My first kiss was a little less than satisfactory.

His name was Peter. He was a skinny freckle-ridden redhead who told me he was half Cherokee and had a black belt in karate.

During our first grade lunch he provided stimulating conversation, wooing me through debate over how big Godzilla’s brain really is.

During recess he took me behind the tool shed and kissed me straight on the lips.

I didn’t close my eyes. I didn’t throw my arms around his neck and dramatically raise one of my legs into the air behind me.

My first kiss came and went and I don’t remember being very impressed with the moment.

That afternoon, as my mom walked me home from school, I enthusiastically described my day, including the moment behind the tool shed.

Her response took me completely by surprise. After the number of times I’d seen her kiss my father, I wasn’t prepared for outright opposition to the practice.

She was very upset, though, and told me to never ever kiss a boy again (an edict which I suspect she somewhat regrets as I’m still adhering to it 20 years later.)

I told Peter the next day that I couldn’t kiss him anymore.

He took the news stoically.

Less than a week later, when I went looking for my best friend, Rhoda, I found her behind the tool shed with Peter.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Peter was the kind of kid who chased girls around the playground trying to flip their skirts up.

I gave up on love for the next couple of years, but the emotion was awakened again shortly before my eighth birthday.

I was in the CTR class in primary, preparing for baptism.

The boy in question was Ryan. He was a month older than I was, so he was baptized a month sooner.
The day after his baptism he came to church in a new suit with a red clip-on tie and a gold tie tack shaped like a duck.

His blond hair was parted on the side, and his blue eyes shined almost as much as his new black shoes.

Scanning through all the mental images I have of men who have, at one point or another, taken my breath away, I can’t find much to compare with the breathlessness I experienced looking at Ryan across our semicircle of chairs that morning.

From that moment on, I had Ryan on the brain.

All my daydreams and conversation shifted to the topic of Ryan. All of my dolls got a new last name.

I had met my soul mate, and the rest of my life was set in stone. Ryan and I would become friends and grow increasingly closer until we turned 16.

At 16, our friendship would grow into something more. We would be homecoming king and queen, and the cutest couple in our high school yearbook.

When he turned 19, I would dutifully send him on a mission and two years later we would be married in the temple.

We would be blessed with a million children, whose names my dolls already bore, and eventually, we would retire and serve mission after mission together.

There was only one thing that stood between me and my perfect future: Ryan didn’t seem to know that we were destined for each other.

I took the role of the aggressor in our relationship.

My mom helped me find Ryan’s phone number in our ward directory.

His mom answered the phone and I asked if I could talk to Ryan. The conversation was short and one-sided.

“Ryan,” I said, “I need to tell you that I really like you, okay?”

“Okay,” Ryan replied.

It was a done deal.

I’m convinced to this day that Ryan and I would be married if my family hadn’t moved from his ward the next year.

I’ve been a legal adult now for nearly eight years, and I wish I could report that these stories are just amusing memories of a time when courtship was a very different thing.

It doesn’t seem to have matured with me though. No matter what the boys say, I’m convinced they’re only in it for the kissing.

As women, I don’t think we’re much better. We’re only in it for the long haul, and take anything less as betrayal.

Understanding that these are generalizations and not absolutes, take a look at your first love, and take a look around campus. I’m confident that you’ll find playground politics still rule university courtship.

And, if you come right down to it, I’m still a sucker for a black belt or a duck tie tack.