Thoroughly Unremarkable

His name was Brad.

I was in the seventh grade, he was in eighth. At the time, I actually had my sights set on someone else--who, more than a decade later, it turns out is gay--but when his friend found me in the lobby of our middle school before musical rehearsal and asked if I would "go out" with him, my stomach did a little flip-flop, and so I said yes.

I may have felt differently at the time if I'd known that I was the third girl to be asked that afternoon--the first two having said No--but I was 13 and damnit, I wanted a boyfriend. So I took that internal somersault of surprise as a sign and agreed to "go out" with a boy toward whom my feelings were lukewarm at best.

We held hands at rehearsal. He left notes in my locker. And one day, as we stood in the lobby after rehearsal, waiting for our parents to pick us up, he asked "Can I kiss you?"

Internally I rolled my eyes.

Really? He felt the need to ask? Just man up and go for it, pal! Sheesh!

But I said yes. And he gave me a quick peck on the lips, after which I beat a hasty exit outside to wait for my dad. I broke up with him a few days later.

Little did I know at the time that years later there would be a boy who would ask "Can I kiss you?" and it would cause my knees to wobble, or that his kiss would leave me so unexpectedly giddy that I would run into a bush on my way into my dorm, like something out of a Sandra Bullock movie.

But there, in the lobby of my middle school, my first kiss was thoroughly unremarkable.