The History of Kiss

I was told that if I like a girl, I just have to try to kiss her.

And I wonder where all these voices come from. Voices of restraint. All just excuses to avoid rejection.

Last entry I made was so blurry. I was tired. It would have been all very unnecessary if I had tried to kiss the girl. But I was also very tired.

I am always tired. I wonder how I am supposed to kiss a girl if I am so tired. How do I become spontaneous if I am tired? Too tired to overcome those voices. Too tired to do the simple thing as a man: kiss the girl you like.

Perhaps a scenario, to feel the impact of those voices. It is drizzling. Or it has just stopped raining. We're both a little tired after returning from the milonga. Or the practica, as it is Tuesday. My building has an awning not typical of the area. It isn't interesting or beautiful, just that I don't see that style anywhere else. Under this uninteresting and unique awning, I hesitate a little. I start imagining, even then, not just now in the narrative, that I will ask her and she will say no. But really? Would she? Only twice in my life I have tried to kiss a girl. Just twice. Oh wait, three times. First time was on my way back to Switzerland, where I had a girlfriend. Yes, bad. How old was I? Twenty-four, I think. Thirteen years ago, really? I was in the car with my best friend, then, and we both felt something. Something from so many years of friendship with undertone of tension. I gave her a small kiss, on the lips, and she responded, before saying jokingly that she'd tell this to my girlfriend, whom she hadn't then contacted.

A kiss isn't like some commitment to do anything. I didn't know that.

Second time? In Thailand. In the darkness of a private bungalow. It was warm. The sweet smell and soothing sound of the tropical sea just a few feet away was in the humid air. And I asked my best friend, a different one, if I could kiss her. It was another culmination of years of tension in an otherwise platonic relationship. She warned me that if we kissed, I could never ask her of it again. Strange request, now that I think about it. And I didn't keep my "promise", nor did she stop me the next time a couple of years later. Funny how life works. I think there are rules. I try to obey what others ask of me, especially if they ask me to promise something. But life doesn't have nearly as many rules as we think, and even those rules aren't as strictly enforced as I sometimes dread them to be.

Again, the anti-rule: kissing is not step into commitment.

What is it, then? Just wanting to be close to someone you're attracted to.

The third time was not too long ago. I almost insisted on a kiss. The girl kept moving away, but not really. I say "not really" because she wasn't upset about it, and later, she told me she was amazed. Amazed? Because I am not like that. I am not the Don Juan that can risk a beating on the ego by doing what girls both desire and reject. But sometimes I am. Three times.

And so under this awning, just when we're about to open the door, I ask her. Or I imagine asking her. Those voices are clamoring. "It's not fair for her. She's your guest, now you make her feel trapped." "She's too young for you, what are you thinking?" "You're taking advantage of her." "It will be so awkward after she says no." "You're not grateful that she had helped you so much?" "What do you really want to come out of this? She's leaving in a few days."

Voices that have convinced themselves that a kiss is the biggest deal in the world. When did I stop relaxing about life? Before the first kiss in my life, I suppose.

So many voices, but now that I think about it, they reflect how I protect myself with respect to women. I want to be with them. I really do. I want to be with one, really. But instead of ripping my heart and soul out for them to see and perhaps pulverize with a rejection, I repeat the same pattern of being there for them, making them feel safe and comfortable, because that's the only way I know to buy me an entrance ticket to a woman's companionship and, less obvious, approval. In this case, a young woman finds herself in a stranger's apartment. She feels totally at ease here. I never sense much tension between us. Only time there might be some awkwardness is when I give her a hug. Is that the best I can do? A hug. I want to give her a hug as the most physical contact I want from her.

What about that other voice?

The lone voice: she's beautiful, are you insane? You're in a room with a gorgeous young woman, and you don't even ask for a kiss? It's not like you want to jump at her like what that former IMF head did with the maid. When you look at her, you can't help noticing her big, brown eyes, her sexy curls, that smile forever printed in your mind, and her voluptuous body. What are you doing just sitting there talking to her about the interior design of your new apartment? Where is the man in you?

Where is that man in me? If I don't see it, I don't think she can. I don't think others can. I make people around me feel comfortable, and that, according to my art buddy, is a major reason people like me. But the cost? The cost is simple and big: loss of manliness.

The subsequent cost is that loneliness and disconnectedness I feel so often, especially in the morning. I wake up still feeling spiteful. This morning I walked through the living room where she's sleeping, and I saw her peaceful face under those sexy curls. Where is that me that tried to kiss a girl I was very attracted to each of those three times?

There are too many rules set up for me. I can only be allowed to manifest my manhood under specific circumstances: if I am on an explicitly obvious "date"; if she is of a certain age within some predefined range that is safe from any scandal; if she's not a friend for a long time; if she doesn't depend on you in any way. And more. These rules have boxed in my expression as a man. I've always wondered why there are men who aren't as attractive as I am but still managed to smooth-talk their ways into a kiss. This girl, for example, had a fling with and in the end felt used by a guy that most of us don't think is attractive. (Another rule, don't kiss a girl that just had her heart broken. Gee!) But he is not like me at all, not really considerate, not trying to make anyone feel safe, can sometimes be really rude. But also, he walks with a lot of male confidence, he is funny in a way that is unique only to men, not just men biologically, but men who are in touch with their manliness.

All these rules just to avoid doing the obvious: putting myself out there, being a man that has a good chance of being rejected. So I hide behind these rules. It's easy to hide behind rules because they all sound so rational under some given circumstance.

I forgot about the fourth time. Not long ago. We were saying goodbye after a few weeks of adventure together. I knew she wasn't interested in me (not sure what that really means). But still, I gave her a hug, then I tried to kiss her. Do I really know what a rejection looks like? Like in the movies? The girl pushes me off? Screams? She turned her face away a little, but I insisted. I did? Amazing. And she let me kiss her.

Still, nothing happened afterward. Nothing in either direction. We were still friends. We never brought that up again. Why? Because it was just a kiss. Not some turning point where we would have to stop being friends or start dating. So dramatic I have made the world to justify my hiding behind all those rules. Until a certain point I had felt a little guilty trying to kiss her again after she turned her head a little away from me. But I got over that.

What makes a kiss a big deal isn't that it could tip the balance of a looming big future. For me, on a personal level, it represents how disconnected I am from doing what a man naturally wants to do when he finds a woman attractive. He wants to connect to her, show her boldly what his intentions are, and have the confidence to move on after that point, whatever happens. In this scenario, under the uninteresting awning on a misty, humid night, my heart would be racing, but that's not really because a woman was about to be assaulted with my lips, but because I am walking into the unknown. An unknown about myself, and it is scary as hell.