With Sincerest Kisses...

***This blog should be read in a Katherine Hepburn voice with faux British accent so as not to be taken seriously.***

I am a former drama student (and a lesbian). This means everyone in my life falls into one of three categories: Acquaintances (people I haven’t made out with), Friends (people I have made out with), and Ex’s (people I don’t make out with any more). Kissing has become as common as a handshake in my circle of friends; and I must lament that this has a tendency to cross wires and (on more than one occasion) has found a few females frazzled with frustration fuming from miscommunication, and faced with icky situations…to say the least.

I once considered kissing to be the ultimate expression of attraction. When we’d run out of things to say, when we found ourselves out of words, our lips would meet, and that would be that. So romantic. I have waited months to kiss some girls. I’ve put in long hours of talking, had great dates, heated debates, and then I’d wait…and wait…and wait. So that finally, when we had exhausted all our options, when we got past all the caution, the kiss would be magic, fantastic, some would even say spastic.

Needless to say, this was a time in my life where not a lot of kissing happened. For every girl who stayed interested after months of delay, there were so many more who would just walk away.

Following my second big heart-break (waiting all that time has a tendency to rev emotions up to seriously dramatic levels), I threw caution to the wind. I started kissing friends at parties. I’d get hammered and make out on street corners. Whatever’s clever Trevor—I was up for anything. Around this time, I started kissing one girl pretty regularly. Because we were the kind of friends who would share details about our escapades, we had no trouble analyzing and dissecting each other as if we were talking about someone else.
“Kissing you,” I said, “is like playing Atari.” She looked at me funny. “—Not like you’re thumbs are tired and you’re seeing blue dots after a long time…It’s simple, fun. It’s like you’re just boppin’ along, playing your little kissing game. It’s cute.”
She looked at me funny again.
“Well,” she retorted, “kissing you is like taking the SAT’s. It’s SO SERIOUS. For real, I feel like I should study up, eat a good breakfast, and come prepared. I feel like it’s some examination of my soul or something.”

Needless to say, we had different styles.

I carried on in these shenanigans for some time and tried to be this free-wheelin’, oft-kissin’, lip-slut. While I won’t discount the entire experience (certainly, some fun was had), my instincts fought against me. Because my initial belief system set me up to be a romantic, I had difficulty embracing this as little more than an extra-curricular activity. And what’s worse, I crossed my own wires a few times and convinced myself that I had feelings for someone when really I just liked kissing her. Hot mess. Never follow a pair of your own drunken lips into a relationship. I blame, in part, those bottles of Johnny Walker I put away over the course of what I now call “The Dark Years;” but more so, I blame my typical Leo attitude of: “I never start anything I don’t plan on finishing.” Similar to that Jersey attitude of “I don’t let my lips write checks my body can’t cash.” Not the original intention behind either of those philosophies.

I remember the first time I put a stop to things before they escalated past kissing in a photo booth (hot, right?). I realized I had turned a corner. Even in my drunken stupor, I knew I had made my first good choice, my first step in a healthy direction; I was so pleased! The girl I happened to be kissing, however, was not. It seems she thought we’d carry on outside the bar and into my apartment across the street. When I recounted the story for a friend of mine, she posed this question: “Well, how did you kiss her?” (If you are reading this and you understand what this means, Brava. I had no idea.) “Did you kiss her like she’s a slut? Did you kiss her like you love her? Did you kiss her like it was going to lead to more? How did you kiss her?” I flashed back to the Atari/SAT discussion of yesteryear. I had no idea how I kissed her. I kissed her the same way I kissed everyone—well, not like my Grandma, don’t get any funny ideas but, y’know, I KISSED her. Hmmm. After a lengthy discussion of the tactics employed in said photo booth, it came to light that my kiss was indeed too deep and the conversation surrounding said photo booth session was rather intense, resulting in an unintentional misleading of a spectacular make-out partner and all-around great gal. Alls well that ends well, and she moved to another continent….

I have since realized that there are appropriate kisses for certain situations.
Some kisses should be hot, some suggestive, some not, some aggressive, some heavy, some persuasive, some with levity. But still to this day, what remains clear, is: this requires no thought if you’re being sincere.

Kiss the ‘em like you mean it…but only if you mean it.