The other day, I was having dinner with two girlfriends, and one of them told us about a recent date she went on with a guy from OKCupid. She said that the guy was nice, but pretty boring and there just wasn’t any chemistry between them. She was ready to completely write him off, but at the end of the date, as he walked her to the subway, he leaned in and gave her one of the most amazing kisses she’s ever had. “It was incredible,” she said, “It took my breath away.” Needless to say, she went out with the guy again.
But, here’s my question: has this ever happened to you? I was pretty surprised by her story as I’ve never gotten to a point where I actually kiss someone I don’t feel any chemistry with. I’ve always assumed if there’s no chemistry, there’s no chemistry, you know? Can a kiss really change that? Apparently, maybe it can. Has it for you? Poll, after the jump.
[polldaddy poll=”4773144″]
I’m also curious if you’ve experienced the opposite: kissed someone you felt great chemistry with only to be disappointed?
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DramaQueen224 March 23, 2011, 4:11 pm
This (kind of) happened to a friend of mine. She went on a date with a guy and was really feeling the friend vibe, but wasn’t attracted to him and didn’t think they had chemistry. But when he kissed her goodnight, she saw sparks. They’ve been dating for 3 years now and are living together. I still wouldn’t kiss a guy if there wasn’t at least a friendship vibe (boring is boring, no matter how good of a kisser), but now I’m a lot more willing try if there’s anything at all.
DramaQueen224 March 23, 2011, 8:18 pm
ps- Wendy, how did your friend’s second date go? Did she still find the guy boring?
Beckaleigh March 23, 2011, 4:13 pm
Yes, Wendy! I have kissed someone who I was totally into and had great chemistry with and then after the kiss, I was totally turned off by him and couldn’t pursue things further! It was awkward and kind of gross, so we (really, me) decided we were better off as just friends.
heidikins March 23, 2011, 4:59 pm
Me too, which was too bad because he was cute. But a bad kisser is a bad kisser; I’m not in the business of training men how to kiss like a human and not a puppy dog.
xox
thyme March 23, 2011, 6:15 pm
I had a fantastic chemistry and great conversation with a guy on our first date and was totally into him by the end of the night, but when I kissed him, it was, well, the _WORST_ kiss I had ever experienced. Like, his tongue was just lying limp in my mouth like a dead fish. I was really put off by it, and I seriously considered not seeing him again. But I did, and he turned out to be wonderful, even despite the subpar kissing skills.
sarita_f March 23, 2011, 4:20 pm
I have had it both ways.
#1 – I wasn’t totally into this guy I was chatting with at a bar, but he surprised me by kissing me and, I swear I am not normally a cheesy person, the world just stopped. Had to have him then. We had a nice, mostly long-distance relationship for almost a year but finally broke up a few years back.
#2 – Totally digging this guy, we had lots of mutual friends and tons of witty email banter. But date #1, he goes in for a kiss, it was this awful hard-lipped peck, and I could go no further with him romantically.
cdjd2614 March 23, 2011, 4:26 pm
I have had this situation happen to me multiple times, me and the guy have great chemistry, we can talk about anything and everything and then we kiss and its horrible! So disappointing to since 2 of the guys are friends before and you then have to face the whole “I think we’re better as friends” conversation, luckily both are great guys and the whole thing didn’t affect our friendship. The horrible kissing though reminds me of the Sex and the City episode when Charolette is clicking with the guy and he turns out to be a horrible kisser and just licks her face, yuck!
silver_dragon_girl March 23, 2011, 4:27 pm
I’ve never really been affected that strongly by a kiss. The kiss, to me, is more a distillation of whatever I’m already feeling for the person. If I’m totally into him, it’s great. If I’m not, it’s “meh.”
MissDre March 23, 2011, 4:33 pm
The last guy I dated was such a bad kisser… it was like he was slobbering all over my face. The first time he kissed me, I thought he was trying to lick my face. I asked him what he was doing and he says “What do you mean? I’m kissing you!”
I literally had to wipe my face every time he kissed me. Needless to say that didn’t last long.
TheGirl March 24, 2011, 12:55 pm
That’s HILARIOUS. Poor dude.
Jessica March 23, 2011, 4:41 pm
This is totally unrelated.. but Wendy have you thought (sorry for suggesting) of setting something up where we get some sort of notification when someone replies to a comment we have posted?
Amy March 23, 2011, 4:55 pm
I think if you click on the “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” box under the Submit button that you will get this info in email. 🙂
WatersEdge March 23, 2011, 5:05 pm
Then you get a new email every time someone comments to the entire thread, not just your comment. It goes on for over a week if it’s a hot topic. I did it once- never again.
Jessica March 24, 2011, 2:31 pm
I did the same!
Wendy March 23, 2011, 4:57 pm
What she said!
SpaceySteph March 23, 2011, 5:01 pm
There was this guy I met on an internet dating site (I spent about 3 months on J-date, but nothing really came of it). We messaged back and forth on the site a bit, then moved to gchat, and then met in person. He was nice, and we had some things in common, but he was not really my cup of tea physically (that sounds mean- he wasn’t bad looking, just not for me). Well at the end of that date, he went to kiss me and I went along with it even though I wasn’t really interested.
Nothing. Not a damn spark, twinkle, glimmer, flicker…nothing. Oh well.
But maybe I shouldn’t rule out the kissing after a so-so connection, based on the stories here.
WatersEdge March 23, 2011, 5:09 pm
I am so excited to tell this story!
My husband and I communicated a lot before meeting. On our first date I knew I liked him in some way but I wasn’t sure if I was attracted to him. Objectively speaking he’s cute but not my type. He gave me just a short kiss about halfway through the date and it was one of those world stopping kisses. We actually kissed for over a minute. It totally changed my perspective on him.
And to answer your question, the spark lasted and we still have hot sex. Now I’m in love with him and I think he’s the hottest guy on the planet, of course.
HmC March 23, 2011, 5:14 pm
Not sure if we’re allowed to link to/ quote from articles but this topic reminded me of a Time magazine article I’d read…
“If it’s easy for a glance to become a kiss and a kiss to become much more, that’s because your system is trip-wired to make it hard to turn back once you’re aroused. That the kiss is the first snare is no accident.
Not only does kissing serve the utilitarian purpose of providing a sample of MHC, but it also magnifies the other attraction signals–if only as a result of proximity. Scent is amplified up close, as are sounds and breaths and other cues. And none of that begins to touch the tactile experience that was entirely lacking until intimate contact was made. “At the moment of a kiss, there’s a rich and complicated exchange of postural, physical and chemical information,” says Gallup. “There are hardwired mechanisms that process all this.”
What’s more, every kiss may also carry a chemical Mickey, slipped in by the male. Though testosterone is found in higher concentrations in men than in women, it is present in both genders and is critical in maintaining arousal states. Traces of testosterone make it into men’s saliva, particularly among men who have high blood levels of the hormone to start with, and it’s possible that a lot of kissing over a long period may be a way to pass some of that natural aphrodisiac to the woman, increasing her arousal and making her more receptive to even greater intimacy.”
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1704672-2,00.html#ixzz1HSXsbjRj
Oh and personally, a kiss has never changed my mind either way.
Jess of CityGirlsWorld.com March 23, 2011, 4:23 pm
I skipped the poll and went straight to comments because I think the answer for me is somewhere in between. I think that if I have ZERO chemistry with someone, than like Wendy said, the kiss would never happen. However, I have had many cases where chemistry was so-so and then the kiss raised the heat dramatically. Likewise, I’ve had monster crushes that fizzled with lifeless kisses.
So I think there is certainly something to the way you physically mesh with another person. Probably not going to DEFINE your connection with someone but can definitely alter the course.
LennyBee March 23, 2011, 5:25 pm
I’ve never had a kiss change things – but I’ve also never had a good first kiss. From my past experience, I would have said that first kisses are awkward and horrible, and best to be gotten over with quickly. Even with my current boyfriend, memories of our first kiss still make me cringe. But we never had a bad kiss after that first one – sparks have flown ever since. It’s like the awkwardness and the pressure for the first time to be magical get in the way of enjoyment.
Jessicaxmx March 23, 2011, 5:26 pm
I’ve had almost the opposite happen to me. I knew the guy before and we always had chemistry. We went to the movies together and he grabbed my hand and I just felt the feeling of a thousand spikes all over my body. I felt so disgusted to hold his hand! What did I do? I ended up saying I had to go to the bathroom. I was in there a while deciding what I should do. I ended up calling my brother to have him pick me up. I came out of the bathroom and there was my date waiting for me. I told him I had been sick and throwing up so I had to go. He never heard from me again.
Maynard March 23, 2011, 10:23 pm
I don’t get it, you freaked out over holding hands?
Stephanie March 23, 2011, 11:22 pm
not as odd as it would seem….I’ve had that happen to me too with my closest guy friend although it wasn’t that extreme. I was considering something more than friendship but holding his hand just made me go “EW. NO. GROSS.”
jessicaxmx March 24, 2011, 2:01 am
Yeah, just the look he gave me. It was eerie. We were friends before but that was our first date.
SpyGlassez March 24, 2011, 6:10 pm
Many, many moons ago, when I was in high school, I had a boy I’d had a crush on ask me out. He and I had been friends, and so for our first date we went for a walk in a park at sunset. Romantic, right? NO. Creepy. I understand what you mean; I hated it when he would try to put an arm around me or hold my hand. It made my skin crawl, and the thought that he would want to kiss me made me sick. We pseudo-dated for a couple weeks – and he told me he was in love with me and wanted to marry me (we were 16, had been dating 3 or 4 weeks) before I had to tell him I didn’t want to date him.
Of course, my intuition seemed to have been spot on because he then proceeded to stalk me for another year, to drunk-dial me well into college, to email me and tell me about how I had ruined his life, and once to even tell me that “he could easily rape me and I couldn’t do anything about it.”
ALWAYS listen to that feeling.
ALWAYS.
Stephanie March 23, 2011, 5:33 pm
There’s really something to be said about chemistry and how you feel about the person you’re kissing. I went out with a guy who was technically a very good kisser, but I didn’t particularly enjoy kissing him. In fact, I was looking at the clock to see when I could leave – I think this was because I liked someone else more. This guy I liked more wasn’t really that great a kisser (not bad, just kind of boring) but I was way more into his kisses.
And as a response to the horrible face-licking kisses mentioned above, I’ve never had that happen to me yet (and hopefully it never will!) but I did have a guy suck on my lip so hard that it hurt then pull away and ask “still wanna go back?” like i was supposed to enjoy it (he had pulled me into a hallway and I told him I wanted to go back to my friends)
AKchic March 23, 2011, 6:00 pm
A kiss has never started or saved a potential relationship for me. One did kill the idea though. I hate pickles. Cannot stand them. I kissed a guy and the pickle breath was so bad that I nearly threw up on him. *shudder*
I view the whole idea of kissing a person you have no “chemistry” with as being a pity kiss, which is just a step above pity sex. I wouldn’t date someone just because the sex is good but the rest of the time they are more dull than an unsharpened pencil, so why would I want to kiss someone that I pity enough to GIVE a pity kiss to?
WatersEdge March 24, 2011, 8:59 am
Well when it happened to me, I was really into the guy intellectually and emotionally, but I wasn’t sure about sexually. It kept flip-flopping. But then we kissed and it was so electric, I just wanted him. I wouldn’t say we had no chemistry at all before the kiss, just questionable sexual chemistry.
Elle March 23, 2011, 6:01 pm
Oh boy… I kissed 8 guys, including the guy I kissed when we were both 7 years old, just because we saw it in the movies, and wondered what it feels like :).
A couple of weeks ago I kissed a guy, and I didn’t particularly like it. It was a bit more wet than I expected (or used to), and he also seemed eager and impatient. I also noticed though that after a while, he kinda started to follow my lead. We’re not dating, that was the only time we kissed, probably the last time as well. But I think you can tell a little about a guy’s personality by the way the kiss goes.
Oh, and the whole reason I wrote here was because I hope I get a kiss tonight 🙂
Stephanie March 23, 2011, 6:42 pm
“I think you can tell a little about a guy’s personality by the way the kiss goes”
I never thought about that before, but it’s so true!
anna728 March 23, 2011, 6:08 pm
I think a kiss could make a difference in the case of thinking he’s a nice guy but not really feeling it, but probably not if I was actually disliking the guy. Haven’t had this happen.
But, I have had kind of the opposite happen. I met a guy at a party and he seemed fun and nice, and he was cute. But he was my worst kiss ever. I think he was trying to swallow my head. Half my face was covered in spit. We had been having some beers, and he hadn’t seemed drunk but I wondered if maybe he was. Or maybe he was just unusually experienced for a 26-year old? But then he was talking to me and asks me “Do you like spit?”. Still giving him the benefit of the doubt, I thought maybe that wasn’t what he meant (his English wasn’t great). Nope that’s what he was into. He was telling me how into really slobbery kisses he is. He kept trying to make plans with me the next few days but I just couldn’t do it.
Ally March 23, 2011, 6:43 pm
My now boyfriend and I had known each other through friends for a while, and one night were both at the same party. Neither of us were particularly into each other at the time, but being rather intoxicated we somehow ended up kissing… then spent the rest of the night doing so! The rest as they say, is history. We’ve been together for 3.5years now. So yes, I think a kiss can totally change how you view someone 🙂
fast eddie March 23, 2011, 6:01 pm
It seems obvious that the kiss test should always be executed just in case he’s got something you didn’t notice before. Providing of course that he didn’t puke in the cab on the way home.
Maynard March 23, 2011, 10:17 pm
I’ve had the second question happen- great chemistry then he was a terrible kisser and it was a total bummer
SpyGlassez March 23, 2011, 10:40 pm
Well….I had never kissed anyone till my current BF (he knew that before it happened; I wanted to warn him that I would probably be bad at it). He was a student in my class but other than a conversation about an excused absence and a few emails about papers, I had not had any one-on-one contact with him, or any of my students. However, after the next to the last class, he was the last to leave and maneuvered to walk me out to my car (he was interested in me then, but I was so clueless I didn’t realize it). When we said goodbye I had this insatiable desire to hug him then; I didn’t, since I was still the instructor and I figured it was just a weird hormonal thing or something. That was before I had any idea of “chemistry” with him, but if it hadn’t been for that, I might not have said yes when he asked me out after the class was over.
Beckaleigh March 24, 2011, 8:03 am
Wait…what? He was your student?!
Anne (I Go To 11) March 24, 2011, 9:18 am
Now I have Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher” in my head. 🙂
Elle March 24, 2011, 9:24 am
Some grad students are really young. Few of my friends (4 off the top of my head) started to teach when they were 22-23 – they went to grad school right after college. They also happened to have students in their 30’s in their class.
Regardless, anyone in college is over 18, so over the age of consent. The general consensus is that it’s ok, as long as they’re not in your class and you don’t determine their grade in any way.
SpyGlassez March 24, 2011, 6:06 pm
Yes. I teach at a community college; he was returning to school having taken about 6 years off, so he is 2 years younger than I am, but when I was first getting to know him I thought he was a year or two older than myself; he just presents himself that way.
And @Elle – I went straight from undergrad to grad, as you mentioned frequently happens, and I was finished with my masters program by the time I was 26.
RoyalEagle0408 March 23, 2011, 10:51 pm
I’ve never kissed someone I didn’t already have chemistry with, but I have had a few kisses make me realize that the chemistry I felt was strictly platonic. The best is when it confirms chemistry though.
tinywormhole March 24, 2011, 2:07 am
This happened to me! I did not think I was at all interested in my boyfriend physically – until he kissed me. We’d known each other several years, working together at one point and through friends, and had gotten to know each other better on purely a “friend” level – or so I thought. Since I’d always pictured myself with someone that was a different physical “type” than he I had kind of dismissed the idea of dating him. But then we were at a party together and he ended up kissing me – instant fireworks, and we’ve been together over 3 years now! That kiss was the best surprise of my life.
I’ve had the opposite happen too – I briefly dated a guy whose personality clicked with mine very well, but the physical chemistry just wasn’t there, and the kiss confirmed it. Blech.
Flash March 24, 2011, 8:16 am
This happened to me in college! I had class with this guy almost everyday and we sat next to each other. We would chit chat and get to know each other but the more I got to know him, the more I realized we become anything serious but I still had a little crush on him. He was just so cute and funny!
We were out at our favorite bar (a lot of people from my major always went to the same place) and all of a sudden we were talking and just slowly came into a kiss. And O-M-the-the-G… it really was like everything stopped! It wasn’t a sexually charged take me to bed now kiss, it was a sweet lingering one and when we stopped we just smiled at each other and repeated it a couple more times before the night was over. To this day, I think about that kiss. And since I think about the kiss, I think about him… and even though I know we wouldn’t be good together, that kiss keeps me wondering and that part of it just ain’t good.
SGMcG March 24, 2011, 9:40 am
I knew my husband was the one when my chemistry with him made sparks between us. However, I didn’t pursue it because I was at a time in my life when I went through a serial physical monogamy phase and I was trying to make sex mean something more than the physical again. My husband felt the same, yet didn’t pursue it either because he wanted to demonstrate respect towards me. So when we said goodnight on the night he met, he kissed my hand. One of the hottest kisses I ever had.
ape escape March 24, 2011, 11:09 am
All these kissing stories are just making me wish I had someone to grab and make out with. Right. Now.
Grrrrrrrr 🙂 lol.
Libby March 24, 2011, 11:19 am
I think that this can definitely happen. So much of the time, we (as women) get in the way of ourselves. Often, we are too busy thinking about if he is what we think is our “type”, if he has a stable job, what our friends/mom/brother/neighbor’s dog would think about the impending relationship and may write someone off too quickly. A kiss can ignite the passion that you would otherwise not see (or want to see). Now, I’m not saying that passion is something you will be able to necessarily base an entire relationship on. Sometimes, a good kiss is just a good kiss, but sometimes it could lead to something you might not have seen (or wanted to see) before.
Fiona August 16, 2014, 9:22 am
I just recently went on a second date with a great guy. I went in for a gentle, lingering, killer kiss. Soft, but sensual. It was amazing..he seemed to like it too!! Two days later he dumped me via a text saying he was expecting fireworks, but it didn’t “happen” for him. I was gutted….
maggie October 13, 2017, 1:43 pm
So there was a guy at my gym who is a trainer and he works there, we started out as just a casual hi and then we started to talk and flirt as well, I liked him he is so attractive and handsome not to mention he has a nice body. One day we talked and he help me with some tips, I never told him I liked him only because I found out he lives with his girlfriend, but here is my situation we text and he told me that he finds me attractive and that he love my body.. I know what he meant by that.. anyway he came to see me at my job and we kissed.
he is a great kisser as well and he gave me a 12 and him a 10 when he kissed me I felt something for me but still I told him a few days later how I felt, mind you I told him before that I like him and I thought he knew what I meant but now we both are not speaking and is hard to see him at the gym.
he told me that I over reacted with my feelings over a kiss.. I have caught him seeing me and we both looked at each other since both our eye connected.. I am not sure what to feel but I am trying to get over him but is hard because when I see him looking at me I am not sure what to do I do ignore him .
but I feel that I should talk to him but I am waiting for him to make the first move if he wants to talk. but I feel that if he is with someone he should not be flirting but he is also someone that loves to have sex and no we did not sleep together I think that I could not live with myself if I did. but I need an advice