Never Been Kissed: What Film And TV Taught Me About Smooching

I reckon I was probably 10 when I tearfully admitted to my dad that I really wanted to watch Party of Five. Dad never let me watch it. We didn’t watch TV on Mondays, Tuesdays or Wednesdays in our house, and we were never really allowed to watch soapies anyway. Well, in the sense that Dad — a Christian minister — almost always had the remote and he was never going to put it on.

I wanted to watch Party of Five because I knew it was a grown-up show. I also knew that I wasn’t supposed to be interested in kissing, and grown-up shows had loads of kissing. There were all these beautiful people, and they were sad but they were kissing. They were beautiful, and kissing, and crying. And, for some reason I couldn’t articulate, I also wanted to be beautiful, and kissing, and crying.

Though I never told my dad all of this, I remember how he justified the rejection: “Well, you’re 10, and that’s a show for grown-ups. When you’re older if you still want to watch it, you can”. Fair cop.

I was 12 when Michael McCluskey kissed me under a bridge at a local park. He kissed me on the cheek. It was over very quickly and I don’t remember much other than feeling successful because my two coolest friends had let their boyfriends kiss them too. When I told my mum and dad, they were mainly just bemused. “Did you tell him ‘don’t touch what you can’t afford?’” Dad said. It’s a line I would go on to use in my own head ever since (I’ve never had to use it in real life, no one wanted to purchase my smooches).

The OC taught me that even nerdy boys like the cool girls, and they’ll probably end up dating them, and not you.

I was a complete loser dweeb in high school, but I had friends and I was lucky enough to not be picked on. I had braces until I was 14, and rarely shaved my legs. I was very short and very, very loud. I watched a lot of movies about cool, coy girls who boys wanted to kiss, and learned a lesson that is still true into your 20s: boys like cool, coy girls.

The OC taught me that even nerdy boys like the cool girls, and they’ll probably end up dating them, and not you. On the other hand, movies tortured me with the notion that the dweeby weird girl would end up with the cool boy somehow.

As a loud, bossy weirdo, I was waiting for my Heath Ledger in 10 Things I Hate About You to kiss me during a paintball war. As a religious nerd, I was waiting for my Shane West in A Walk To Remember to convince my religious father that it was ok for me to smooch. As a plain girl who had lofty ideas about herself, I was waiting for my Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, to kiss me in the rain and wait for me forever and ever until we died together.

At 16, I briefly dated a boy for two weeks. I kept it a secret because I knew my parents didn’t want me dating, and also, because I probably didn’t actually like the boy very much. I just really wanted a boyfriend — someone to kiss.

He kissed me in a kids’ playground somewhere near Melbourne shopping mall, Eastland. I remember there were kids playing nearby, and I know this because I kept my eyes open the whole time, thinking about how gross the kiss felt. I liked it better when he kissed my forehead than when he was trying to run his tongue along my bucked front teeth.

I dated my first boyfriend from age 19 – 26 and my parents were relieved when we broke up. This year I went on a date with a boy who cooked me a meal and then tried to coax me into his bedroom with the promise of “a box of nangs under his bed”. He drove me home while listing off the cost of every pair of sunglasses he’d owned, where he lost them, and what drugs he was on at the time.

I was waiting for my Ryan Gosling in The Notebook, to kiss me in the rain and wait for me forever and ever until we died together.

I am a minister’s daughter, and while I may have disappointed my father with smooching, I have never done drugs. In response to my silence, Nang Boy turned up the awful techno we were listening to — he said he liked it because it had a real “triple j vibe, you know?”.

When we got back to my house I didn’t invite him in and backed out of the car, but not before he lent over the steering wheel and planted a moist one right on my cringing lips. While it made for good gossip, it was very gross and made me feel weird. I accepted it as a late experience of what I probably would have gone through in my teens, were I more smooch-literate.

Chewing Gum, written by Michaela Coel, details one young woman’s sexual self-discovery while living in her mother’s council flat. She’s insanely horny. She’s also completely clueless. I remember being a kid and having to pretend I knew what words meant when the boys at school swore and used filthy slang. When Tracey’s worldy bestie is trying to explain sexting to her, it reminded me of my own frozen moments on dates with men where, as an adult, I had to sit frozen and red-faced while I pretended I knew what I was supposed to do.

I’m 27 now and I’m allowed to watch and read whatever I want. I get to kiss my current boyfriend whenever I want too. He hates it when I smooch him theatrically in public but he just doesn’t get that I’m finally living out those scenes from Gossip Girl. Sometimes I just want to feel like Blair Waldorf, swept off her feet on the sidewalk.

I hope my dad doesn’t read this, though I bet Mum will find it, and Dad will read it and text me. But I think maybe if he did read it, he’d be glad to know I appreciate him splashing some cold water over me. I think it’s important to teach teens about sex and love — and my parents did. But they also taught me the value of not obsessing over other people kissing, and instead looking at myself.

I guess I’m not Aria in Pretty Little Liars, or Mandy Moore dying in A Walk to Remember (as much as I wish I could make out with a wealthy hot teacher who ex-communicated his family, or have a boy change his ways to show me the world before I die). I’m glad I was (and am) a dork, and nervous, and clueless. Sometimes those girls get kisses too.

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Rebecca Varcoe is a writer and events producer from Melbourne. She makes print humour journal Funny Ha Ha and writes about all kinds of things for a few places online.