If Hollywood and Zach Morris have taught us nothing, it is that fireworks are everything.
I know, I know…Zach Morris was a stud with a different girl every episode (except those in which he was with the love of his life, Kelly Kapowski.) But this was the Fourth of July Saved By The Bell episode, where he finally won the heart of one Miss Stacey Carosi at the Malibu Sands beach club. And at the end of the episode, when they finally admitted their deep-seeded feelings and allowed the red hot (well…the Saturday Morning Programming version of red hot) chemistry to take over, they saw fireworks.
As if the pressure of the first few dates isn’t enough, there’s the pressure that comes with creating the most perfect and memorable and wonderful first kiss together that you will remember for the rest of time and tell your grandkids about. The sparking warmth that starts as your heart beats rapidly up and out of of your chest and somehow that simple action causes your toes at the other end of your body to curl up inside your shoes.
You desperately want to see (and feel) the fireworks.
Photo Credit: Getty Images – Image Source
I went out with Clint a few times after we met at a friend’s party. He apparently used to work with one of my close friends and they chatted for bit while I sipped my Shipyard and watched from a distance. He certainly was cute and my friend seemed riveted in the coversation.
I spent the next week trying to convince her that she should date him. And I told her that I’m a relationship columnist and I know these things and she needed to put herself out there and ask him out. She kept telling me that while he was a great guy she wasn’t
interested. And that maybe *I* should give him a call if I thought he was so great and wanted to pontificate on asking people out.
It must have been a good a good amount of yolk that dripped down my face when he emailed her to ask for my phone number.
The beginning of our first date was amazing. Coffee at my favorite downtown shop that lasted for almost six hours as we talked and laughed and got along so amazingly well that I was already begging for a second date before we had gotten a second cup of coffee. Those people you just have a perfect connection with, that you can converse with about anything, that get you so well…yes, Clint was one of them.
He walked me to my car afterwards and there came the palpable moment. Where we were standing on the sidewalk beside my Jeep shuffling from foot to foot wondering “Should I kiss him? Will she let me kiss her? Do I have coffee breath? Oh god, he’s gonna kiss me on a public sidewalk and people will see and I cannot STAND PDA’s.”
Clint stepped forward and put his arm around my waist and pulled me beside him. He looked down at me, and went for the patented guy move of finger under the chin to pull up the face so they can kiss you. (Seriously, do they pull you guys aside in 7th grade to teach you this?!) I closed my eyes and prepared to melt, knowing how much of a connection I had to him.
But. there. was. nothing.
I pulled away, confused and chilled. Obviously this was some sort of first kiss anxiety that was jading the experience. I leaned up to kiss him again, desperately willing the spark to happen. Hell, at this point I’d take a dull flicker from somewhere close to my heart, maybe a hiccup from my spleen or something.
But still. there. was. nothing.
I went out on two more dates with him, searching for the chemistry to be there. I had friends and family tell me about the people they had dated that they hadn’t IMMEDIATELY felt a spark for, but the ember grew and eventually they settled into very happy life. I kept that all in mind through about 4 more kisses, but it just wasn’t destined to happen.
I wonder frequently if I gave up too soon, if I should have tried harder.
Or if sometimes the heart knows, and that’s why we see those fireworks.
Have you ignited fireworks from the first moment your eyes met? Or been on a date where you could barely muster a pop-cap worth of intensity?
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