First Kiss

I am thinking of my first boyfriend because of this memoir in which Rebecca Walker talks about her first boyfriend (she was younger than I when she met him, but said she was older). She reports that she pretended she was much more sophisticated than she was, but she was much much more sophisticated than I was.


I was twelve and in 7th grade. I wasn't looking for a boyfriend, but my best friend J Jump Joyful had one. JJJ was way ahead of me, socially. In fact I think it was around this time that I started to realize that we didn't have much in common anymore. She was living REO Speedwagon at school and I avoided the afternoon "socials" between CSH and Stuart Hall during which the boys and girls would hold each other in hugs and rock back and forth, no matter what song was playing. JJJ didn't know about the socials, and she got her boyfriend to find me a boyfriend too. I don't remember the details of this at all and I probably didn't even understand them at the time. Maybe she had to double date; I remember one really fun Sunday afternoon when the four of us went rollerskating in Golden Gate Park.


The boy's name was Aragorn. I know I generally use nicknames for this blog but he really was named Aragorn. His parents had been hippies and I thought it was really cool that he had a Tolkien name. He was in ninth grade and had longish brown hair. I didn't know anyone who went to his school - JJJ's boyfriend didn't go there, and JJJ and I were middle schoolers (I wasn't even that since my school was K through 8). I learned later that he was rumored to be his high school's main Quaalude and Valium dealer.


So, I had this boyfriend and I had to pretend I was not only into him but much more sophisticated than I actually was. He sang the chorus to Your Kiss Is On My Lips to me. I was so nervous, and JJJ was so much more used to even just being around boys than I was that I couldn't ask her to help me, even if I'd known what to say to her. I knew that she would think I was being an idiot - if a boy likes you, you kiss him. I was told that I "liked" him; certainly I liked the attention I got when we were together. So I should kiss him, because that's what boys and girls did.

This is where I received my first kiss, standing next to the pole in the parking area of Aragorn's mom's building.


I don't remember anything else about that relationship (such as it was), how long it lasted or why we stopped dating. Maybe JJJ broke up with her guy so I was off the hook, which is probably what happened.