My First Kiss

My first kiss went a little like this--

Really.

Let's take a trip down memory lane to the spring of 2004 in a little town north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  I'm 15 years old and a sophomore in high school.  I've firmly established the friends I will have for the rest of high school (and some for the rest of my life!).  Life is going pretty great with the exception of one major issue all straight high school girls find themselves derailed by: BOYS. (Sidenote: God, I wish I realized boys and relationships were not nearly as important as my studies. *uber sigh*).

With the establishment of my high school group (named The Crew...yes we called ourselves that), we'd also established a pretty regular routine of playing pool at April's house every Friday night/most weekends.

I don't remember why we were at April's house this particular evening, but I remember it was only a handful of us in April's hot tub.

Yup.  It's about to be that type of story.

Wait, it gets better.  The only girls in the tub were me and my friend Ashley.

Yeahhh...

So!  I  kind of had this thing going up to that point that I wouldn't kiss anyone.  I think I took a bit of a sick pride in the boys who tried to date me, only to deflate them days later with the promise that I would most definitely never kiss them. [We all have our issues...right?]  In this game, I insisted that the boys could only kiss me on the cheek and vice versa.  Everyone nodded their agreement and off we were while the rest of our friends gathered around the hot tub and watched.

We were a weird group at the end of the day.

We played a few rounds when I landed on my friend Elliott.  As I leaned into land one on his cheek--he turned his head and his lips met mine.  A hush settled over all of those in the tub and creepily watching outside of it.  I shouted, I screamed.  But I kept on playing and when I got Jon on the next one, I let him plant one on me because in my mind everything was over anyway and I needed to play off the inappropriate whining from the previous spin.

The next day, Ashley and another friend walked over to my house and I bawled my little teenage eyes out.  As the sentimental bag of fluff I was, I was disappointed in the build up of a romantic first kiss that ended in a sad game in April's hot tub.  My friends sort of just stared but accepted me for the over-dramatic sad sack I am was.

Again, as an emotional teenager who couldn't hide her emotions very well, my mom noticed something was wrong later that evening.  She asked and I spilled all the horrifying details from Spin the Can.

And. She. Laughed.  She confirmed that I was overreacting (no duh!) and that my real first kiss wouldn't be such a blunder...hopefully.

To this day, I still sort of regret playing that game that night.  A first kiss is built up to be this major moment, one that you'll never forget.  I wanted mine to be special but what I also realized is that your very first kiss isn't as important as the first kiss you have with someone you really care about.  As most of us have our first kisses in our teenage years, it's highly doubtful it's going to be that special person you end up spending the rest of your days with anyway.  Plus, I guess I needed a little bit of experience to land Derek Jeter (no, still not over it or giving up hope).

Looking back now, I still sort of cringe, but I can also muster a chuckle as well.  I guess it could have been slightly more horrifying...right?