So in my re-tellings of some of my romantic blunders of my youth, I’ve been telling the stories in mostly chronological order. So now we’ve reached a point in my life where we hit a pretty big dry spell. There’s just not much to talk about when it comes to my early high school years. My main crush was still largely unattainable and most of the other girls around me just didn’t interest me all that much. I was hopelessly single, but not really desperate enough to do something about it. However, it was during this time that I had my first kiss, and it was not at all what I expected.
One night, while out with a group of friends, we went over to a friend’s house to watch some movies. One of my friends had brought along a friend of hers that none of us knew. She took a liking to me rather strongly in the evening and well, quite frankly, it creeped me out. I’m not really a very “touchy-feely” person so when she started cuddling up to me and such, I was a little apprehensive, but rather than cause a scene while we were all watching the movie I just let her. All of us were all bunched up on the couch anyways, so it wasn’t like I had anywhere to go.
Well, the girl who had brought this friend must’ve sensed that something was going on between us. (She must’ve have been reading expressions from her face and not the quizzical, confused looks on my face.) At the end of the night, she said she had to go straight home and suggested that I drop her friend off at her house. I was giving some other people a ride home, so I agreed.
The way the route ended up, she was the last stop on the way home (maybe if I knew now what I knew then, I would’ve taken along another friend or two in the car and backtracked to take them home!) and it was a long trip to her house. As soon as I dropped off the last person and I was alone in the car with this girl, she started to unload on me. She began to talk about her parents and all the issues in her life and such and all the red flags started waving in my mind. As she kept talking, the red flags turned into air raid sirens. Not much longer after that, my brain was screaming, “Dear Lord, man! Just drop her off on the side of the road and get as far away as you can! Abort! Abort!” But I had a duty and that was to get her home safely, and after hearing all these stories, at least be one man in her life who didn’t screw her over.
When we got to her house, I pulled in the driveway and the talking continued. At some point, the conversation turned to religion and it quickly became apparent that this girl was not a Christian or she had some pretty bad misconceptions about God. I kept trying to look for an out in the conversation and drop in a “Mmmm, yeah. It was nice to meet you. Gotta go now. Curfew and all that. Have a good night!”, but it just wasn’t happening. Finally, I squeezed it in and thought I was finally going to get to go home. She reached for the door, but then unexpectedly turned and kissed me!
I had no idea what to do and my brain short-circuited. I guess I was like a soldier who at the initial impact of combat falls back on his training. I started talking at a 100 miles an hour about how I wasn’t interested in her and I’m pretty sure at some point I busted out the Four Spiritual Laws on her (falling back on that Youth Group training like a soldier in battle, baby.) This was not the response she expected at all, because lots of crying and such ensued before she finally went from the car to her house. I left the house with an enormous ache in my heart for someone whose impression of men had become so badly distorted that she really didn’t know how to interact with them in any way other than physical affection.
I never saw her again and I never brought the whole incident up with my friend that introduced me to this girl. I had no idea how I would bring it up in a conversation and since she never mentioned it, I figured it was best to let it lie. I don’t even remember her name now, and sometimes I wonder whatever happened to her.