NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS

I’d like to say I’m accepting applications for America’s next best kisser, but I don’t know if he is here. I mean Anne Hathaway had to become a fricken princess of Genovia to get the kind of men I’d like to find. So my hope is a little skewed.

HONESTY HOUR

So I am utterly and completely one of those God Damn Independent types that DOES NOT NEED A MAN, but, that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a man who knows how to kiss me like I deserve every once in a while.

Now this doesn’t have to be a gender normative type of story. I can assume that a few of us know what I am talking about. It’s that feeling when they kiss you so good that you still feel it echoing through your lips when it ends. The kind of kiss that makes you want to tell your best friend the moment after it happens – the kind of kiss that makes your foot POP.

First Kiss

As a teenager I waited a long time for my first kiss. I was a senior in high school writing about romance and knowing nothing about it. I would still write love stories, but most of my “research” was television based. It wasn’t until my senior homecoming dance that I couldn’t wait anymore – so I kissed the first boy who offered.

Shortly after this I wrote my first love story – with much better descriptions of what it was like to be kissed and kissed well – it’s no wonder the story caught the eye of Delaware Scholastic Competition Judges.

THINKING BACK

I think my hopeless romantic edge comes from romantic comedies being my first experience of love. I developed a look but don’t touch mentality, falling in love through a screen for men like Paul Wesley and Zac Efron and Cody Linley from Hannah Montana.

But the thing was – movies never made up for the real feeling and they still don’t.

A lot of people measure time in different ways – lately I have been thinking about the timeline of kisses. I mean what if we measured time by the last time we felt something more than just Lust or Loss, Fear or Bravery, what if time was measured in unexpected moments.

THE LAST TIME I WAS KISSED

I didn’t think it would be the last, and I regret that it was. Turns out I made a couple more mistakes than I can remember – and I am sorry for that, but truth is – he hadn’t made my foot pop since the first time he kissed me. And maybe that is my fault to, but maybe measuring time in those great – charged – unexpected moments, is the key to keeping things exciting, and the key to us continuing a mutual chase no matter who our relationship is with.

You turned me off but the feelings are still there

My mother likes to tell me that water seeks its own level – that in relationships we look for what we are used to. For me this means I look for a man like my father, one who makes me laugh, who is a bit rough around the edges, but cares and cooks and listens… but what often happens is – I don’t find a guy like that but instead I settle for a man I know won’t be around much – and while that is great for any future lover who has a life, it often just reminds me that love [or like even] tend to flicker and fade quickly like overused lightbulbs.

LIKE ISNT A LIGHT SWITCH

I realize that sometimes I get caught up in the idea of someone. As if I had never felt adrenaline – as if doing something I knew was bad for me never felt so amazing. As if one guy could be the only neon fast food sign I’ve seen in 50 miles and all I want is to skid to a stop. I’ve been the girl that turns on the light switch to a room I am not meant to be in and regretted it later – See the truth is we can’t force the way we feel about people. We can want and need something but just because a guy fits the description, doesn’t mean he’s fit to be your prince.

I mean….

In the princess diaries Mia had the perfect guy right under her nose – but she thought the popular guy was better. She raced through her life burning out her stang’ to catch the guy that didn’t even care. Maybe I should have learned from that more than I have.

At the end of the day I guess I have spent a lot of time settling, and while it has lead to some pretty epic kisses – I think I still have a lot to learn until I find that really special “foot poppin” guy.