doahleigh - Holy Waste of Teabags!

In honor of our “kissaversary” “annikissary” I asked B to help me write the story of how we got together. Turns out it’s a rather lengthy story, so here’s Part 1. The rest to follow soon.

S: Two years ago tomorrow Brad and I had our first kiss… nearly a month after we had started “dating” and over seven months after we first met. It’s totally his fault though. I was giving him all the right signals, practically throwing myself at him, but he was always too sweet to go for it. Right hon?

B: Okay, first off, there were no signals. I don’t know what these “secret signals” are that women seem to be throwing around left and right, but at least one guy is oblivious to them, obviously. If these “signals” include sitting in the car, eating ice cream, and talking about TV shows then I’ve got a few potential relationships budding on the side!

S: I’m pretty sure telling you directly that I want to kiss you is a good signal, but let’s back up a bit. About seven months actually. I moved to this town to take a job (aka: full-time volunteer gig) and didn’t know a soul (oh yeah, except for my then-boyfriend who moved here a couple months earlier). Anyway, on September 1st, when I had been on the job less than two months, I found myself in front of a college classroom, trying to recruit students to join me at a leadership camp. Only two people expressed interest after class, one of which was a tall, dark and handsome chap who leaned in close and said, “Hey I’m Brad. You’re beautiful. Will you marry me?” Or maybe it was something more like “Uh yeah, I might want to go to that camp thing. Or whatever.”

B: Well, the good scholar in me will say that the camp sounded like a great way to fulfill some class requirements as well as explore my intentions to take initiative in life. But, a lot of the reason was that Shannon was a super-cutey and I really wanted to go to camp with her! (or anywhere, for that matter. I wasn’t daydreaming about us singing songs around a campfire or anything) She even asked for my phone number, slyly making the excuse that she might have to call me about “availability” or something like that…

S: In the end, Brad came to camp a few weeks later where we proceeded to ignore each other. He was a student and I was an adviser, so for most of the weekend things stayed within that realm. Plus I had a boyfriend at the time, so I had blinders on. One day however, we ended up in a canoe together as part of our “team time.” I was a lady and allowed Brad to do all the rowing while I lounged in front. We talked about family and interests, all the usual small talk stuff, and it crossed my mind that it might be nice to have a friend in town (Jackson is lacking in twenty-somethings so to find someone my age was a treasure), so when Brad asked me if I might want to hang out sometime, I said sure.

B: I was very single at the time and was always on the lookout. I didn’t know that Shan had a boyfriend so I was sending out my signals (asking questions like “So what do you do, where do you do it, etc.) Of course Shan’s blinders led me to believe that she wanted no part of me. So I spent the night by myself, wishing I could have been at home instead of trying to find something to do in a camp with people I didn’t know. Sob story aside, it was nice to meet Shan and have the time to get to know her a little better.

S: Aww I hate that you spent the night wishing you weren’t there. Sad. Well he must not have been all that discouraged because the next week he called me at work to ask me to hang out. I had to decline due to other plans, and when I thought about it later, I realized that I was probably setting myself up for trouble. You know, the boyfriend and all. So then, aside from the occasional email or IM chat, we didn’t talk for five months. In the meantime things with the boyfriend dissolved, I had a weird thing with another guy, then suddenly I found myself all alone in a lonely town. Hmm… what to do.

B: How about bowling? That’s about all there is to do in Jackson besides shopping, so I figured “Hey, that should be a fun time. We’ll bowl, we’ll laugh, we’ll get to hang out instead of being college employee and college student. We’ll see how this goes. Hmm, yeeeaaah……

S: I emailed Brad and subtly hinted we should hang out sometime. He suggested bowling. It was smoky and dark and awkward, and after two games we left. In the parking lot he asked what I was doing; I said going home I guess and you; he said going home I guess. And that’s what we did. Even though we both liked each other. The night went so horribly, we don’t even count it as our first date.

B: And then you left forever and didn’t even call me on my birthday remember?

S: Yeah, I went on a trip with some friends. I wanted to call but I was too nervous. Then it took us almost three weeks before we hung out again. We did it under the guise of “just friends,” but it’s the day that started it all. We consider it our first date and the day that marks our anniversary. April 8.

B: Dinner, ice cream, a walk around Target, and a movie. Except I was completely convinced that she was only interested in me as a friend, so I didn’t make any kind of moves.

S: I was newly single, I would have slept with you in a second.

B: Would have been nice to know.

S: Anyway, we did this for a couple weeks. We were both so desperate to hang out with one another that we canceled plans and lost sleep to do it, yet neither of us ever acknowledged that we were anything more than new friends hanging out due to pure boredom. B was living at home at the time and I was boarding at someone’s house, so we never had anywhere to go and just be. We always had to be out and about. When we ran out of money, we would sit in his jeep with crooked necks and sore backs, talking for hours. You’d think our mutual willingness to sacrifice sleep, plans and comfort would be a giant flashing sign that we were soooo into each other, but we were both too stubborn to admit it.

In Part 2, find out how we obnoxiously analyzed the kiss and even fought about it for a few weeks before finally locking lips.