Help my mouth get it on

December 26, 2012 4:45 PM

I am 24 years old and have never kissed a guy. I want to change this by my birthday 6 months from now. I have a lot of anxiety about it and am also holding onto romantic feelings for a close friend who lives far away. What's the best approach?
posted by anonymous to human relations (17 answers total)

Sign up for an OKCupid account. Meet and date people until you feel like kissing someone. For the anxeity: fake it till you make it. For the faraway friend: forget about it, or at the very least, don't let it play any part in your dating decisionmaking.
posted by grouse at 4:50 PM on December 26, 2012 [10 favorites]

Do you have any close-ish guy friends who could make out with you to get this "out of the way"? Making out can be lots of fun, and it's way lower-stakes than casual sex, and just a quick makeout session very rarely changes the friend dynamic.
posted by xingcat at 4:53 PM on December 26, 2012

Contrarian view: Find a way to get to where your romantic crush is in the next six months, and kiss him. Just do it, consequences be damned. You will have an amazing first kiss no matter which way it goes. Then, once that's done, you can start to plot your course without worries of regrets.
posted by jbickers at 4:54 PM on December 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

Honestly? If your friend has not already turned you down, and is not in a relationship, you should go all out to visit him at the earliest opportunity and then suction yourself onto his face like a sink plunger.

I know it's not the sensible (97% drama-free! kills all known limerence! approved by the MeFi code!) but why not do something unequivocal.
posted by tel3path at 5:09 PM on December 26, 2012

Alcohol tends to simplify this decision process.
posted by JimmyJames at 5:12 PM on December 26, 2012 [7 favorites]

New Year's is coming up! Go out with a group of friends to a big party or event, chat with cute people, and find one you like enough to share a friendly smooch with when the clock ticks down. (Fish near the pool tables.) And then never see them again! Everyone wants a kiss at midnight. Ev-er-y-one. Then you won't be quite so anxious or nervous when you kiss someone with whom you have a history.
posted by mochapickle at 5:35 PM on December 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

Anxiety + crush on close friend = waaaay too much pressure for a first kiss. Go with grouse's advice.
posted by Specklet at 5:40 PM on December 26, 2012

I would say head out to a bar with some friends and just be open to guy attention. Don't worry about a special kiss. It's never not awkward so go for it with someone random and make sure your fire des are ready to play defence for you if the guy is pushy for more. Have fun. Making out is fun.
posted by GilvearSt at 6:00 PM on December 26, 2012

After lurking at MeFi off and on for years, I spent $5 to give you this advice:

I have to go with jbickers and against the ones saying to kiss a random stranger and get it out of the way.

My first kiss was at age 23 with a woman I had been in love with for over a year. She broke up with her boyfriend, and shortly after that, during an otherwise innocent hug, I told her how I felt and kissed her. As kisses go, it was awesome. To this day (it's almost 14 years later, I've had several relationships and I'm now happily married), it's the best kiss I've ever had. I believe that it was pretty much the best first-kiss a person could reasonably hope for.

She rejected me - painfully - a few months later, having been secretly sleeping with a friend of mine the whole time, and marrying him a couple of years later. But none of that changes the kiss; I regret nothing, and still think it was pretty much the best first kiss I could have hoped for.

If it's possible to do so, find out where this crush is going to be, be there, give him the speech from "Chasing Amy", and kiss him.

Unless he's with someone else. That would just be mean. In that case, start looking for a new crush, or go the random stranger route.
posted by Hatashran at 6:26 PM on December 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

Great advice on how to kiss from my BFF in 7th grade - 'just do what they do' lol. This advice has served me well over the years and later in life has gotten me through some unusual or awkward first kisses :)
posted by txtwinkletoes at 6:29 PM on December 26, 2012 [2 favorites]

I told an acquaintance I'd never been kissed, then made new year's plans with him. We were both pretty clear on the plan to make out (and did for two hours). Maybe easier to confess at 17, but if you pick a guy who fancies himself a ladies' man but is still solidly trustworthy, he might really be into it. Have fun!
posted by ecsh at 6:30 PM on December 26, 2012

Agree with above advice: Get a couple of drinks in you at New Year's, then find someone to kiss at midnight. Angels will not sing, rainbows will not appear, but it lets you get it out of the way so you are not dying of nervousness when/if you get the chance to kiss your crush.

Trying to find the right moment can be like trying to fish a piece of shell out of a broken egg--the closer you try to get to it, the further it skitters away. Just do it!
posted by elizeh at 7:27 PM on December 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Do not go out on New Years trying to have your first kiss. People, even people for whom kissing is NBD the rest of the year, are freakishly obsessed with having a kiss at midnight and the upshot is that most people have already planned out their NYE kiss before they leave the house. You're destined to be disappointed. This was covered in detail on the green a few days ago.

I concur with grouse -- get your casual blind dating on, kiss when you feel like it, keep the stakes low.

Good luck!
posted by telegraph at 7:27 PM on December 26, 2012

The thing about your first kiss is the bigger the deal you make of it, the more importance you place on it, the more anxiety and whatnot is going to build up and you'll overthink it and make it way harder on yourself. Kissing is a pretty low pressure thing, and if you keep telling yourself that, you'll have an easier time. You do what the other person does and go easy until you get more comfortable. It will take time and experience to know a "good" kiss from a "bad" kiss.

My first kiss was a non-starter and not a fun experience. The guy tried to kiss me at an appropriate moment, but I was anxious and not ready for something suddenly coming toward my face and I backed off. He took it personally, got into his car and drove off, and we didn't speak for months. Made me feel terrible. So I ended up having my actual first kiss with someone I didn't like nearly as much, but it was much less pressure. It was a positive for me.

I'd recommend not setting your sights on your long distance friend as your first kiss. I know when I've developed feelings for someone unavailable (due to distance, etc.) it's because I am not ready to be vulnerable enough to have a real connection with someone available, and/or I have deeper problems I am trying to distract myself from facing. It's "safer" to have feelings for the person you can't have, and think about all the what-ifs should the stars align. But it will keep you from living your life in reality.

That said, long distance crushes can work out. I developed feelings for a friend during a rough point in my life. I ended up realizing it was a distraction (see paragraph above) and got to work on myself. I still had feelings for the guy, but there was no pressure to force anything to happen with him. I just enjoyed the friendship and let life play out. After about four years of various things keeping us apart, we discovered our mutual interest and we're together now. But it was a very long, rough four years, and likely what made it possible was that I had moved on from that fantasy crush state and really worked on myself.

Do not put your life on hold for your first kiss and first relationship with a specific, unavailable person. Find someone local and kind. Reality may be sort of coarse and clumsy in comparison to fantasy, but real experience is invaluable for learning what is truly best for you - with kissing and other things. I recommend patience with your friend, and try to build it up in your mind as little as possible, which will exacerbate your anxiety. Enjoy the friendship and relax. You have more time than you think, and life can be full of more twists than you could anticipate.
posted by griselda at 7:39 PM on December 26, 2012 [4 favorites]

They are two seperate issues; keep your crush on your friend seperate from your desire for a kiss.

You can get a kiss tonight, this very evening, by going to a bar, walking up to some guy who isn't too revoltingly drunk, and saying " I've never been kissed! Wanna help?" Or even "wanna kiss me?" Don't be timid; talk too loud and have a big excited smile on your face. I can almost guarantee that by the end of the night, someone will have kissed you. It may take a few tries, but someone will. (If you are looking for a girl to smooch, this may have less success, but you can probably still make it happen regardless of your gender. If you are a boy looking for a boy, make sure you are somewhere that this technique will not get you punched in the face). Alternatively, you could post a personal ad and ve a little more selective about who the peovider of the kiss is.

Caveat emptor; kissing can be like caviar- an aquired taste- for many. My first kiss didn't feel that exciting; it felt like some guy was smooshing his lips into mine. But with time and practise, it got much better. YMMV.

As for the friend, I dunno. Maybe tell them how you feel.
posted by windykites at 3:44 AM on December 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

The okcupid route of dating some dudes you like until you feel the desire to kiss them / they feel the desire to kiss you is probably the low stress route (if you personally can do okcupid low stress).
posted by garlic at 5:02 AM on December 27, 2012

Txtwinkletoes' friend gives good advice. I was a late bloomer like you and I've found that every guy I have kissed since the first has had a different approach or "technique" initially; even after you've already been kissed the very first time, you may still have to do some adapting to each individual you kiss after the first just to get it to where it feels "right". Eventually you will be more comfortable initiating kisses yourself. But definitely, for the first time, let your partner lead.
posted by houndsoflove at 6:41 AM on December 27, 2012