Near Kiss

I bloomed late in life.  I think I was always too gawky and gangly for girls to really give a shit about despite my mother telling me daily how handsome I looked.  Somehow my mother's estimation of my physical beauty never translated into me beating swarms of screaming teenage girls away with sticks...that's not a euphemism.

My first chance at an ACTUAL kiss...where there was going to be a tongue and everything probably wasn't until I was maybe in 8th grade.  I'm a little sketchy on the timeline.  I know you're supposed to remember your first kiss forever and always, but you'll understand in a minute why I don't.

My friends and I were at a wedding reception at one of their cousin's houses.  Two girls from out of town caught our eyes.  Cathy and Diana.  Cathy was a blonde, Diana was brunette...and they were "older girls"...like sophomores or something.  I don't remember.  OLD.  I gravitated toward the brunette (as I always did and still do).

We sneaked beer from the keg and were probably mildly tipsy.  Cathy wanted a kiss.  I felt like that hurt my chances with Diana...you know...kissing someone else in front of her...but I figured what the hell.  My friends held up their jackets around us like some sort of modesty curtain and I moved in for the kill.  Only I didn't really know what the fuck I was doing, went in too fast...and I bashed my teeth off her teeth.  We both recoiled more from shock than pain and laughed in shared embarrassment.

She was so apologetic.  I knew it wasn't her fault, but I sorta let her take the blame, silently accepting her role and we played it off...and my friends and I were leaving anyway...and she just sort of dissolved into the fabric of my past (she would later materialize long enough to date me, but that's another story) and my window of opportunity slammed shut like jaws filled with cracked teeth.

I remember being so pissed at myself.  Back then I was one of only a couple boys in my class who had NOT "mashed" with a girl.  I was just too nervous.  I didn't know what to do.  I didn't want to fuck it up and look stupid.  Not wanting to fuck up and look stupid has been one of the biggest banes of my existence.

Anyway...I was just thinking about first kisses, and someone else's story of bonked teeth and it all came crashing back home...not so much my first kiss, but my first miss...right in the teeth.