My First Kiss – Survived by Sarah

WHO: Older Brother Guy

WHAT: My first kiss

WHEN: Age 16, very early 2000ish

WHERE: A dark movie theatre in Grass Valley, CA. How very romcom of me.

WHY: 16, never been kissed, lonely, angsty, and desperate

THE DATE
Well, I’d never been on a date before this. I was in the throes of teen angst, and I was super awkward about boys. I’d never really had anyone interested in me, and I’d spent most of the last few years pining away over boys who in all likelihood had no idea I existed.

I was a late bloomer socially, and growing up in a small town with the same kids my whole life didn’t really help things. I don’t even remember when I got boobs, but it doesn’t seem like that helped things at all.

One of my very best guy friends moved to another country for our high school Junior year to study abroad, and his absence made my heart grow fonder. We started “dating” after he moved away, and we wrote each other pages and pages of letters. But I eventually realized I just loved him as a friend and we “broke up” several months before he returned.

I didn’t handle the whole thing very well. I made it much more dramatic than it was because I so desperately wanted to be one of those people who had relationship stuff to handle. And I hurt him in the process of finding myself and being selfish, which I’ll always regret.

To really twist the knife, I started hanging out with his older brother and his friends, who I had always been incredibly intimidated by and thought were so cool.

Maybe it was out of spite because I was being a shithead teen at the time, but for some reason I agreed to go on a date with Older Brother Guy. He had always teased me and tickled me and I was excited that he appeared to like me. He was also the first person who had ever asked me out on a date, so I obviously said yes. I was desperate to real life date someone. Anyone.

Older Brother Guy picked me up at my house and took me to a pizza place and paid. It was thrilling and terrifying. I felt like I was in a movie, even if I wasn’t particularly interested in the date I was with. And I had definitely lied to my mom about who I was hanging out with because I knew she would never have let me go.

After dinner he took me to the movie theatre he and all his friends had or still worked at. He got us in free and we got free popcorn and I swooned a little. A proper date!

We went to see Scream 3, the most perfectly unromantic date film. I sat there on edge the whole time, and it was only partially because I was terrified of the horror film we were watching. It was dark. Was he going to kiss me?

The end credits rolled and I was a little disappointed. No move had been made. Everyone was leaving. Maybe I’d misread the situation.

Then suddenly when the theatre was empty, he turned to me, put his arm around my shoulders, and jammed his mouth into my face.

It was weird, but I went with it.

He pulled back and said, “You’ve never Frenched anyone before have you?”

I blushed and shook my head.

“I can tell,” he said as he jammed his tongue down my throat.

I thought to myself, “Oh yeah? Well what does it say about your kissing ability if I’ve never kissed anyone before and can still tell you’re terrible at it?”

He drove me home and we never went out again, but I’ve never had any kissing complaints since. Douche.

The “Safe Space” Guy – Survived by Sarah

WHO: An ex-boyfriend who shall remain nameless

WHAT: A strange sexual encounter of sorts

WHEN: Basically a hundred years ago, but really Fall of 2007

WHERE: Nevada City, CA

WHY: Because apparently I “loved” him. Oh, past Sarah.

THE ENCOUNTER
So, this one takes place a really long time ago. I was living in San Francisco but had made the decision to move back to Nevada City after a year and a half away. My sister and I were looking for a place to rent, and I took a weekend in early September to drive up and look at a few houses.

My good friend at the time graciously let me stay with her. When I got to her house, she told me an incredible thing: a boy had asked her about me. These things don’t happen to me now, and especially didn’t then. I’m not the girl who gets approached, like ever, so I was tickled. And having just gone through some intensely awful Craigslist dating in San Francisco (see here, here, here, and here), I was ready to meet someone good.

Here’s the hilarious part. She told me he’d seen my MySpace profile and thought I was cute and wanted to meet me.

Yes, this romance began through MySpace. Like, way back before Facebook was a thing outside of colleges. Like, when MySpace was actually a thing.

Yes, I’m old.

So this boy had seen my profile because I had commented on something on her page and they were friends. She told me his name and said we’d all gone to high school together, but I didn’t recognize the name. Our graduating high school class was over 800 students in a school of over 3000 so no surprise there.

She asked if I wanted to meet him and I said yes, sight unseen. I had only ever seriously dated 3 people at that point and those relationships were all with people I was already friends with. I was excited to meet someone I didn’t know.

My friend arranged for us all to meet at the local coffee place (yes, there was only one at the time…tiny town), and she said he was bringing a friend too. The second I walked in the door and saw him, blue eyes sparkling, I grabbed her elbow and whispered, “Yes.”

We got along splendidly. We all rented a movie after coffee and went to my friend’s house to watch. The boy sat close to me. We arranged a second date for the next night, and I didn’t leave his side for the next 4 days. I was supposed to drive back to SF to pack on Sunday, but I dragged the weekend out into Tuesday before reluctantly leaving him and driving back to the bay.

My sister and I moved a week or so later, and the boy and I dated for almost 3 months. It was fast and heavy. We said I love you after 7 days. There are countless stories I could tell about this guy, as that period was one of the most stressful and intense of my life. It was short, but a lot of shit went down both with he and I as well as generally in my life. That three month period takes up a whole chapter in my life book. 

But the rest will come later. This story is about one of the weirder things I’ve been a part of in the bedroom.

And don’t worry, it’s not graphic. Or sexy.

So, this guy was slightly off. At the time I found it dreamy, but now I know better. He had serious issues, and I don’t say that lightly or judgmentally. He had very real mental problems, but that wasn’t made clear to me until later. Hindsight and stuff. 

He was weird about sex. He told me once that he got tired early and if I wanted to have sex at night I had to ask him before 6pm.

The things you put up with in your very early 20s. Oh past Sarah.

I had had an extremely traumatic event happen to me 2 years previously, and to his credit he did things in his own way to help me deal with it.

This event was one of those things….I think?

We were at his house one night talking about my trauma, and I was getting emotional. We were lying on his bed (clothed, you pervs), and he suddenly asked me to stand up. He told me he wanted to create a “safe space for us to make love in.”

Cringe.

But at the time, swoon.

I’ve always been terrible at dating.

This boy was into Shamanism, and he got out a knife that had either been given to him by a Shaman or blessed by one. Either way, he told me we needed to use it to create our “safe space.”

Luckily, that didn’t involve stabbing or cutting or anything like that, but the fear did flash across my mind.

He had me hold it and he stood behind me with his hands on mine. He had me repeat weird things as we pointed to the four corners of the room with the knife. He wanted to make sure we made the circle big enough to include the bed so it was safe too. So we did.

I realize now how insane that is, but at the time I was enchanted. I thought he was healing me. But the sex inside that circle remained unenchanting and mediocre at best, so maybe I should have seen the signs of his crazy earlier on.