Edge of Seventeen

"It hurts"

 This is the first of a series of posts I intend to make. The series theme? Things I Have Learned from Boys I Have Kissed. Please note the distinction that I have made here, a kiss does not imply dating, and specifically, I mention boys, as the bulk of these will have taken place prior to my triumphant return to Omaha in 2008. I started thinking of this about a week ago while I was sorting DVDs, the movie, Edge of Seventeen showed up and it intrigued me, because the only people who watch films like this are gay kids who are sick and tired of John Hughes being such a douche bag. Well, and creepy straight girls who spend their lives attached to gay men an can't find any real passion in their own lives. 

I'll admit that being the only out guy in high school meant that I got a lot of play from young men who would later become the proud homosexuals of Omaha North High School. It got me a lot more play from boys who would never come out ever in their entire life, and to this day will probably deny that they ever did anything with a man. I've been the tester for numerous guys and I think I'm kind of satisfied with that. Each experience taught me a lot about who I am, what I like, and what my limits, standards and expectations are. Aside from being an introductory post, this is also about one of the first boys I kissed. I'm pretty sure he falls into the second category of toe-dipper, but I'll freely admit, he had the biggest impact on my development as a man. 

His name was Zach. He wasn't the first boy I kissed, not by a longshot. He was actually somewhere in the middle. It was my senior year of high school, and I couldn't tell you what grade he was in if I tried. I do know that we only started talking via email at school. He was dating an obnoxious little mousey girl with an attitude. I asked him to homecoming. When he said he had a date already, I was disappointed, but we kept talking, and actually became pretty good friends. It wasn't until a few weeks later, via phone-call that he asked me to be his boyfriend. It was cute. This was important because up until this moment, I had always been the aggressor in any sort of interaction with men. He was a pretty fantastic guy, one of the few that I continued to talk to after departing Nebraska for Arizona. He loves ducks. He's a whole lotta punk-rock. He bites when he kisses, which has stuck with me ever since. He came to my school play on opening night and brought me a carnation, something nobody has ever done since. He would walk me from class to class and we'd sneak a kiss before disappearing into our classrooms. He wore black lipstick that left cute little marks that I wore with pride. 

I haven't spoken to him directly since 2005. We're friends on facebook, but I never know what to say to him to let him know just how formative he was in my youth. I won't go so far as to say I love him, but I definitely enjoyed him and adore the parts of him I find in others I meet on a daily basis. There is rarely a day that passes that I don't meet somebody who reminds me of him in some way, shape or form.