I'll never forget my first kiss. Even if I wanted to.

How many of you have a written account of your first kiss?  Well, I do.  That's because it just happened a few months ago and I wrote the experience down.  It's an unpublished blog that I'm still working on.  It will soon be released. Stay tuned.  Kidding.
I have an actual hand-written note recounting my first kiss experience.  I wrote the letter to my friend since elementary school, Rebecca *(http://thefirsthundred.wordpress.com).  I like to think that I grew up in the good old days.  I know everybody says that, but we lived in an age (not all that long ago, which is scary) long before texting, and facebook, and even AOL IM'ing (is IM'ing the correct term?  I don't even know).  Our extent of our lingo was 'wuz up (arrow pointing up)?  NMH.'
We wrote letters.  The majority of juicy gossip exchange was done through letter writing.  I still have many letters from friends from middle school and high school.  It was a way to stay occupied during class.  During locker breaks, you exchanged letters to your friends.  It's just what we did.
Rebecca held on to my 'first kiss letter' for many, many years.  I'm super impressed that she held onto it for so long.  She deserves an award for not only keeping it, but then finding it and mailing it back to the writer.  The letter even got wet from the rain at one point.  Hilarious.  It's like The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.  This letter may have traveled with her as she packed her belongings and moved to different locations throughout college.  Maybe it stayed tucked away in a box for years and years.  Maybe she even transferred it to the back pocket of her pants daily just to keep it close by in case she wanted to read it.  Very likely.  I don't know where it was kept all of those years.  The point is that she kept it.  Rebecca came across the letter and mailed it back to me during the summer of 2008.  I loved receiving this letter because it's a literal play-by-play of my first kiss story.  It's embarrassing because it's so dumb, and I shuddered at some of my spelling and grammatical mistakes, but it's so funny and I loved having the opportunity to relive the memory.
The letter is still neatly and crisply folded and it has a bluish tint from the rain bleeding some of the ink.  It's still very legible though.  Sadly, very legible.  In the letter I give details of the when and the where of the famous first kiss.  I even labeled: WHEN- and WHERE-.  I've always been a nerd.  The 'when' of the first kiss was on September 12.  I wish I knew the year, but I left that detail out.  I didn't date my original letter.  I was a late bloomer though when it came to having my first real boyfriend and first kiss.  My other friends, Casey and Sarah, had been stressing about the fact that I still had not received my kiss (I mentioned this fact in the letter).  I just can't remember if I was 15 or 16.  I know I wasn't old enough to drive.  That's why I had to have a boyfriend that was older and could drive.  I was a smart girl.  Rebecca probably knows how old I was.  She forgets nothing.
The 'where' of the kiss was my driveway as I was being dropped off from eating with the youth group at CiCi's.  Romantic.  I mentioned that I was a little disappointed with the kiss and that I even received a little chin slobber.  The boy that gave me my first kiss was my first love.  I was glad the experience was with him.  We were both shy and awkward at first.  The letter is funny.  I can sense my awkwardness and nervousness as I read my words.  Through reading, I was able to remember the events and I was taken back to that age of innocence when life was so simple, yet everything seemed so dramatic and earth shattering.  Funny how things change.  This letter is something I'll cherish for years to come.  I'm grateful to have it to recapture a bit of that memory.  Even though we remember moments and people we shared them with, we (or at least, I) often forget those little details and conversation exchanges.  It takes you back for a minute when you read about your experience.
So, thanks Rebecca for keeping my dorky letter.  I loved that you kept it.  I love that you mailed it back to me years later even more.  You're a pal among pals.  Not that you want to be thinking about Eden kissing boys, but make sure you tell her to write her experience down (when she has her first kiss in 30 years).  She'll appreciate seeing it again someday and hopefully she'll be lucky enough to have a friend to remind her of it.

*If you haven't checked out Rebecca's blog; do it.  Today.  She's the funniest blogger of all time.

Dating Deal Breakers

Is he Mr. Right or Mr. Not-on-Your-Life?

• A guy that is over-confident, cocky, arrogant, rude to you and others
• You're out with a guy and he's not paying attention to you and what you're saying. He's too busy looking around at others and the surroundings.
• Bad teeth (crooked, yellowed, gunk-filled)
• Bad breath/smoke breath
• Nicotine/drug use
• Poor hygiene/appearance
• Physical, emotional, verbal abuser
• A guy that lives with his parents
• When a guy talks about his ex-girlfriend WAY too much and compares you to her
  
  
• He doesn't get your sense of humor
• He's a bad kisser
• He wears sunglasses indoors
• He is not of the same faith
• He wears jean shorts
• He is an accessive sweater
• He has an annoying laugh
• He is touchy-feely
• He wears a gold chain
• He doesn't have a J-O-B
• He has too much hair...and not on his head
• He's a cheapskate..."and your half comes to..." I get that the country is in a recession, but still.
• He's not decisive/doesn't have a set agenda. A girl wants to know that he puts some effort into planning a date.
• He has bad manners
• He has long fingernails and/or toenails

• Being a slacker. Picture a guy who has a great personality, great looks, great sense of humor...he has everything--except motivation. Nothing is worse that a man who has no ambition in life.
  

So, my question is: What are your dating deal-breakers?