I had my first kiss when I was 16. My first thought was “wow, I’m kissing” and my second was “I’m surprised I’m not grossed out by his tongue touching mine/is this what human tastes like?”

There’s a tension that builds up to every first kiss. And while it makes your chest swell and your ears hot, it goes away the moment your lips touch. Your bodies are familiar now. Sure it will continue to feel good, but never again will you experience that same sense of wonder and longing. No matter how much I like a guy, I am always disappointed when the first kiss is over. I’ve planted my flag in the territory. Level unlocked. Come claim your prize. It’s fair to think some people only want to win the lottery because they haven’t won it yet.

I’m a chaser when it comes to the love stuff. I find satisfaction in never being satisfied. When I find out someone likes me back, it makes me like them a little less. My backward thinking has royally screwed me in many cases, but I am thankful it makes me bored of superficial relationships.

If you ask me, a guy can only look so good naked. Big biceps, defined abs, yada yada. When your fingers have grazed all the tanned and toned parts of his anatomy, the most unattainable thing remains between your hands when you cup his face. Because you can access every square inch of a hot guy’s body—you only ever nick the surface of a beautiful man’s mind.

***

My first intellectual crush was in high school. His name was Cody* and he had bleach blonde hair that swept over his eyebrows. We attended different schools two hours apart and met at a debate tournament. He had a solemn and mysterious presence, like his soul had aged a decade faster than his body. We spoke outside the confines of a classroom but I still looked forward to every competition we attended, especially ones where teams were power-matched—the better you performed, the tougher the opponent you faced. Cody was a great public speaker and I usually did well enough to see him in final rounds.

During his speeches, I mindlessly flipped through evidence against the rise of the Russian economy, distracted by his eloquence and effortless way of incorporating the word “ramification” into any rebuttal—it was an ongoing inside joke and the closest to foreplay we would ever see. He was easy on the eyes and heaven on the ears. He spoke with a calm discipline that could convince me that the sky was falling. And even if it was, I would die happy listening to him orate with that precious mouth of his.

I took notes on his arguments while fantasizing about a cross examination that went something like this:

Me: “On a scale of 1 to notorious prime ministers, how badly do you want me right now?”

Him: “Vladimir Putin.”

Cody would then push a pile of loose-leaf evidence and yellow legal pads off his desk and we would fraternize like our body heat was Russia’s leading export. The judge would clap politely and hold up a perfect 10 scorecard.

You could say I have a weakness for boys in suits who can talk pretty.

Living two hours away from each other, Cody and I only saw each other at tournaments and relied on technology to keep in touch. On many nights, I sat in bed with my phone on the nightstand, anticipating the buzz of his text. It was new territory for me to have meaningful conversation with a person I was romantically interested in. Because when you played MASH, when did you ever pick the smart guys? Beyond his conversational skills, I loved how I could never predict or place him. He didn’t like me, he preferred me. And his reserved interest only made me want him more.

I fell hard for Cody, so like any short-sighted and hormonally-driven teenager, I offered to send him some friendly pictures. Keep in mind Snapchat was not a thing when I was in high school, so sexting then was even dumber than it is now. But risk does little to deter the reckless.

Cody and I had never so much as held hands, so this was a pretty juicy offer. But just as I thought we would cement our long distance romance with some legally questionable visuals, Cody told me: “No, thank you.”

No, thank you. Like I had asked if he wanted a second helping of mashed potatoes.

Before I could mend my self-esteem or come to terms with a teenage boy rejecting personalized porn, Cody dropped a life-changing bomb that affects the way I date today.

He told me, “You don’t have to do this for me to find you attractive.”

In that instant, he unwound the exclusive ties between physical and sexual interest I believed to motivate all romantic relationships. Intellect was no longer a quality reserved for friendships—it was finally a contender in the playing field of love. It took me 16 years and a brooding blonde enigma for me to realize my most attractive attributes were not seen, but heard.

I deeply admired his quick wit and, in my infatuation, didn’t realize he valued similar qualities in me. He didn’t just call me beautiful—he praised my complexity and thoughtfully entertained my musings. He believed I was bright, and not in the way people tack on adjectives like “smart and funny” to describe people they find attractive to feel less superficial. Cody got to know me with no ulterior motives.

***

Sometimes when I meet a cute guy now, I deliberately say dull and unoriginal things to see if he sticks around. If he does, I know he’s interested for the wrong reasons. And if he doesn’t? Then I’ve discovered innocence by burning the witch, but I never claimed to be good at dating. I know the conversation I’m capable of, and I’ll be damned if I settle for someone who sees my brain as an accessory to my appearance. I am not a pretty face who happens to be smart. I’m a smart person someone may happen to find attractive.

I have Cody to thank for my intellectual dating standards. It prepped me for dating at my alma mater, which often gets a bad rap for having good odds (~60% male population) and odd goods (nerds galore). But with depth as a weeding factor, I met plenty of great catches. I remember in my first month of college, I invited a guy to my dorm to “do homework.” To my disappointment and pleasant surprise, we ended up talking about my philosophy readings.

Now that I’m out of college, I can’t use homework as a segue into impromptu analyses of Plato’s work so I look for other indicators of intrigue. For example, it is such a turn-on when a guy has a good education. And a guy who loves to read? Absolute panty dropper.

I won’t lie and say physical chemistry is unimportant. Good looks may open the door, but I want fire and passion inside and out. When it all boils down, external attraction alone is fleeting and the chase is short-lived. You take off all your clothes and there you are. But to fully undress someone’s mind—that can take a lifetime.

A few years removed from our glory days in high school debate, Cody told me he loved the idea of me. He’s a realist and I love how he didn’t romanticize our powerful but limited connection, even if I did.

I like to believe our intellectual chemistry was mutually enlightening. I think fondly of the way Cody made me feel. It has certainly raised the bar for those to come. My physical desirability was validated by a smooch at 16, but that was the lesser of milestones to celebrate. Not everyone is so lucky to be reassured in deeper ways, especially at such a vulnerable age.

We swap first kiss stories like trading cards, but rarely do we ask about the Codys. The ones who wake you up when you didn’t know you were sleeping. The ones who instill a sense of worth in you that lasts long beyond your teen years. Mine was a unicorn of a boy who holds a dear place in the timeline of People Who Have Changed Me.

I am single, for the time being. Many friends have told me my standards are just “too high.” Unrealistic, even. But I’ve met plenty of people with qualities I like—it’s just a matter of finding it all in one person. I have no idea how long it will be before I’m in a relationship again, but I do know this: Tall, dark, and handsome is not enough.  So long as I have my sanity, I will continue to chase after the one that keeps me running. And when that day comes, you can bet that he will be an ace in the bedroom and an even better intellectual fuck.

*Names have been changed to prevent Facebook stalking and an inbox of love letters/nudes.

“I think you’re cute,” I said. We were lying on the grass, gazing up at a black and yellow sky. It was his suggestion—the lying down, not the stargazing. He wanted me to sober up and I wanted to make a moment out of nothing.

“I don’t know what to say to that,” he said. A cop-out answer. An automated response. Command not recognized. They say the worst thing that can happen when you put yourself out there is rejection, but that’s untrue. A rejection is an answer. People can move on after answers.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I said, and he listened to me. Not a chirp out of him. And so we waited there, shadows in the grass, absent and heavy. We talked about things he did know what to say to and I brought up other people to take the edge off the conversation.

It is an ugly limbo, uncertainty. You think you know someone, what they want and what they are about, but then they give you these looks that make you question who they are. Those are the times you really know a person.

I was hyperaware of the distance between him and me. Lying next to someone does that to you. It’s that much harder to gauge how close they are without turning your head, and you don’t want to do that because then you could be looking right at them, very close to you.

I needed yes or no. I needed him to tell me he only liked me as a friend or that he treated all girls this way. I needed him to tell me I was out of line because he had a girlfriend he loved. Tell me I was too early, too late, or just right because he felt the same way. Tell me I was delusional to think something could happen between us. Tell me I was crazy to think something could not.

We talked back and forth, never again mentioning how I felt about him or how he felt about me. He was the kind who wanted to sit a moment with me, an eternity with someone else.

I sat up and the scenery shifted back to a practical landscape. Plenty of people could make fools of the night—it didn’t have to be me.

“Let’s go,” I said.

I counted the sidewalk cracks as we moved together toward separate homes. In 300 feet, he would turn left and I would stay on the cement tracks all the way to Margaret Morrison Street. It’s where the buses loaded and dropped off kids. The drivers always honked because the kids crossed right when the light turned green. But can you blame them really? It was red when they looked.

200 feet. We passed two girls who eyed us like they knew what we were going to do. People talk, so in a way, I lived my fantasy in someone else’s assumption.

50 feet. I don’t often use words like yearn or hope or wish, but the sidewalk should have been longer. Construction crews are a merciless breed.

We reached the corner. Wind blew. Feet shuffled. Now I didn’t know what to say. The traffic light beside us glowed green, but no cars were there to go forward.

You know when you lean in to hear someone better, but it’s only a gesture and doesn’t really help? It was like that, except we leaned away from each other in a social segue way to an unspoken goodbye. We were peeling our bodies away from the situation. But while our bodies wanted one thing, he gave me that look again. The one that had the answer I wanted—he just had to say it.

But like Newton’s cradle, we swung back in with a force beyond our control and hugged instead. I say “we” because it wasn’t him that hugged me or me that hugged him. I don’t know that either of us wanted it—the kind of want you have in hunger and in love—but it was necessary to deliver and receive, something like a fax. It should have been intimate, me in his arms, his hold warm against the white bath of streetlights. But it wasn’t. His hug was not an embrace but a consolation.

I did not smell him. I did not close my eyes. There was nothing emotional about touching him this time. Maybe we don’t hug to feel closer to someone. Maybe we hug so we can feel ourselves let go.

Sometimes it’s too hard to give an answer, so the other end just has to wait. The most painful part of waiting is the moment you realize you had your answer the whole time. In his silent hug, there was, “I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want.” In moonlit footsteps, down Margaret Morrison and up the stairs to my room, there was, “I’m sorry I want.”

I overheard an acquaintance mourning the end of her long-term relationship. She thought things were going well. They even used the L word.

“I just want an explanation,” she told me.

To what? His disinterest in working things out? You know what kind of people don’t try to work things out? People who don’t want things to work out.  Blindside breakups are not complicated to figure out, just uncomfortable — someone who once thought the world of you no longer feels the same. It’s a hard truth to swallow, but Behrendt and Tuccillo said it best: “He’s just not that into you.”

It sounds harsh but love ends the way it begins — gradually, without rhyme or reason. In the same way it’s hard to pinpoint the moment we fall in love, it is painful to recall when exactly we checked out. While the two are similar, it’s funny how we don’t demand a reason for the former.

That said, he simply stopped loving her. He doesn’t owe her an explanation because there is no explanation. That’s like asking why you like certain colors over others. You just do.

If that’s an unsatisfying answer, then falling out of love can be compared to growing tired of new clothes. You have your eye on a classic merino wool cardigan for ages, so it’s all the sweeter when you can finally call it yours. In the beginning, you wear it all the time. It becomes a staple — a piece that is so “you” it begins to define you. You live in that cardigan until it pills and runs and you learn to love it with all its beautiful flaws. You learn its smell. Your tastes have changed since when you first bought it, but you quite like the worn-in look. It flatters you.

But as February closes and seasons change, your sense of style is no longer compatible with that thick, winter cardigan. It feels clingy on your spring-ready skin. You’re not sure those buttons always looked that way. These are “reasons,” but only because they justify a feeling you can’t otherwise explain: you just don’t like the cardigan anymore. It has no place in your current life. You wear it because you own it, not because you want to. And knowing now that you are fine without it, you hate to think you never really needed the cardigan in the first place — maybe you were just cold.

Rom-com’s religious following says, “Wait—don’t give up when the honeymoon phase is over!” But it doesn’t matter what phase it is because you can’t make someone stay in love with you. You can’t make someone think you are worth it. Most of all, you can’t question faltering affection because the answer would sneer crueler than the reality that love doesn’t always last.

“It doesn’t make sense,” my heartbroken acquaintance said, as if the matters of love were suppose to divide nicely like a math equation.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That is so strange.”

Pont des Arts footbridge in Paris.

When dealing with exes, some people say, “the best revenge is to be happy.” While I understand the sentiment of focusing on your own life rather than meddling in your ex’s affairs, I don’t like the implication that one person’s wellbeing should double as another person’s affliction. It feeds into the far too common seesaw dichotomy of break-ups, where one person’s high necessitates the other person’s low. It’s the kind of unhealthy thinking that exploits an already hurtful separation, turning it into a reality TV-esque competition where mutual friends tune in to see who “wins” the break-up. How fucked up is that?

It’s natural to feel the pressure to bounce back at the end of a relationship–I’ve been there, I know it sucks–but I think it’s important to know that both parties “lose” at first. Regardless of who initiated the break-up or whether it was for the better, both parties will suffer in their own way. We may not see it through the pictures of their crazy, busy, spectacular lives, but social media can only bolster the fluff of our emotions. Everyone hurts, everyone reminisces, and everyone heals with time, but the inevitable and unglamorous mending process is not something you will see on your newsfeed.

On the bright side, both parties of a break-up win in the long-run. Relationships end for a reason and we should see it as an opportunity to find someone who is a better fit.  But the enlightenment phase comes long after the love-songs-are-four-minute-fuck-yous phase, which comes long after the “I hate [insert sex here]” phase. A break-up is tough enough in and of itself, so why do we make it even worse by fueling a dating culture that thrives on “out-happying” our exes?

The best revenge is to be happy.

The best outcome is to be happy for them.

When someone plays such a significant part of your past, there will always be a part of you that cares (or “gives a shit” to those who didn’t part amicably). It may not be love or even friendship between you now, but there was once a time when the two of you enjoyed shared happiness. That’s one of the best things about relationships: growing so close that you begin to live vicariously through one another–being excited by their successes and devastated by their failures as if they were your own.

Though the relationship may be over, we could all benefit from continuing the “wishing you well” attitude long after our romantic feelings fade. True inner peace and closure come from understanding that others, along with yourself, are deserving of happiness.

Everyone wins.

To the ex: We had some good times. May even better ones be in your future. Congratulations.