Elementary Angst: How One Kiss Can Change Perception

A third-grade slumber party at a classmate's house. A couple of other girls are there, four of us in all, and as the night wears on and we get situated into pajamas and sleeping bags, we begin to play Truth or Dare. Dares have to be non-disruptive to the rest of the sleeping household but still have to be good enough to illicit the daredevil feeling and giggly responses of us girls.

Mundane Truths get tossed around the group until I decide to break the cycle on my next turn. When my name is called, I opt for Dare. The two other girls confer with each other before turning to eye myself and the homeowner over. "I dare you to kiss Amanda," one of them giggles breathlessly.

And I freeze, considering whether I should go through with it. I don't want to ruin the game, on the first dare no less, nor do I want to make Amanda uncomfortable in her own home, this being the only time I've been invited over. I decide to kiss her but don't know how to get over there and close to her face and once I do she's all blushing and giggling and the other two girls are goading me on.

"Come on, Amy, just do it!" coming out of a whisper now, "Come on!" I get up onto my hands and knees, crawl a step towards Amanda, and press my lips against hers, taking a moment to enclose her bottom lip within my two, trembling ones, before pulling away.

What was, for me, just one of my first kisses, became, for the rest of the group, something to talk about. As I sat back and re-covered my lap with my sleeping bag all I heard was "Ewwww!" from all of the other girls, including my latest kissing partner.

After the blushing, after the game, after the other girls are asleep, I lay there thinking about the kiss. Monday at school everyone in the class knows about the incident, half of them are calling me a lesbian, and even the teacher has been informed, by Amanda herself, no less, about our weekend kiss -- and I'm sure the words "Truth or Dare" were left out of all descriptions of the incident.

For several years after I was thought to be a lesbian, though towards the end of school the boys decided this wasn't such a bad thing at all and found themselves wishing they could watch girls kiss each other.

I've never had very good luck when it comes to finding a good place to party at. There are a few clubs near where I live, but you get very bored and tired of the same five nightclubs every week. So of course I would be the one to try out someplace completely different.

I searched high and low for a reputable club to go to for a weekend and my search ended triumphantly; there was a club an hour away called Peppermint. People raved about it online, and I had even had a friend who had gone there once before. He echoed the reviews I'd seen, saying it was an amazing club with a great atmosphere.

So I call my friends and tell them about the club, and with that, we planned to go that following night. We primped, dolled up, and looked great. Finally came the time to leave and arrive at the new club. We were bursting with excitement to finally shake up our routine and go somewhere different. When we came upon the club, it was nice; a bit of a line at the door, bouncers, and your average nightclub.

Once we had gotten inside, it was dark, packed with people and had the music pounding. We made our way into the crowd on the dance floor and started to dance. Two of my friends tried to talk to some guys, but they all gave them the cold shoulder and were very short with conversation. Not paying that any mind, we grew tired of dancing and moved to the side of the room to catch our breath.

It was then that we noticed something odd about the nightclub; there were hardly any girls there. Aside from two or three peppered into the crowd, we were the only group of women to go in. Then we glance over at the bar, and we see boys kissing boys, guys dancing together, and guys flirting with each other. We started looking at all the evidence before us and realize that we were in a gay bar for men! I couldn't believe my mistake, and such an obvious one at that.

We looked ridiculously out of place, and decided to call it a night. We sheepishly scuttled out of the club, passing boys kissing boys and men dancing. We quickly went back home and to this day, I still get called out for recommending that club!