Kiss Me Like You Mean It

Last night was the third date with the bad kisser, and as you know, I wasn't going into that with very high hopes or expectations, which is against my current mantra. However, he had done very little to reassure me that he was even worth dating over the past week. Just a refresher of BK's prior indiscretions: 1) He was a bad kisser. 2) He didn't text me to see if I got home ok when I left his place after 2 am last Friday. 3) He didn't text me ALL week until Wednesday. So, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from this, and coupled with the fact that he had taken down his Match profile, I felt like I was receiving pretty mixed signals. We had agreed that he would come out here and we'd go to the Iron Hill Brewery. He came to my house, met my dog (not an easy thing!), and we headed out for dinner. Again, we fell into easy conversation, lots of laughter, and I really really like hanging out with him. I was really scared what might happen if he kissed me again, so I tried to avoid it. After dinner, it was so nice out, so we drove out to get some ice cream at Sundaes, and just sat outside and talked for a while. Once it started to rain, we drove back to my house. All of this was successful, and there was NO kissing. I knew once we got back to my house that would be much harder to avoid. Last time, we had wanted to watch Spaceballs instead of Airplane!, but he couldn't find his copy, so we watched it at my house. It created good comfortable banter - we both were quoting it over each other - and laughing at the silliness of Mel Brooks, and still NO kissing! In my mind, I thought maybe it wouldn't happen. I was clearly kidding myself. After the movie, it was still relatively early, and we decided to find something else to watch, and settled on Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Apparently I'm on an 80s/early 90s movie kick... but at least I found someone who enjoys watching them with me! Unfortunately before the movie started, I was caught off guard. He was coming back to the couch and swooped in and kissed me before I could even prep myself for what was to come! But this time, I was pleasantly surprised. There was just enough pressure, no teeth, not a lot of tongue... Oh my, could he have improved his kissing technique since last week?? As the movie continued, we made out a bit here and there, and he definitely reverted back to the old way of kissing, but I was not discouraged. At least I know the potential for good kissing is there - and who doesn't like a challenge?? I was also able to better place my finger on what the problem was/is with his style. You can fix a problem before you identify it!

After the movie, we continued making out, and I was able to apply some of my teaching skills to teaching him how to kiss better! So, he was kissing me and running his hands lightly over my arms and side. I'm VERY ticklish, so I used this to my advantage to create a teachable moment. I told him that I'm super ticklish, and to avoid me getting very jumping and spastic when he touches me, he needs a firmer touch, and the more pressure the better - with touching AND kissing. This is the first problem. He's a very soft kisser, which is ok, once in a while, but it does not constitute good making out kissing. This was the problem last week with the teeth. He wasn't applying enough pressure and if I pressed my lips harder his teeth ended up pressing up against my lips. So, we're working on the pressure. The second problem was that every time I tried to pull back a little from the kiss he would jut his face forward and it was too much coming at me all the time. So, when he did it one time too many, I just pulled back a bit and said, "Why don't you let me come to you." And for the most part, the jutting problem was solved. Now, the final problem of his jaw... when he would kiss me, he would move his jaw around a little too much. So, I made a joke about it. I asked if he was planning on unhinging his jaw and trying to swallow me whole. So, then every time his jaw would "unhinge" a bit too much, I'd just laugh or he would, but he got the picture. For as long as we were there making out (over 4 hours), there was not much more than kissing going on. No clothing came off, it was VERY PG. It sounds a lot like there was a kissing class going on - but here's my way of thinking... If he didn't improve his kissing, I wasn't going to date him again anyway, so what did it hurt to offer some suggestions? And, I kind of said that to him... Maybe not so harshly, but I did tell him that I'm very picky about the way I like to be kissed, and he was really receptive to it. He said he wanted to make sure I was happy, which is a good response. One time he was kissing me a little too limply, and I just pulled back and said, "Could you please kiss me like you mean it?" I think he was a little surprised, but it worked!

I also was not going to let the lack of communication from last time go either. This is all part of my new dating persona. If something bothers me, I'm bringing it up. There's no use in tip-toeing around it. So, after we had been making out for a while, and were taking a break, I brought it up, very casually. I just asked why he waited 4 days before contacting me after our last date. He kind of stammered around it, and said he didn't realize how many days it was, and that he knew I was busy with my family being here. And I replied, yeah, but a text takes like 2 seconds to send. And I also told him that I was disappointed that he didn't even text me to see if I got home ok when I drove home from his house late at night. He admitted that he should have texted me, and that he meant to, but he got a really bad migraine and it slipped his mind. Ok, fine. Every deserves a second chance, and I told him, I want a guy who's going to check in on me, and make sure I get home ok late at night, and keep in touch throughout the week. And if he didn't think he could do that, I could find someone who would. I said that. I was balls-out last night with the honesty. And it was well received, maybe I should try it more often.

As we continued his kissing education, as a good teacher should, I gave him an assessment, were my objectives met? Is he progressing? He passed the quiz with flying colors, but he knows he has to retain the information for next time. And there probably will be a next time, but not for a few weeks. I'm going to Boston-Vermont-Saratoga next week Thursday-Monday, and no time for more dates. Then I'm home for 3 days and the following Friday I leave for Hawaii... so I'm not sure if I'll see him again before September! He's going to try to set something up for a week night, but he travels a lot for work, so he can't always make it during the week. I'm afraid with so many weeks in between he'll lose some of the knowledge. As he was leaving at 4am, I made sure he knew to text me when he got home and made him kiss me like he was going to miss me for the next few weeks. He did, both.

**After 3 years of the black background, white text; some of my faithful readers are getting a little OLD and their eyes aren't what they used to be and have complained about the text. I changed the format, just for you Debbie. You better appreciate it.**