The real first kiss

(yes, the one from your editors)

Oh, guys. It was in the alley where I used to con the shoemaker with his gumball machine. I put in five cents, while they were a quarter. I found it ter-ri-ble. Now I'm also a bit doubtful about his skills by the way. The first kiss. My second was much more memorable, actually they only got better from then on. Thank God, because otherwise I would have stopped immediately.

Today is International Kiss Day. And for that occasion, your editors are sharing their first kisses and a bit of fumbling here and there.

May's first kiss

“My friend had already done it. So I had to too. He was seventeen and handsome, I was fourteen and naive. But he really looked at me for a long time at the ping pong table in the recreation park in Ouddorp. After the umpteenth game of ping pong, he walked with me to our little house. My friend walked ahead. And he knew a back path where he stopped halfway. He leaned in and before I knew it… “I'm doing it now, I'm doing it now, I'm doing it now.” I was more focused on the fact that I was doing it than on how I felt about it. A month later I received a letter. That he wished me more kisses than there were grains of sand on the beach of Ouddorp. That was a bit too intimate for me and I freaked out and went into frigid mode. For the next year and a half. But he was romantic and I will never forget that. It was a beautiful first kiss.”

And our Lil's

“After a number of ‘wise’ tips from my friends, my first kiss was also on the agenda after my first date. Haha, not very romantic, huh, to schedule your first kiss. But off I went, as an incredibly interesting first-year student of 12. The first kiss was there, by the way totally unplanned but the most desired. We got traffic and lived happily ever after. Well, for about a month or two.”

Elke, your turn

“Not romantic or beautiful at all, but quite American. My first kiss was during spin the bottle. You know, that super awkward game you sometimes see in bad American teen movies or series. You're all sitting in a circle, spinning a bottle, and you have to kiss the person where the neck of the bottle lands. I really can't make anything prettier out of it. I also remember that his name was Matt. Not really memorable otherwise.”

Simone's first kiss

“Isn't it embarrassing when you don't remember your first kiss? Says enough... But the second one was all the more exciting. In the bike shed, we skipped math class. I mean, why would you sit in a boiling hot classroom applying that theorem of Pythagoras when you could spend that time wrestling with tongues? That's what I mean.”

And last but not least: Kiek

“The super awkward beginning - I gave a peck and he intended to really kiss - had turned into a sexy movie scene from The Notebook. It started pouring rain, I had gum in my mouth and there were no geese and no boat. Just two bikes and a traffic light. Also sexy.”