, as I lurched through puberty, I thought an inordinate amount about how various boys might kiss, and created elaborate (but chaste) scenarios that involved candlelight, or crowded dancefloors, or secret assignations in the choir room at school. By the beginning of eighth grade, I had already envisioned The Perfect Kiss with a boy for whom I had extra-shiny eyes. We were friends, and would socialize together in big groups at weekends, but I wanted him to be The One.
Eighth grade seemed to be when people first began pairing off (at least among my crowd), and so when Ted* and I started sitting next to each other on April’s couch to watch Psycho and eat pizza, I knew it was only a matter of time.
Sometime in late September, a fateful note was passed to me by Ted’s best friend, who wanted to know if I would “go out” with him (which didn’t mean to actually “go out,” but whatever). Ted was smart and funny, and really quite handsome for a 14 year old boy, with a lovely olive complexion, dark floppy hair, and a lanky sportiness that made him just a little bit cooler than the rest of us. I exulted inwardly, replied in the affirmative, and returned the note via my friend. Then I waited for Saturday night, when the regular weekly hang-out was to be at my house.
I don’t remember what movie we watched, or what other sort of adolescent intrigues were going on, because I was completely high on anticipation and the details of my plot, which involved flirtatiously coaxing Ted down to the lake behind my house, where, with only the moon reflecting on the water to highlight my sparkly eyeshadow and expertly fluffed bangs, he would tenderly whisper his love. Then we would lock eyes and draw together slowly, so slowly, embrace with a heretofore unknown passion, and kiss, each entwining the other’s hair in our fingers.
The evening was winding to a close, and parents were coming to pick up my friends. I was hoping that Ted was thinking along the same lines as I, and so I managed to get him onto the back porch. Before I could suggest a lakeside stroll, his father was at the front door. Okay, no lake, no reflected moonlight. We stood there for a few moments, both realizing that This Was Happening, before he shuffled forward a step and said “…my dad…” Okay, no tender declarations. This is still salvageable.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well,” he said.
And then he was on me. Hands on my shoulderpads, seething hairless ferret of tongue in– and around–my unsuspecting mouth. I was too shocked to reciprocate; all I could do was hang on, literally, so I wouldn’t be knocked over, and try to figure out where things had gone so wrong. No initial embrace, no gentle kiss, no twining fingers. THIS WAS NOT THE PLAN.
When he came up for air, I managed to refrain from wiping my mouth on my sleeve before stammering a “goodnight.” He launched himself inside and out the front, and I stood in a daze on the back porch, my slobber-coated chin, not my eyeshadow, glistening in the light.
I broke up with him on Monday. THE END.
* Name changed to protect the ridiculous.
It was a terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-kiss, but I treasure the memory, anyway. Good or bad, what’s your first kiss story?
I remember obsessing over and over again about when and where and who, but not too much about the kiss itself. I’m pretty sure I tried it on a pillow a few times as any one of the crappy books I read back then instructed. The day came in 6th grade (1991-ish), after school, in a stairwell near the “technology” (read: metalwork garage) room. An on again off again boy for the next several years, oh the drama of it all! He had kissed before and I had not, it was fast and I had no idea what I was doing and when it was over he told me I bit him. Awesome. And about 10 seconds after that another boy came down the stairs and asked if he’d caught us kissing. Not the best first kiss, but I only had one direction to go from there, right? *sigh*
Picture it! D.C., 1990! I was 15 years old and two weeks from getting my braces off.
His name was Jamie. We were at a “mixer” of foreign exchange students and their host families held at Gallaudet University. His family was hosting a boy from Malaysia, mine was hosting a girl from Italy.
We flirted all afternoon. We held hands. Then we snuck off to the library and he kissed me. It was unexpectedly soft and wet and I kept worrying about whether he could feel my braces. He lived way in eastern Maryland and this was before teens all had e-mail, Facebook and cell phones, so I never saw him again after that day. The End.
Oh, and MamaSharper–who DOES NOT MISS A THING–apparently saw us sneaking off to the library and later said, “So, did you kiss him?” O the embarrassment!
PhDork! We did the same thing in my school, ie you were “going out” later shortened to “going with.” Any way I was “going” with a guy in 6th grade. His friend called my friend and asked her to ask me if I would “go out” with him. I told my friend that those guys were trying to make fun of me (we were all a bunch of asshole 12 yr olds after all) and I wasn’t gonna fall for their trick. So then his friend “Dan” called me directly (which seemed impressive at the time) and told me it was for real so I said ok. Two days later we had a half day and a bunch of us walked down the street to Hardees and got lunch and the “boyfriend” and I kissed in the parking lot. I really don’t remember much of the actual kiss though because I was so nervous (I knew it was coming) I thought I was going to pass out. Seriously I was shaking. Then one week later he invited me over to his place after school but I knew he would want to feel me up and as I was flat chested I gave some excuse not to go. That night I was dumped in the same circuitous telephone-game manner. oh well…
@Marigold: I’m glad you said 6th grade too so I don’t feel like such a little baby tramp.
I am grinning ear-to-ear right now. Good story. I used to practice kissing on inanimate objects and fantasize about when and how The Real Thing would happen in infinite detail.
My first kiss was with a boy I’ll call J, who was in my acting class. I was 14.
He was very handsome, and very funny, and very talented. A lot of girls had crushes on him. A group of us from the class became good friends and hung out at each other’s houses on the weekends. Somehow the boy and I ended up “dating” and, though one of our friends, I learned he wanted to kiss me next time we were at this other boy’s house. God, how embarrassing! We all played a game of hide-and-seek outside (great plan, friends!) and the boy and I locked lips behind the house. Or, he stuck his tongue down my throat and nearly choked me. He broke up with me shortly after that.
A few months later, he started dating other boys. I went through so much heartache thinking about him that summer. We’ve seen each other a bunch of times since high school and he is a really awesome guy.
I only wish I was free and easy enough as a child to fantasize about kissing without immediately feeling a wave of shame and guilt. I saw getting over my first kiss as an age-appropriate duty I had to get out of the way so as not to be seen as weird or unlikeable. I turned down a ton of boys in 5th and 6th grade when there started to be kissing parties (spin the bottle, etc.) and just avoided the whole scene despite ornate, years long crushes on guys who, in retrospect, totally would have kissed me (Spanish exchange student soccer player in sixth grade WHY was i too embarrassed over having braces to go out with you? You told me the braces were cute! I still regret it!) I just wasn’t bold enough to actually hook things up with boys I was actually attracted to.
Anyhoooo I waited until the week my braces came off in 7th grade and said yes to the next boy who asked me to be his girlfriend. I didn’t really like him but he was nice and considered cute, athletic, and I suppose I felt I could control the situation better and not get in over my head of I didn’t actually crush on him. We went to a dance that weekend and made out during the last song. It was a somewhat horrifying, wet, teeth-gnashing affair. I, too, broke up with him on Monday.
Then I didn’t kiss another boy until I was 15 (he was 21! WTF?), and then not again until my first boyfriend at 17. However the whole time I was having sleepovers with my girlfriends where we would get “drunk” on peach schnapps and make out for “practice.”
@JD: I also had a significant time lapse between my first kiss and my second kiss. I was in high school when that happened.
I wasn’t “going out” with the my first kiss. My mother and his mother were best friends, and we all lived a couple of hours apart. When we would all get together we would stay overnight. Every time, I would end up in “Kyle’s” room to sleep, and we often sleep in the same bed. It was a perfectly innocent set up until “Kyle’s” family had plans to move away. The last night we stayed together, “Kyle” and I stayed up talking. I gave him a hug before we went to sleep, and it slowly, sweetly morphed into a first kiss.
We just laid down after the kiss and fell asleep. I don’t even remember any awkwardness the next morning when we left.
That was the last time that I saw him, but I certainly had something to remember him by.
whoa, Elise, that might be the best first kiss I’ve ever heard of. So jealous!
My first kiss came at the age of 12 at the school disco with a nearby boy’s school – why yes we have such things in the UK particularly if said schools are single-sex and yes they were as cringeworthy as expected.
Anyway disco occurred, people danced and paired off and the tradition was that when a guy fancied you he would get the dj to play the song you wanted and then you would snog. Alas I took that to mean that they would play the song I wanted to hear rather than just playing a slow song to enable smooching, so I asked said boy to request She Sells Sanctuary by The Cult – which I can assure everyone is not a very easy song to kiss to. Particularly not when the girl you are trying to kiss would rather dance around like Ally Sheedy in the Breakfast Club ie badly.
Strangely my odd dancing style appears to have affected the poor chap and we did not have a second kiss, indeed he stood me up at the local cinema the next weekend where we were supposed to be going to see Teen Wolf together – and yes this story does indeed date me.
omg emilyanne I am totally crying with laughter. you are a ridiculous specimen, in the most delightful way.
Drunk on half a Smirnoff Ice freshman year, with a guy I’d just met. Not ideal.
SarahMC, I, too, wondered and fantasized and practiced on inanimate objects. However, I spent all of middle school and high school reading a lot of fanfiction and loathing all of the boys that were my age. Ergo I got to age 19 before my first kiss. My roommate had told me that she thought I might like a friend of hers and, after some hijinks that included a month-long relationship with another girl for him, I decided that I agreed. My years of fanfic had taught me a lot about how two fictional boys might stumble into kissing each other, but not anything useful like how to flirt. I resolved to just straight out say that I was into him, chose a night, and went to hang out with him, mutual friends, my roommate, etc…aaaand then we all hung out until 5 a.m. without me being able to find an appropriate moment. My friends all gave up and decided it was time to go. As we were leaving, I pulled him over to the door of his room and said, “Hey, I was going to have a lead-up to this-” and then he kissed me without me even having to finish saying something really embarrassing.
That was roughly a year and a half ago — we are coming to the end of a summer of living together and are hopefully going to go to the same grad school next fall (fingers crossed).
@bluebears YAY for baby tramps
Despite my mother confusing my later teenage surliness for teenage PREGNANCY (yes, I’d be moody and she’d ask me if I was pregnant and then walk away instead of having a real conversation) I didn’t have sex until sophomore year of college. Eons after that awful first kiss. Guess I just wanted a lot of practice 
I was 13. The game was Truth or Dare. Nothing magical, so I think I’d warn any future children to make sure not to go to parties with Truth or Dare (or choose truth) if they haven’t had their first kiss yet.
First kiss with a boy I liked (and outside of a dare) was at another party 6 months later while watching some movie about high school kids. I can’t remember the one, but I know there was hazing of freshmen involved.
@DangerMouse: Dazed and Confused?
@sarahMC: I lost my virginity to a gay guy so…I’ve got you beat on that one
Summer 1987. Six years old. Day camp provided by my elementary school. A boy whose initials are DJ.
s.o.a.l.g.: Hi!
DJ: Can I kiss you?
s.o.a.l.g.: Sure!
DJ: (((Tiny kiss)))
s.o.a.l.g.: Okay, now I’m gonna kiss you.
DJ: Okay!
s.o.a.l.g.: (((Tiny kiss)))
Sigh. How innocent it all seems now.
This is such a fun thread! I guess my technical first kiss was when, as a small child of 4 or 5, a boy who was the son of my parents’ friends pushed me down, jumped on top of me, and kissed me, but I don’t remember any of it.
My first real kiss took place on a school trip to Washington D.C. in the 8th grade. Several other schools from other states were also on the tour with us, and though I had a mad crush on a boy with my school’s group, he was a friend and I was despairing that things would never happen between us (newsflash, they never did). So, I set my sights on a cute blond boy from Wisconsin (who had been a child model for Lands End catalogs, btw) named Eric. We hit it off and always sat next to each other on the bus between sights and meetings with members of Congress, and we had lots of time to wander the Smithsonian together. We were staying in a college dorm, and would hang out in the rec room playing ping pong. I believe there may have been some hand holding along the way. Anyway, on the last night of the trip, he asked me to come with him. I followed him into a dorm stairwell, and (I love this) he politely said, “Can I kiss you?” I said something in the affirmative, and he kissed me. It was actually a really good first kiss! Very sweet, a little bit of tongue, minimal nose and teeth bumping. I remember realizing later that he had ended up with my gum in his mouth. Being of the internet generation, we traded AIM screen names and exchanged emails for about a year. Then his dad moved the family to Kenya to be a medical missionary, and after one email full of pictures of Kenya, I never heard from him again.
I think my next kiss after that was with a boy at a journalism convention in high school. I never did date any boys I went to school with. I was friendly with a lot of boys, but always felt “too smart” and “too awkward” to believe they could ever like me back.
Met a boy from out of town at the mall when i was 15. We met the next day for lunch, he cornered me at the drinking fountain and tasted like Ravioli with Meat Sauce–I was so grossed out!! He tried to “teach” me to kiss–uuuugggghhhhh. He was cheezy fo sho.
I think losing my virginity was way less traumatic than that Ravioli taste!
Mine was totally weird, in the sense that it was actually GOOD!
I was 15, and coming to the end of my freshman year when I met an 18 year old boy who was in a punk band and tall and lanky and dorky with braces (I’m not 100% positive but I think we started talking on ICQ!) MAJOR swoon! He would bring me cd’s at school and once even dedicated a song to me during an end-of-the-year concert- but alas- he had a girlfriend. When summer started I was staying with my dad who didn’t really give much of a crap about what I was doing or with who- and I started hanging out with his friends (older kids ooh!) and staying up and out much later. He broke up with his girlfriend right as school got out- and our hang outs became more and more of dates. He knew I’d never been kissed, and I was soooo charmed by him I could barely contain myself. Finally, FINALLY after weeks of hanging out- we were watching a movie on my bed at my dads house, when he started kissing me on my neck, then up to my ear, and across my face and FINALLY he kissed me on the lips. It was slow and soft and tender and sooooo perfect (as I remember it!) Of course we broke up a few weeks later after he made out with my best friend.
Crazy enough though- 9 years later we’re still incredibly close, and up until I was in a relationship about a year and a half ago- we’d still smooch sometimes! He lives nearby and I visit him often. I don’t think that I know anyone else who is still super close with their first kiss!
JD – it is the British way you know, I know many people with similarly silly stories. After that i didn’t really kiss anyone until the two years later when a friend of mine tried to be sophisticated by having a garden party and it descended into a teenage kissing frenzy – probably not helped by the presence of (minimal) amounts of alcohol. Most of us were 15 by then and our parents were of the opinion that moderate monitored watered down alcohol consumption was fine. They would probably have been arrested in the US.
Well, this is timely because I recently turned 22 and went into a crisis of oh-my-god I still haven’t been kissed.
For a long time I had Catholic guilt and shame issues that kept me from doing anything at all, including, like JD, any kind of daydreaming (I am no longer a believer). An ED and body issues meant I didn’t think anyone could like me for a long time, too. And in the relatively short time since I’ve started feeling more confident and relaxed, it just somehow hasn’t happened. There’s a guy I like right now, but I graduated school and now he’s VERY far away. *sigh*
Please tell me all hope is not lost??
Awww, s.o.a.l.g, yours is great! Sweetness, enthusiasm, mutuality, explicit consent.
And elise’s is lovely, too. And baraqiel! I’m glad some people had non-mortifying experiences. Although I gotta say, the mortifying ones are HI-larious. “Mr. Ravioli” had me laughing so hard I drooled on my hand.
Marigold: once, in the middle of a nasty fight with my mother when I was 16, she cried out “ARE YOU PREGNANT?”, which was the most shocking thing I had ever heard come out of her mouth. I was completely outraged and insulted, as there had been no P in my V, and our argument wasn’t even about boys or sex. It was like: not-perfect daughter? Must be knocked up!
ETA: Anonymous This Time, nothing is lost. You’ve shed (most of?) the harmful “SEX BAD!” beliefs, you’re successfully working on the self-image stuff (yay you!), and you’re only 22, gurl. No rush. Unless you want to rush, that is.
I live near a very famous military academy that invites local high school girls to all of their dances since the student body is mostly male.
It is so great to be nerdy and insecure, and go to one of those dances, and have cadets holding your hand and wanting to kiss you right then.
Now that I am way past that, I think, holy shit that could really devolve into a dangerous set up, since there were age and maturity differences.
PhD — lol, i think i might have told you guys before that my mother in a fit at my rebellious sister banned us sleeping naked (which I dont remember doing, it must have been my sis). Trying to calm her down afterward I was like what are you afraid of ? And she’s like, I just don’t want to see your sister end up pregnant! It’s a bizarre mother stand in for any and all dangerous activities I think.
I’m pretty impressed by Funnyface — your first kiss was a. actually enjoyable b. with a male model and c. who later moved to Kenya and sent you pics. Well done!
Mine was a boy named Alex on the basketball court near my house in 7th grade. I was a pretty tomboyish kid and we’d been friends for a few years and “going out” for a month or so before actually spending any time alone together. We were playing horse and stopped to rest and I decided to stop trying to engineer a cute kissing scenario and just said “Well, ok” and leaned over and kissed him. It was like bumperfaces – which I will be forever grateful. Nothing ruins a learning attempt like a ridiculous amount of tongue. Kissing is about the LIPS, people!
*ahem* My first “real” kiss w/you know…tongue was on an orchestra trip to Toronto. I was 14 and was friends with a senior couple who were def. “sexually active” and a little kinky, and they told me a LOT about what to expect from sex (Thanks Jess and Noah!) I mentioned to Jess that I’d never had a french kiss and she dared me to french her boyfriend right then and there. It was freaking awesome.
Anonymous, so not lost. Your first kiss, whenever it comes, is bound to be better than your average seventh grader’s. Also, if someone told me they had recently freed themselves from the shackles of Catholicism and wanted me to be the recipient/partner of their first kiss, I’d be beyond excited.
Oh god, this is a hilarious thread. Great way to start off the weekend!
I, like many dorky gals, spent high school reading Lord of the Rings and messing around on the internet. So my first real kiss was during my sophomore year of college at a dance party, drunk, with one of my friends. It was… gross. Slobbery and slimy and in retrospect we think he had a marshmallow in his mouth (neither of us remember WHY or HOW that would be). Afterward I just sort of ran away and (coincidentally, @emilyanne) spent the rest of the night dancing like Ally Sheedy to the Cure. No, really.
My first GOOD kisses were during an impromptu 30-person game of spin the bottle in the campus coffee house at 1 a.m. That’s when I discovered that girls often make much better kissers.
mkp — hot friends! all my older friends shared with me was their 4 foot tall mystery bong.
@PhD: It’s a lot sweeter than my eight-year-old “marriage and divorce at summer camp” story that I told you earlier this week!
@ImtheMarigold – Every time I tell my mother I have any kind of news, she asks if I’m pregnant. I know she’d be furious if I ever said yes, but the one time I said “no, but I am engaged” she totally lost it. Of course, I was 18 and a freshman in college, so she prolly thought I wanted to drop out and spend the rest of my life barefoot and pregnant on some farm somewhere.
Cait – ha we Ally Sheedy dancers must stick together. To this day my best friend sighs over my dancing style – when John Hughes died yesterday she phoned from the UK to ask whether i was Ally Sheedy dancing in his honour.
@Anonymous: OMG, no, all is not lost! One of my most beloved ex boyfriends grew up in a very religious community and didn’t get his first kiss until he was 23. And by the time I got to him when he was 31, he turned out to be one of the best lovers I’ve ever had. By being an adult when he became sexually active, he pretty much skipped over the whole awkward adolescent phase. Starting early is no guarantee of anything–if you read these stories, you’ll see that those of us who got kissed for the first time as teenagers generally found it kind of funny/yucky. By being older, you pretty much guarantee that whoever kisses you that first time will know what they’re doing!
JD- not sure you can call someone a male model if all they did was model long johns when they were a raggedy kid, but I have been known to exaggerate the story and say my first kiss was with a male model before!
@PhDork, JD, Becky–huuuuge sigh of relief to hear that from people whose opinions, based on your writing, I’ve come to respect. Thank you!!!
@Anonymous: Just to add my two cents, I may have done some (limited) kissin’ and cuddlin’ in my teens and early 20s, but I was a virgin until almost exactly a year ago, and I’m now 28. So everyone does things on their own timetable and it does not at all reflect anything about having “all hope lost.”
@emilyanne – Truth is, I tend to do the Ally Sheedy dance a lot at clubs when I want to avoid random guys coming up and humping my ass. No one wants to dance with the girl who’s flailing her arms wildly! Plus, it’s just more fun that way. (I’m totally watching the Breakfast Club tonight, btw.)
@anonymous – I can relate. Sometimes, I feel like I spent most of high school and college as a perpetual wallflower. But I’m so glad I didn’t actually start kissing people until I grew out of my awkward phase. I was much more relaxed and comfortable with myself, and had a lot more fun. (Excepting the aforementioned first kiss, of course.)
Brilliant thread! This is so much fun.
@ Baraquiel – congratulations! It’s so rare that a first goes 1) that smoothly, and 2) into an actual relationship. Very cool.
@Anonymous – don’t feel alone! Two of my former roommates are now about 38, and both still virgins. One just got kissed for the first time two years ago. She had definite opinions about it, but enjoyed the experience very much. So all is NOT lost!
Okay, so there’s my “first” kiss, and then my first “real” kiss.
“First” kiss. Party in 7th grade, think it was truth or dare. I totally had a huge crush on Jordan, this guy that about a third of the 7th grade girls had a crush on. He looked more mature than most, was nice, sweet, polite, a little reticent, had a square jaw, sandy hair, and nice eyes. I’d already written a scandalous lovenote to him in French (bad French, but it seemed so much better in French, anyway) that I’d shared with my girlfriends, and one of them had begged to keep it. It was anonymous, so I don’t think he ever knew who’d written it. Anyway, one of my friends dared me to kiss Jordan. I did. It was soft, short, sweet, and Jordan was a bit embarrassed and reticent (of course). So kind of nice, but in a circle of probably 12 boys and girls all staring at us, and no tongue action, of course.
So my first “real” kiss was senior year of high school. I had been a chubby kid, but summer after Junior year I’d lost loads of weight, and was feeling pretty sexy, getting lots of responses from my juvenile flirtations. So I went out with this cute, mature-seeming Sophomore from another school (so exotic!) whom I met at a friend of a friend’s party. He was an actor, had had a number of professional TV and local theater jobs, headshot, and all. (He gave me a signed headshot! Ha! Which I later threw out with glee.) He made me a mixed tape with lots of Billy Joel on it (really?? are you 40?? I thought, in that era of grunge), and he had amazing eyes and hair. Very cute. I even took him to a school dance, to show off that I was dating “an outsider.” So we were in his basement one day, listening to music & talking, and he leaned over and kissed me. It was what I’d been waiting for. I hadn’t wanted to initiate it. And frankly, I was thinking of this as “good practice” for the the REAL thing, later. It was actually an okay kiss, soft and sweet, until he stuck his tongue in my mouth and proceeded to sweep it like he might have seen on some movie. We went out for just a couple of weeks, and soon after that kissing session (I decided to keep going, see if it got better – sort of) I broke up with him. (He was always Playing a Role and was totally incapable of being himself.)
But that kiss did the trick. It made me feel confident enough when it came time to kiss the guy I really had my eye on, the guy who would become my first real boyfriend a month later, for the next year. He was amazing, and that kiss, and that relationship, was my first true love and something I’ll always cherish. I’m so glad I’d had the practice!
(sorry for the epic post – so much fun!)
@funnyface – How funny your first was so polite about it! Remarkable for a young man. Coincidentally, my now-husband was similarly circumspect and polite on our first few dates, asking permission to hold my hand, to kiss me, etc. I thought it silly (considering I was ripping off his shirt in my head) but very sweet. That respect is one of the things that attracted me to him in the first place.
I was about 12. It was our class’s first Major Boy-Girl Party. Truth or Dare. My “boyfriend” of about 6 months and I had never kissed. I guess we were shy (which probably was a good thing at that age), but I was done waiting to kiss my super-cute, most popular guy in school boyfriend. So I told my best friend to dare us to make out– WITH TONGUE– for at least 10 seconds. She did, and we spent several minutes in the dark corner of her basement making out. Looking back, I’m sure the actual kissing involved a lot of “Darting- Fish-Stabby-Tongue Syndrome”, but I thought it was the Best Thing Ever. I was in looove.
I still think fondly of my first kiss. Long story short, I fell HEAD OVER HEELS (in my 14 year old mind) for my closest girl friend, who had begun cuddling with me and sleeping in the same bed as me and such. There were months of pining and angst and “am I really gay” “what if it ruins our friendship” and then one night she snogged me! Aaand we snogged and snogged all night.
However, more treasured to me now is my boyfriend’s first kiss, because I gave it to him. We’d been really close friends for years and years, and he’d admitted to having feelings for me early on – but knew I was gay (or so we both thought) and taken and it would never happen blah blah. Life is funny, and after a solid 4-5 years of being convinced he’d never get me, he did. I spent a long weekend with him and took 3 days building up my courage, and trying to find “the perfect moment” because I knew it would be his first.
But then during the credits of Ghostbusters I decided to just go for it.
Who you gunna call?
You know that Taylor Swift song, “Fifteen”? Probably not, since most self-respecting adults don’t do a whole lot of listening to Taylor Swift, but nevertheless. My first kiss was just like that. Exactly. I was 14, a freshman, I went on my very first date with a junior who had a car and played baseball, and he kissed me in the movie theater. Then he told me he loved me when he dropped me off. Five short weeks later he broke my heart and took up with a girl named Autumn who had crunchy-curly hair and wore dark lip liner. Took me AGES to get over him; I didn’t kiss another boy until my senior year.
And then you’re on your very first date and he’s got a car and you’re feeling like flying.
And your mama’s waiting up, and you’re thinking he’s the one, and you’re dancing ’round your room when the night ends.
‘Cause when you’re fifteen and somebody tells you they love you, you’re gonna believe them.
And when you’re fifteen, and your first kiss makes your head spin round.
In your life you’ll do things greater than dating the boy on the football team.
But I didn’t know it at fifteen.
I know it’s cheesy as all get out, particularly as I’m all 28 and wizened now, but I can’t help but remember feeling exactly that way at that age. Forgive my song-lyric quote-age; I guess my expressive proclivities have regressed back to my 15yo go-to tropes, too.
Liz, if you can’t get a little action during Ghostbusters, then when are you gonna get it?
And Darting-Fish-Stabby-Tongue Syndrome. I know it well, although we called it “Darty Stabbing Fish Tongue” back in my day. So very unsexy.
What a great post, and so many sweet and funny tales on this thread! I know I’m late to the party, but here goes:
It’s mid-June, 1984, less than a month after my 13th birthday. I am at my friend’s house, at a sort-of going away party, for me. In a few days, I will leave with my parents on a six-week vacation, driving cross-country from NYS to CA and back. I am an only child and at an age that I really don’t want to be away from my friends and alone in a car with my lame-o folks.
The main source of my pain (I had helped plan the trip and it was, of course, awesome) was that just two days prior to this party, I had finally convinced – over the phone and through my best friend – to get a guy I’d been asking out for nearly a year to say “yes” he would go out with me. (PhDork, “going out” meant exactly what you described).
So it was a pool party, with only three girls and three guys and we all “couples.” And it was hot and we spent the whole day in the pool, horsing around, until some of us were positively freezing. I remember warming up in the sun, and then announcing that I would be going into the camper next to the pool to brush my hair.
My new boyfriend followed me in. We both smelt like chlorine and were goose-bumpy. He asked me if I knew what French kissing was. I gulped and nodded. I really just wanted a closed lip smack-a-roo, at least to start!
“Wanna try it?”
I nodded again and we kissed. Open mouthed. It was nice. After a nervous moment, we went back out and joined our friends.
I’m not sure why, but I “broke up” with him upon returning from my trip (having sent him postcards the whole time). He guessed, correctly, that I had gotten my first period while I was away. He said he could tell I had changed somehow.
He remains one of my dearest friends to this day.
I was 15 and at summer camp. Patrick* and I had been “dating” for maybe two weeks. Dating at camp, for those of you who were never involved in such hilarity, mostly involved sitting next to each other and holding hands during services. He and I were the only two kids in our unit who hadn’t kissed anyone yet. We had what was called “Hill Time,” where the campers in my unit were allowed to hang out on the hill by the boys’ cabin. Mostly, it was a big makeout opportunity (it was Jewish camp… the counselors were always trying to pair us off). Patrick and I went to the side of the cabin where no one could see us. He was hesitant, but I pretty much pinned him against the wall and kissed him. It was dry, no tongue, and lasted maybe 10 seconds. But, in my mind, it was the most amazing experience. The best part, of course, came after the kiss, when we returned to the rest of the group. The counselors and other campers cheered, and one of the boys’ counselors hugged Patrick and yelled, “You’re becoming a man and I get to watch!”
Also, to add to the absurdity of the whole situation, the song “Hey Ya” by Outkast was playing at the time. Yep… that’s my first kiss song.
*names have not been changed to protect the innocent. Meh.
I used to practice kissing on inanimate objects and fantasize about when and how The Real Thing would happen in infinite detail.
Me too! It Eventually Happened when I was fifteen, and at the time I felt like a late-bloomer because most of my friends had already been kissed, but looking back I really don’t think I was.
Anyway – it was with a boy we’ll call M., who I’d developed a crush on over the summer. He was my friend’s brother and so I got to see a lot of him without too much scheming. He was four years older than me, tall, with long brown hair and he played guitar in a band – and at the time, that was enough to get me swooning (we were not AT ALL compatible). We’d all go to the same pub on Saturdays and for weeks, there was a lot of will-we-or-won’t-we. I eventually hatched a cunning plan – or so I thought, it’s kind of been done a thousand times – for the final Saturday night of the summer holidays and asked him to come outside to check out my bike, which I’d repainted. We went for a bit of a walk and then sat down on the ground in a deserted street and talked about – well, about how we liked each other but he was concerned about the age difference, I think? Anyway, I eventually said that I was just going to put my arm around him and I counted to three and when I did, he kissed me. It was actually a really good kiss – I knew from years of reading all about first kisses that it was very likely to suck, but it was soft and sweet and it made me all tingly. We ended up going out for four months, but broke up (repeatedly, I might add) because of the age difference (yep!) and because we weren’t really crazy in love either.
Vegkitty yours might be my fave!
La Chica Lucy yours sounds like a special dude; I can’t believe he could tell you got your period! Even my own mother couldn’t tell. Pretty intuitive for a young boy.
First kiss: Kindergarten. Troy D. used to sit behind me on the bus, pop over the back of my seat, steal my hat right off the top of my head, and refuse to give it back until I kissed him. He swore time and again that he was going to marry me. This infuriated me; who the hell was this dude to tell me, unilaterally, who I would marry?! My family later moved half-way across the country. As our Ryder truck pulled out of town, my parting thought was, hahahahaha Troy! You’ll never see me again so you can’t marry me!!!!
First real kiss: The summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I was hanging out drinking with a friend, her boyfriend, and his friend P.K. I believe it was a set up. After awhile, P.K. asked me to go for a walk with him, so we walked. He held my hand. I was drunk. When I am drunk, I sometimes grin like a fool and can’t stop. So when P.K. stopped walking, wrapped his arms around me and softly kissed me, I couldn’t move my lips to kiss him back. I found this very funny so I started to giggle. He thought it was funny, too, and started to laugh. We stood there for a really long time, outside of a generic apartment complex located in Nowhere Special, Suburbia, U.S.A., arms wrapped around each other on a warm summer evening, laughing and kissing. It was nice.
I keep checking back on this thread because it’s just so great!
JD – Of course my mom KNEW I got my period because the family was on the road and all up in each other’s business (sharing motel rooms and whatnot; ugh). And that just got me thinking – Hey, Harpy Sea Hags: How about a post on the first time our monthly “friend” stopped by for a visit?