People always have specific ideas for how their first kiss is going to go, and usually it ends up going in a very different direction. The image you had of getting your first kiss after a nice candlelight dinner ends up happening during a spontaneous moment together. The time you thought it would be with a person you really truly love, it ends up being with a casual fling. And sometimes it happens because your best friend is trying to fulfill a fantasy, which is how it should never happen.
I’m going to tell you a story. Once upon a time, my sophomore year of high school, I signed up for a class that would last three periods every day. That meant spending a little over two hours in the same room with the same group of people every day. One of these people was a guy who got bussed over from a different high school. (I will not give a name, let’s just call him…. Gaston.)
Gaston and I ended up having to sit next to each other during this class, and if I could take back that moment, I honestly would. Gaston and I became such very good friends from that moment. We talked every day, we texted every day, and then finally he transferred to my school full time. I was the one to show him around. I was the one to introduce him to all of my other friends so that everyone could be friends with everyone.
We started getting closer and I felt like I could talk to him and vent with him more and more. When another close friend accused me of being a permanent tease and told me that I needed to lower my standards because he was my “best option," I went to Gaston for emotional support. He supported me and I trusted him. I trusted him enough to tell him what I really wanted out of a relationship. I trusted him enough to tell him about my depression, my anxiety, and how it all affected me.
That’s when he started to tell me how much he liked me, about how he wanted to actually start dating me because he could be what I needed. I was honestly a little crushed. This wasn’t the first guy friend I had to reject (re: “Lower Your Standards” Guy) and every single time it gets more difficult, more annoying, and makes me a little more angry.
But, this time was pretty okay. I told him I didn’t want to date him, he told me okay and we went on still being friends. Then, he got closer with my best friend who would also vent to him occasionally. When he told me about a crush he had on her, I was nothing but supportive and told him to just be aware that she really wasn’t looking for anything.
I was under the impression this crush was going on for a while. It was about a month before school ended when he told me that he still really liked me. I had to have this long conversation with him about how I wasn’t prepared to enter a relationship with him, about how I wasn’t really sure what I would even want out of a relationship. Still, he persisted and told me how much he wanted to kiss me and asked how I’d feel about it. I told him that I’d never been kissed before, so I really didn’t know—but that really did not change how I felt about the prospects of a relationship.
It didn’t get through his head. We went to the mall with our friends the day after the second wave of our finals, and he dropped off our other friends before me. He told me he wanted to make sure he’d take me home last. When we pulled up to my house, he asked me, “Can I be your first kiss?” I was shocked. I was silent. I had no response. I didn’t even have time to respond before he grabbed my arms and kissed me. I had my eyes open the entire time. I shook. I counted the seconds it took until he finally got off me. 10.
10 seconds I had to spend with my best friend’s lips on mine.
10 seconds of me just waiting for it to all be over.
The moment he got off of me, I ran out of the car and started wiping my lips. My face was hot and flush. I kept wiping my lips off, trying to erase the memory, trying to make it so that the event itself never happened. I spent two hours washing and rubbing and scrubbing and I spent five hours crying.
I went through it over and over again and again in my head trying to find the moment I should have done something differently. I spent five hours rocking back and forth and shaking. I spent five hours anticipating my last day of finals—so I wouldn’t have to see him again.
I didn’t tell him about it. I couldn’t find the courage or the words to tell him. Instead, my best friend did. When she told him, he was shocked. When he talked to me about it, he said four words that hollowed me out: “I don’t regret it.”
They still echo in my head to this day. “I don’t regret it.” He was sorry it sent me into a panic attack, but he didn’t regret doing it at all. He still valued my friendship. He told me he’d never do it again. To his credit he didn’t, but to his discredit he spent the next year whining about holding my hand, begging to spend weekends together, pleading to cuddle with me. He drove me home every day. We had a system. It was not a system meant to last.
After he told me that he only became friends with me because he wanted to someday go out with me, we grew apart. He was a condescending asshole who started skipping school all the time. He became very manipulative to the point of telling me all my friends hated me with a passion—so that I would feel forced to be closer to him (of course, when I confronted them about it, they were shocked and upset and set the record straight). He started messing with my other friends for the hell of it. He acted like a huge jerk to everyone.
I didn’t talk to him whatsoever the last four months of high school. The last time I said anything to him was “congratulations” on the day of graduation, only because I was standing with the other valedictorians to shake hands and express our congratulations to everyone.
It’s easier for me to tell people that I still haven’t had my first kiss. It’s a lot shorter, and true, to say “I’ve never kissed anyone before,” than to delve into my story of trust and betrayal. It certainly doesn’t help my case with many people that I stayed friends with him, but let me explain something to you.
When it’s your best friend, you think you can just work through it. When he’s already friends with all of your other friends, it’s difficult to find a way to not be involved with him somehow. When he says he’s trying to help you while you’re in a vulnerable state, you don’t think much of it. When he tells you “If anyone hurts you they’ll have to go through me,” at first you feel safe but in the back of your head you consider and dread that you should be worried about him being the one to really hurt you.
That’s the thing about being manipulated and being used. You don’t realize you’re being manipulated until you’re not being manipulated anymore.
That brings me to something that I need each and every reader to remember: If they aren’t explicitly saying yes, then it’s a no. If someone is making you feel uncomfortable, speak up. Do not be Gaston and take silence as a gunshot to start the race. Do not be me and suffer, not only in silence, but also for too long. You’re better than that. You are worth more than that. It is not your place to decide what other people want, and it is within your every right to filter out the people causing you harm in your life.
