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Assignment: Radio is where you'll find news and public affairs content produced by students studying journalism and/or broadcasting at the University of Oklahoma's Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Some of these student-produced news reports focus on issues and events on the OU campus; others have a broader interest.

Kiss Me, Kate! First Love Gone Awkward

Kate Carlton

First kisses are built up so much, but not everything always goes as planned. If I had one first that I could redo, it would be my first kiss.

And it's not necessarily because of the kiss itself, although it was nothing spectacular by any means; I want to re-do it because of my reaction to the kiss. 

Before I begin though, I need to point out two things:

  1. I was in first grade when this happened. This means I was a solid six years old, and subsequently, my frontal lobe and decision-making skills were not exactly fully developed.
  2. For the sake of “protecting the innocent,” I'll call the boy “John.” 

In first grade, all of our desks were set up in quads; John’s quad was a few groups away from mine. But one day, I watched him leave his chair and come over to where I was sitting. Now, I remember talking to John, but I don’t remember ever having a crush on him. 
So, needless to say, when he leaned to kiss me on the cheek, I was shocked… so shocked that when I turned my head to see what he was doing, his kiss actually landed on my eyeball… and it was open.

I had no idea how to react. Thankfully, it was the end of the school day and we left shortly after. That night, I was so embarrassed and astounded that I plotted revenge. After all, this kid could have had cooties, and I just got a kiss on my eye! I had to do something about it.

So the next morning comes, but I don't do anything. Instead, I wait until the end of the day, and I pull out my pencil box. I take out the Elmer's glue and walk over to John's desk. I unscrew the top and begin pouring the glue on John. Once again, let me be clear that this is not a proud moment of mine. That’s exactly why I wish I could have a clean slate. That will forever be the first time a boy kissed me, and I ruined it by pouring glue on him.

Sometimes we don’t have as much of a say in our firsts as we would like to. Paige Willett, a former KGOU employee, says her first breakup went anything but smoothly. 

She was in 9th grade and had been dating her boyfriend for a few months. He was in the school musical though, so she hadn’t seen him much. One weekend, when she went with the boy’s family to the mall, things started to unravel.

“We were just walking around, shopping, just goofing off, and we saw this girl, and I mean, I had never seen her before,” Willett said. “I didn’t know who she was. He like, screams her name and he runs up to her and gives her this big hug, and they’re laughing. He didn’t even introduce me as his girlfriend! His twin brother even leaned over to me and was like, ‘Are you jealous?’ He was like cracking up about it.”

She decided she was going to let it go. He told her that they had been working on the musical together for about a month. Everything went on normally for a couple weeks until all the sudden, he stopped talking to her.

He wouldn’t answer her phone calls or texts. He avoided her at school.

“After the first week, I was like ‘Ok, something’s wrong,’” Willett said. “And eventually after another week, I was like, ok, I’ve had enough of this. He’s been totally avoiding me. I know we’re breaking up now!”

Then she decided to plan when she was going to get dumped.

“I wasn’t going to let him have the satisfaction of me breaking up with him because I was like, he’s the one being a jerk!” Willet said.

“The day we broke up, I was just super-nice to him,” Willett said. “I sent him nice text messages and everything. I tried to see him after class, and he just avoided me, like practically he would see me and just run away from me. And so, finally, towards the end of the day, he was like ‘Hey! Do you want to meet me over by math class or whatever?’ and I was like ‘Ok, sure!’ And I was like, ‘This is so happening right now.”

So she met up with her boyfriend. He was extremely nervous, stuttering and shaking.

“I’m kind of like laughing inside which sounds really maniacal and awful, but I totally was.” Willett said.

They walked toward the front of the school and her boyfriend began trying to begin the awkward process of breaking up.

Going through a bad breakup? Here's a playist for you to eat ice-cream and cry to.

“And then the choir teacher sees me from across the cafeteria,” Willet says. “She like runs over and is like, ‘Hey guys! What’s up?’ And we were like, ‘Hey.’ You know, she was asking us questions about choir t-shirts or something. And then she went away. So, he got interrupted breaking up with me! So, then he finally did, and I was 15, so I was mad and heartbroken over three months.”

Paige found out later that her ex had been “talking” to the other woman for those two weeks of silence between them. The day after their awkward breakup, he started officially dating her.

That same day, their choir teacher asked her, “Hey, was I interrupting something yesterday? Was he like, asking you out?”

Paige laughed and explained that what she had interrupted was actually a breakup.

“But it all works out because we ended up being really good friends and so now we’re best friends, and I’m engaged to another guy who’s pretty wonderful,” said Willet.

Credit Paige Willett
Paige Willett and her fiancé Kevin Lough.

Maybe when people say, “The first is the worst, the second is the best, the third is the one with the treasure chest,” they actually mean it.

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