Kiss and Tell=Funny

So I had all these noble plans to save a lot of these stories for the 100-Man Celebration, but friends, I'm sorry! I've stagnated. I just kept going out with the same old guys for ages, and I'm still waiting for a decent 99 or 100. Don't get me wrong-- boys have asked, but I just have gotten too picky in my old age.

*NOTE/DISCLAIMER: I just realized how slutty the above-paragraph could make me sound if you don't know me in real life. The Top 100 (98) are boys I've gone on dates with. For the record, I think the kissing count is somewhere around 27, but I'm not sure. Wait. Counting. R, J, S, R, I, T, S, A, H, G, G, M, K, D, S, A, S, B, S, A, T, P, R, A, J, R, B... in no particular order. Yes, 27. Except I get the nagging feeling there's someone else. Oops-- another A. I always forget him. OK, anyway, I guess 28 boys kissed isn't something to be super-duper proud of, but when you consider it's only kissing, and I'm still the 28-year-old virgin with no husband in sight, you can understand.

So anyhow, last night was one of those silly nights, hanging out with friends and laughing about ridiculous stuff. Best comment of the evening came from S.T., who was overheard saying, "Let's go make out, but stop when we get aroused." You know, had it been said legitimately, it would have been extra creepy, but the sentiment is probably a good one.

Anyway, Pammy reminded me of something that happened to me about a year ago that I'd conveniently forgotten. Last night she said, "I still think of R.P. when you screamed in his face." And I couldn't even remember it! But like Tyler of old, I DID scream in his face when he tried to kiss me. No wonder R didn't like me all that much after that!

You know, so many girls say they like it when a guy takes charge in the kissing situation, and they think it's nerdy if the guy asks for permission. But honestly, it's so much better to at least know it's coming in advance. Guys who lunge toward my face are often the recipients of my shocked cries of horror-- not necessarily at the thought of kissing them, just at the surprise. I'm jumpy by nature.

So then I started counting up the boys whose faces I've screamed in over the years. Oops. There are a lot of them! And then they usually go get married to someone else right away. My most recent scream recipient, fortunately, is still on the market, but I'm sure it didn't help my cause.

So then I tried to think of someone who actually got that first-kiss "right," but I really had a hard time coming up with a good standard. Amongst the more ridiculous situations (and again, please don't be offended if you or your husband or your friend or a friend-of-a-friend show up on this list, I'm not naming names, after all):

* A boy who'd never kissed another girl had to "Ask Cha-cha" (remember that texting service-- you ask any question and get an answer back right away? Yeah, he honestly asked Cha-cha how to go about kissing me. For the record, Cha-cha did give pretty decent advice, but it made the whole experience super surreal)
* One guy kept feeding me that whole, "It's late, I should go home, but here I am" line, and I finally had to say, "Listen, I'm OK with this happening, but you've got to man up, because I'm not going to do it for you." And he did. And then he freaked out. But then things got much better.
* There was a guy who I was trying to discuss a doctoral thesis with, who at least gave me the warning of creeping slowly across the couch. It was funny, but I was legitimately interested in the conversation, and I still don't know what he's researching to this day.
* There was the guy who bit my neck first and left a mark for about a week. A perfect, round mark of teeth prints. It was so unexpected and shocking that I just laughed. And then he kissed me. I'd been under the impression that he was gay and was moving, so I just went ahead and let it happen. About a week later, he told me he knew he couldn't be gay because he'd thought about kissing me all week. So that's cool, I guess.
* A couple of guys used my own fail-proof kissing line on me, which really bugs because I was the one who coached them on how it never fails. And it blindsided me, because I didn't realize til later how they'd schooled me. One reeled me in by saying he'd always wondered what it would be like to kiss me because we were such good friends (and I wondered what it would be like to kiss him because he had a righteous beard) and the other one tried to say it to be sweet, but I forgot that he was using my own superpower against me, because I melted on the spot.
* And last but not least, let's not forget Mr. Carl's Jr. He would have been an excellent kisser if he didn't taste like barbecue sauce. Ick.

Of course, in the spirit of full disclosure, it's not like I haven't had my own weird moments on the kissing front. There was the guy I kissed (my friend Tiff's crush in high school) because she was too nervous to do it, and they paid me a dollar to kiss the guy. There was the time Mike and I kissed in front of all of our friends at Bajio so he could earn the Kissing Kitty, and Eric made us do it again and again because we weren't meeting the time requirements. There were a couple of guys I just kissed on impulse because I was so extremely happy about something unrelated, but they were around and it was convenient to go lay a smack square on their lips. I kissed one guy simply because it would set a new personal record for three in one night. I've awkwardly played spin the bottle, and also a weird game of truth or dare where I've ended up kissing an odd little fella who honestly thinks he's the king of making out, but he's just the dork king (love him though).

Anyway, I guess not every kiss can go as smoothly as the time Bryce showed up to my party (he was a friend of some friends and I didn't know him at all) and spun me around under the mistletoe to kiss me on the cheek (so he's not part of my 28, but it was still magical). And we can't always be as cool as I inexplicably managed to be with Chevron behind the Otis Spunkmeyer display, but here's hoping I'll stop screaming, and my boyfriends will stop lunging. Sorry Tyler. And Russell. And Rudy. And whoever else's lips I've screamed at.