Chapter 12: the kiss. oh, the kiss.

As much as Tim had dated before me (I've heard from several sources that the number of girls he dated was in the 20's), he had never had a girlfriend, and since it wouldn't have been in his character to kiss a girl he wasn't in some way committed to, he never had. Let me rephrase so you can fully appreciate this little nugget of information: he had never kissed a girl.

He had a system, he explained: if he liked a girl, he asked her out. If she accepted, he took her out on a date. If the date went well, he kept asking her out on up to 3 dates, but no more than 3 dates because if she made it to 3 dates then they would have a talk. A DTR, if you will. If he wanted her to be his girlfriend, he would ask her, and if he didn't want her to be his girlfriend, he would tell her gently but clearly that he really enjoyed spending time with her but he had decided over the course of their 3 dates that he didn't think they were right for each other, and would ask if they could just be friends.

Apparently, women loved him for this. He kept friendships with nearly all the girls he ever dated. His dates' roommates would write him emails thanking him for respecting their friend and being clear and open in communication about how he felt and where he did and didn't see the dating relationship going. Some of his former dates later asked him to shoot their weddings.

Using his system to navigate dating relationships throughout college and post-college, he had only found one other girl he wanted to be his girlfriend, and she wasn't into it. And then there was me. For seven years he had been searching and filtering and asking and dating, but never committing or kissing. He had finally found one special girl whom he really wanted and really wanted her to want him too, and it was me.

So that brings us to the couch in his living room on the second day of my trip, after I had met his brother and future sister in law and most of his closest friends. Everyone was gone and we were up talking when he told me he wanted to kiss me and he had never kissed anyone before.

My past relationships never prepared me for this kind of situation. I had only heard about committed Christian men who saved their first kiss for so long they were now pronounced man and wife before they kissed their lady. So I gently asked: "Are you sure you don't want to wait until marriage?" To which he replied: "Absolutely NOT!"

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