A Long and Complicated Story of Parties, Kisses and Misunderstandings: Part One

This is the story of how I changed my facebook status to "In a relationship with Emma Sansom".

To begin this tale of confusion and secret kisses, I must go right back to the beginning. Not 'of time', but just eleven years ago to the winter of 1997. I was ten. So was Emma. We met, we became boyfriend and girlfriend, we broke up.

I'd love to tell you more, but there is a distinct lack of tales in the few months we were together. Being a couple in those days meant holding hands and dancing slow at the end of discos.

Anyway. We ended up going to the same secondary school, but managed to avoid each other through most of the five years we were there. We even sat together in Maths, and only shared words when I had forgotten my textbook and she was offering hers.

It wasn't like we didn't like each other (Well, it wasn't like I didn't like her), but we hung out with different groups which never intersected.

It wasn't until Sixth Form that we began to nurture a friendship again. There wasn't a big event to signify it. We just started talking again.

We all went away to uni and Emma was one of the few people I kept in touch with when I was home for the summer. That group got smaller over the years, but Emma was never cut. The definition of a friend, if ever I heard one.

But throughout this whole period of re-friendship, there was never really a spark. I knew her, sure, but didn't really know her. I didn't know her favourite colour, or what she liked to listen to. I hadn't even been inside her house. And we certainly had never flirted before.

Until...

New Year 2008 (Where the picture above was taken). We were both at Faye's party, something her family holds every year. In our age-range, it was just Faye, Emma and I for most of the night. Fun was had and alcohol was drunk.

And something was different between me and Emma. We sat and discussed our favourite colours, music, films, etc. We flirted. I don't flirt with people. I'm rubbish at it. But I found myself doing it at this party.

To this day, I don't know the reason. Most of me blames alcohol and part of me thinks it has something to do with me being the only age-appropriate male there. I don't think I'll ever know.

The whole flirting thing culminated in us sat in the same chair. We had been fighting over a party horn, and she had pulled me down onto her. She had taken the horn from my mouth and blown it. I had taken it from her. Then we had a moment.

Those times when you know that you're going to kiss someone. It was one of them. It had just seemed right.

I didn't kiss her.

It may sound like a film cliché, but as we moved to kiss, the door went. We got up and answered it. That was that. The moment was forgotten.

On another day, we discussed the events. Well, after I had reminded her of the events we discussed them. It was the alcohol and it was fun. That was it. End of story.

Except it wasn't the end of the story, it was only the beginning.

The next part comes at another party (You'll find that most of the parts of this story contain alcohol). It was a friend's twenty-first, and many, many people were there. The party itself was fun, despite the lack of drinking.

You see, I was poor at the time, so my only drinks that night were the ones I could beg and borrow from my wonderful, wonderful friends. So I was tipsy, but nowhere near as drunk as I should have been.

I didn't really interact with Emma all that much during the party. We spoke a little. She may have bought me a drink. But for the most part, we hung out with different people.

Which leaves me time to introduce someone else to this story now. Her name is Megan. We used to have a habit of drunkenly kissing at parties. She becomes very important later, but for this party she spent most of the time telling me how she wasn't going to try and kiss me (she did).

Oh, she has a proper boyfriend now, so things work out in the end.

So, the party ends and we make our exit. To my surprise, I'm set upon by two girls. Megan, going quickly back on her drunken promises, takes one hand. Emma, who I haven't seen for a while, takes the other hand.

I'm not the type of boy who usually has one girl, let alone two. I don't really know how to cope. I call "Shotgun!".

Yes, that's right. Instead of sitting between two girls who are drunkenly wanting to cosy up to me, I sit in the front of the car. Yes, I'm an idiot.

Anyhow, we are dropping both Megan and Emma off first. Megan is staying at Emma's, but she wants cheesy chips so we drop them off at a kebab stand near Emma's house. She later goes on to throw those chips up, but that isn't important to the story except to point out how drunk a girl has to be to want to hold my hand.

We get out the car to bid them goodbye. I hug Megan and when she tries to kiss me I remind her of her promise a few hours earlier.

Then, when I'm saying goodbye to Emma, she gives me a kiss on the lips. Just a friendly kiss, mind, but a kiss none-the-less.

Then it wasn't a friendly kiss anymore. It was proper kiss, with tongues and everything. It didn't last long.

I didn't kiss her back.

Now, I've told this story to a few people and this part seems to have the most polar reactions. Some see where I was coming from. This was a drunk girl, and I was bordering on sober. It would've been taking advantage. I didn't want to kiss her like that.

Most people hearing the stories think I'm an idiot. Sure, she was drunk, but she was pretty! What if I never got to kiss her again? I'd have wasted my one chance out of misguided chivilary.

And this is what I was thinking when I arrived home that night. I was an idiot. I should have kissed her. Damn!

But life goes on. The next day I'm heading back to uni, and as I'm packing I recieve a text. I forget the exact words but it said something like "Sorry for making a fool of myself last night."

We kept texting each other as I finished packing, then as I boarded my train. It was a long journey, and Emma became my entertainment.

I discovered that my act of kindness the night before had be misconstrued. She was embaressed because she thought I didn't want to kiss her. This wasn't the case, I told her. I was just trying to be a nice boy and not take advantage.

She did tell me that it isn't taking advantage if a drunk girl wants to kiss you, so I'm bearing that in mind in future.

Anyway, we kept texting when I arrived in Leeds, and through the evening. At midnight, I ran out of free texts, but our conversation continued online. In total, we spoke for 14 hours that day.

For the next month, this became the norm. We spoke everyday, about anything and everything. We passed through the important stuff, like life, love, death and secrets, but also discussed words that we liked, and gossip we had heard. There are so many things that we talked about that I have forgotten now.

And I looked forward to our daily conversations. And, little by little, I developed a crush.

Now, during the course of our talks, I had arranged to come and visit her in Southampton. It was a friendly thing, but in my mind it was more than that. The trip would be where I could find out if she liked me too. In hindsight, perhaps building it up so much was a bad idea.

The full details can be found on a separate post, but let me just say that it didn't go all that well.

In fact, she got drunk and kissed another boy. On a scale of things that you want the girl you have a crush on to do, this is pretty near the bottom.

Speaking about it with her at a later date, I found out that she knew I fancied her and was going to try and gently dissuade me. Then she got drunk and went WAY too far.

But, such is life. You move on, because not moving on is foolish. I did, eventually.

In fact, the day I definitely knew that I was over her was when we were amongst friends at the pub. My friend, and her ex, had noticed that we were being flirty and had asked if I fancied her. It didn't matter if I did, he said.

And I thought about it. And, truthfully, I told him I didn't. My crush was over and I could move on and find other girls. We were still friends, and I guess that was all we were going to be.

That night, I kissed Emma for the first time.

To be continued...

:D