Let me start by telling you when my first kiss wasn’t.

In ninth grade, I had a girlfriend. I’ll wait for you to stop laughing…………..

Yes. A girlfriend. She was cute, blonde, funny, edgy and quick-witted – everything I was looking for in a friend who was a girl. And as it turned out, I was everything she was looking for in a boyfriend. Note the subtle difference.

We dated for a magical month or so, causing havoc among my junior high classmates who had already chalked me up to be the awkward, closeted gay boy that I was (Suckers!) and eventually breaking up because I refused to kiss her (“We’re moving too fast” can work for a surprisingly long time!) bringing me right back to square one.

And that was the end of my career as a heterosexual.

I reentered the dating game in Ireland the day of my nineteenth birthday, thirty pounds lighter and five or six drinks drunker. I spent the evening partying with my coworkers from River Island and occasionally catching the glances of a unquestionably attractive Irishman (aren’t they all?).

After awkwardly stumbling through seduction and clarifying that I was Canadian rather than American somehow making myself ten times more appealing (sorry, I don’t make the rules!), we decided to go somewhere quieter so I could lick the side of his beautiful face we could talk.

Of course since I was drunk and he had a beautiful accent, he could have suggested we pop outside so he could beat me to death with a hooker’s corpse and my response still would have been “OKAY!!!!”.

Outside, we engaged in drunk, homosexual flirtation which is sadly as blatant as stereotypes make it out to be: “You’re hot.” / “YOU’RE hot.” / “Are you having a fun night?” / “You’re hot.”

And then it was going to happen. Eyes were closing, people were leaning, hearts were beating, hands were shaking…and then something happened that didn’t fit into the idea of kissing that I learned scientifically through Drew Barrymore movies. My whole body started convulsing, trying to drive the point home that I should NOT slam back five hard ciders without first eating dinner.

“Urp.”

Lesson? Learned.

Mission? Aborted.

Face? Unkissed.

Night? Oh so over unless you count the time spent dry-heaving.