This morning I found this waiting in my inbox,

J. added you as a friend on Facebook. We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, friends with Jennifer.

J. says, “You were the first person I ever kissed….”

First let me lobe my excuse out there by saying I have a Facebook account because of work, we made a Facebook app, and I barely use the thing because, well, honestly I am just not very social. Yes, very contrarian in light of all the Web 2.0 hype.

I sat in stunned silence. She was also the first person I ever kissed, and honestly, the only until I graduated high school. I was in eighth grade and she in seventh. I played hockey with her brother and while she came to many of the games I’m not really sure how we even struck up what was the briefest of romances. My memory recalls it was built on that one kiss and maybe a handful of phone calls and that it burned out nearly as quickly as it started.

If the nature of our relationship escapes me that moment lingers in my memory. At the bottom of a stairwell, the buses idling outside waiting to bring everyone home, we shared a quick kiss. Not a peck, or a brushing of lips, but something that had the first ache of passion intermingled with a confused innocence. A teacher came down the stairs and we broke our embrace hastily and attempted a posture of obvious nonchalance which, in retrospect, was laughable. But that was it.

As an eighth grader I was graced with being socially awkward, overweight, and had decided at the time that long hair looked damn fine on me. Not much has changed except that now I shave my head. But the kiss and the bruised feeling when it ended darkened how I saw love and relationships. The bitter taste, something that should have been rinsed out with adolescent living, lingered and eventually festered into cynicism. It is a failing of mine, obsessive tenacity, and I certainly bear no ill feelings because of the fickleness that guides decisions at that age.

Sitting here, some twenty years later, and it is surprising how sharp those feelings can still be, the warmth of her breath followed by the cold weight of rejection. Even stranger how after all these years a single auto-generated email can have those memories surge forward as if that moment had just passed. I wonder what made her think of that moment.