The Lost Art of the First Kiss

I hate the movie “Hitch.” The plot is dull, the acting is atrocious, and Will Smith’s array of pastel shirts are far too tight. However, in the very beginning of the movie there is an interesting quote. Smith, playing a “date doctor” proclaims, “Three dates, and I’ll get you here, to the high-stakes medal round where eight out of ten women believe that the first kiss will tell them everything they need to know about the relationship.” Yes the movie’s plot is corny and a touch unrealistic (like any good romantic comedy), but I find this line to be the most at odds with reality. It seems to me that it doesn’t take three dates for the guy to get a kiss from the lady, but 3 apple martinis instead.

Like many twenty something females living in the U.S. circa 2010, my girlfriends and I discuss the many stresses (both good and bad) of dating. At this point I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it all; the awkward fourth date attempt at PDA, breaking up with guys over trivial things like tacky facial hair, and attempts to spice it up in the bedroom gone horribly, horribly wrong. However it occurred to me the other day that I honestly can’t say I’ve heard a story about a first kiss in a relationship. I mean, a real first kiss. Sure I’ve heard my share of “OMG I can’t believe I made out with that guy last night. I’m never doing patron shots again” kissing stories, but I can’t recall a story about an authentic, meaningful first kiss in quite a while.

Hollywood is all about the first kiss. These kisses usually entail the leading man gently stroking the leading lady’s face, uttering some positively faint-inducing line, then sealing the deal with a delicate yet perfectly passionate kiss. Often times there is some sort of precipitation involved or maybe even a full-scale natural disaster. Maybe they’re involved in a messy tragedy, maybe not. Perhaps they were recently reunited after being torn apart by war or maybe they’ve known each other for years and the geekier one of the two has finally confessed his or her love. First kisses are what woke Sleeping Beauty and Snow White from their comas after all. First kisses are the basic climax of every teen movie. No matter the situation, Hollywood seems to have gotten in right. Unfortunately like many things that come out of Tinseltown, the first kiss doesn’t seem to have that same magic in real life.

The typical scenario of the first kiss these days is much more “let’s get liquored up and get our sloppy makeout session on” than “let’s gaze at fireworks after our date on the boardwalk and you can plant one on me.” Maybe it’s just a sign of the times. Maybe just like the ipod, social networking, and reality television, the lost art of the first kiss is simply a product of my generation. While I consider myself a socially progressive person, if there is one thing the cohorts of the past had going for them it was the first kiss. I mean, it used to be a big deal to hold hands at the malt shop or my favorite phrase, “go steady.” I’m not saying we trade in our Prada platforms for poodle skirts but come on now. The first kiss just seems to have lost its importance.

In his book, Studies of Savages and Sex, Ernest Crawley discusses the origins of and concept of kissing. He writes that touching is “the mother of the senses,” and the kiss is a tangible and specialized form of that intimate contact. I couldn’t agree more. We’ve all had that happen, haven’t we? The touching that makes you think things along the lines of, “holy shit this is the mother of all senses!” I’m sure we’ve all also had the same types of kisses. The kinds of kisses that make us close our eyes so tightly our eyelashes get tangled. The kinds of kisses that make us think, “holy shit this is the mother of all senses!”

So I guess my point in all of this is, why do we waste this intimate contact on weird guys at a grungy bar? Call me crazy, but a random guy I met five minutes ago attempting to be a substitute for my Crest dental floss isn’t very appealing. Especially when he tastes like stale bourbon and not minty freshness. Why has kissing gone from something cherished and personal to something that makes me think of Brett Michaels and a groupie who may or may not be transvestite? As women we spend hours choosing the perfect ensemble or the perfect cupcake on “eat what I want Sundays,” so why not the same pickiness with the men we choose to and the settings in which we kiss? As Hitch described, it should be a high-stakes medal round. It shouldn’t be an all-you-can kiss buffet, a lip lock free for all. Albert Einstein sums it up best with the statement, “Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.” Bingo. Thank you Albie for completely getting my point. And we thought that whole theory of relativity thing was groundbreaking….