Ghosts of Kisses Past

Submitted by Rob:

In college, I worked up the nerve to ask Wendy out.  She was a quiet girl from one of my biology classes, but she was far and away the loveliest girl in the class.  She had a reputation for being a bit icy, but I was hoping that she was merely "misunderstood."

I arranged to take her out to a nice restaurant and then take a walk through downtown and back to campus.

It was tough, I'll admit, to pull a conversation out of her.  I tried engaging her on every topic that I knew of in which she may have had the slightest interest.  Somehow or other, I ended up talking about my summer camp days.  The ghost stories, the sports, the field hockey, my first kiss...

"What?" she asked.

"My first kiss," I said.  "It was in summer camp."

There was a visible change in her.  Before, she was aloof and silent.  Now, she was upset and not silent.  She asked, "How old was she?"

"Uh... 13.  Maybe 14."

"You made out with a 13-year-old?"

"When I was also 13, yeah."

Wendy became even more upset.  "Are you still, like, in love with her?"

"No.  I don't think I was ever in love with her."

She asked, "Do you still speak with her?"

"Not really."

"Not really?"

"Would it matter?"

Wendy let out a bit of a laugh, and I was able to change the subject to something else.  I paid for dinner (she didn't thank me, of course) and we went for our walk.

As expected, she was mostly silent and seemed to be preoccupied with something.  Finally, we sat on a bench.  I thought about trying to kiss her, but I wasn't as attracted to her as I was when I asked her out.  That made me hesitate.

She asked, "Are you going to try anything?"

"Try anything?  Like with you?"

"Or would you prefer your 13-year-old girlfriend?"

Full disclosure: I try very hard to be patient and understanding.  For some reason, though, I just couldn't restrain myself from loudly asking, "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Then, she slapped me!  I was stunned.  She said, "You're a psycho," and stormed off.

It's really okay.  The meal was good.

So was telling everyone about what happened.  Of course in retrospect, I was probably doing her a favor.  If she liked being alone, then everyone gave her exactly what she wanted for the rest of the term, at least, if not for the rest of college.