First
When it comes to first posts, I believe they’re at their best a few years from now when you, the author (that’s me), read them again. First posts on the internet are less interesting to me now, but I’d like to capture some of that nostalgic first post energy I’m fondly recollecting as I tipity type this out.
The first time I ever kissed a girl, I was in a hotel room. We were alone. She wore jeggings and a flannel shirt. Flats, with pink socks. They didn’t match well. I wore an official XKCD shirt that was too big, and jeans that were about an inch too short. Though my checkered vans were an excellent timeless staple in comparison. My mom had picked them out, thank you mom.
It was the first time I had ever seen this girl face to face. Not in the hotel room as we were about to kiss, but a few hours earlier, as I arrived at the hotel. Though we’d known each other for more than a year and had spent hundreds of hours conversing else where, I felt hopeless and desperate to impress her.
I was a good age old. She was a good age old. It was around seven o’clock. An hour prior to being in this hotel room, we had locked our sweaty nervous hands together in a crowded projector lit room. Fifteen minutes prior to that hour prior, I had the thought I should hold her hand. For a quarter of an hour, I debated in my head whether I should do it or not. Eventually I took her hand. An hour passed before I got my hand back. My heart had never raced so fast. I felt like I was going to die. Then we went up to the hotel room. I’d never held hands with a girl I was interested in before that, and every person’s hand I held afterward felt nothing like the first time I held hands.
It was an addicting feeling. I would never feel it again.
The kiss was a quick peck. It felt effortless, and easy.
She didn’t like kissing.
I did. I didn’t mind that she did not.
I’ve never known I was about to feel a feeling I’ve never felt before at the moment I was feeling the feeling. I don’t know if I can be aware the feeling I’m feeling is a new feeling, let alone one I’ll never feel again.
On the final day of school of a certain grade, I asked a girl I’d been crushing on for the entire year on date.
The way I asked was clumsy and impulsive. A special moment I’d think back on many times, inducing deep feelings of cringe laced anxiety until it didn’t.
She was sitting under a tree with three of her four good pals. I knew her pals three, though I only thought two of them were cool. All three of her pals knew I had a big crush. They swore to never reveal to me prior to this moment whether she felt the same way, I had to ask. That’s just how it was, they instructed.
For some reason, we had all decided that we would probably explode if we let slip we were interested in someone romantically. I’d like to think about why we all collectively felt that way, but for now, know that the feeling I felt when I held that girls hand in that projector lit room full of people was an order of magnitude more pit sinkingly stomach churning than the feeling I felt at the moment before asking a girl out for the first time. A moment where, unlike holding the hand of someone who has already professed a deep desire for me, rejection was an actual possibility. And, in comparison to the quarter hour of contemplating whether or not I should hold her hand, I had for an entire year imagined asking this girl out.
I approached the friends under the tree. I was alone. I did not say hello.
I looked at her square in the eyes.
“Would you like to go out with me, like on a date? A movie?”
“Uhhh. Okay.”
I walked away.
When I finally called her house (she did not have a cell phone) her father picked up. I proudly proclaimed to her father that her daughter and I were going on a date. Hence my call. I felt very formal and proper. I think her dad was laughing, but it’s hard to remember.
After the phone was rightly directed to the proper party, we decided to see the new shrek movie. She did not like shrek. I remember her saying “I don’t really like Shrek though.” There wasn’t anything else to watch. I was eager for my first date.
The movie was awkward, we did not hold hands, we did not kiss. That was the last time I ever saw her. It’s worth noting my mother tagged along. She even brought some of my siblings who sat three rows directly behind us the entire time.
But this post is more about my first kiss. My first date is here only briefly to lend a comparison to my first kiss.
Which took place in a hotel room.
Between two people of a good age.
The kiss was a quick peck.
She did not like kissing. “I don’t think I like kissing.”
I did. I lied. “Yeah, same.”
We went on to kiss fewer times than I can count with fingers on both hands.