Embarrassing romance
I’m nothing if not a hopeless romantic. That sounds sentimental, but in my experience it often leads to embarrassment.
I’m also, apparently, nothing but transparent. Which is why I find myself writing this Top Five list of my most embarrassing romantic encounters, to coincide with Graffiti’s first ever Sex and Relationships in the Mountain State issue. Ah, the joys of editorship.
5. Playing “house” — I was in third grade, playing “House” with a friend and his sister in the hull of their parents’ boat. The sister and I were the mom and dad and were told to “kiss like grown-ups.” Soon their parents looked down into the cabin and caught us making out heavily. We jumped apart, my face redder than a tomato, and their parents, perhaps sensing the innocence of it, laughed uproariously. Later, we were teased by the rest of the parents at the camp site and I refused to kiss a girl for the rest of my life (it lasted a scant five years).
4. She’s my what?! — OK, so we weren’t technically cousins. But my fourth grade crush was related to my first-cousins through marriage. Still, the shock of this revelation was enough for us to never look each other in the eye again.
3. “Why haven’t you kissed her yet?” — I was absolutely smitten over her. Some might say I was in deep smitt. I thought she felt the same way — in fact her friends repeatedly told me so and asked me why I hadn’t kissed her yet. So, the time came to plant the smooch and I moved in, with my hands on her cheeks, delicately, like girls like, and softly placed my lips on hers. She backed away with a look of utter dread on her face and slowly closed her car door and drove off.
2. “How much does a polar bear weigh?” — The answer is, “Enough to break the ice.” I used the, admittedly, cheesy line on a blind date I didn’t much care for because, well, I thought it would be funny. Unfortunately, the really cute girl sitting behind us that I had been eyeballing the whole time overheard it, looked at me with disdain and promptly left the coffee shop.
1. “She’s a man, baby! Yea!” — OK, she wasn’t really a man. At least I’m pretty sure. But she did have a five o-clock shadow on her upper lip — which I couldn’t see because it was 3 a.m. — that left me with a severe case of beard burn. At first I thought the soreness on my upper lip was from my own beard, somehow bouncing off this sweet, soft, girl, but when I realized the real culprit, I quickly left her apartment.
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Contact Justin at jmcintosh@graffitiwv.com