Life Is Like a Box of Chocolates, Or Something: The Story of My First Kiss

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Sort of like this except not at all...
(Love you forever, JVDB.)
Technically, my first kiss came during a game of Truth or Dare after a friend's bat mitzvah. I don't remember the details because I got into an argument with my mother almost immediately afterward (such is the life of a 12-year-old girl)
& yelled something like, "If you'd just been nice to me, I would've told you that I had my first kiss tonight!" Alas, I was so angry about however the night ended that I seem to have forgotten everything else about it. So it doesn't count.

My real first kiss was with that same boy, who I had a crush on all through my time in religious school. All of the kids in my Sunday school & Hebrew school class were from different schools because each of us was from an area mostly devoid of Jews. Two of the boys, Jeff & Harrison, went to "real" school together, as did two of the girls, Jen & Amanda. Initially, there was another Jewish boy from my middle school in our class, too, but he dropped out somewhere along the way, & so I repped my hometown alone on Sundays & Thursdays when we all got together for pre-b'nai mitzvah training. There were other kids, too, but those four were my closest friends; our moms were friends, too, because that's how we Jews roll. Our time together, though often stressful & dramatic in its own way, was a welcome respite from the everyday stress & drama of being in seventh grade.

I won't embarrass any of the aforementioned individuals by using their names in the rest of this story, but suffice it to say that I had a fairly unrelenting crush on one of the boys in my class, the kind you have when you're 13 & have a diary & a lot of colored pens perfect for doodling your future married name on notebooks. I also had terrible self-esteem, convinced he was too cool for me & that no one of his caliber would ever think twice about me, much less want to kiss me, so there was much moping involved on my part. Somehow, though, because middle school is a wacky, miraculous place, we eventually started "going out," whatever that means. ("Where are you going?" my mom would ask. "You never go anywhere together!" Goshhhh, parents, they just don't get it, amirite?!)

The only place we really went was to his basement, but because we were 13 & "going out," we were of course not allowed to hang out solo. This means that although my first kiss took place in his basement while he & I were watching Forrest Gump together, it also means that two of our mutual friends were present, as well. After half a movie spent in the dark with his arm awkwardly around my shoulders, he leaned in & just sort of... went for it. Like, full tongue & everything, while our friends sat right in the same room, so enthralled by the talented Tom Hanks that somehow neither of them noticed what was happening. And in case that isn't impressive enough, consider this: I was wearing light khakis & an argyle sweatervest, & somehow, a cute boy still wanted to kiss me

I suppose it was a decent first kiss, as first kisses go, though largely without the magic & fairydust that I imagine is supposed to accompany them; it is perhaps for that reason that our game of tonsil-honkey was a one-time event, never to be repeated, & we broke up shortly thereafter. Though we are currently Facebook friends, we rarely interact, & there is no doubt in my mind that he has no recollection of this monumental occasion in my young life, because I don't think boys remember such things. Do they?!

As a post-script, my second (third?) kiss took place in the dark, twisty hallway of a haunted house with my first high school boyfriend, a Bolivian foreign exchange student who was a senior when I was a freshman. It was the first time I ever really swooned, which may have something to do with my lasting affinity for South American accents & Halloween.

This is the only picture I can find of me in middle school.
Sorry, Mom/self. You're welcome, everyone else.
______

This month, I'm participating in a writing group that Kristen of Aw, Shucks invited me to. Each day, we receive a writing prompt to follow, or not. I'm not doing all of the daily prompts, but I'm doing the ones that appeal to me. This prompt was "Write about your first kiss." 

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