“The most memorable kiss for me was when John and I kissed for the first time. It felt like pure electricity pulsing through my whole body, and I knew he was “the one.” The hair on my head tingled, and my lips felt right at home. We had been friends for months, jogging together in the mornings and having occasional lunches together during the week. One day he asked me if that evening I wanted to go see Dances With Wolves, which had just come out in the theaters. I sensed that things were evolving in our relationship, and I was eager for the change. During the film, he slipped his hand into mine, and he kept looking over at me. I could hardly keep calm. Afterwards, he drove me home, and I invited him in, and just like that, the magic happened. We’ve been together 25 years, and I still can’t get enough of his one-of-a-kind electric kiss.”

— Dr. Frances Borella, 58, Professor of Anthropology, Mt. San Antonio College

4. The Kiss Rehearsal

“It was 2007 and I was 16. I’d just been cast as the romantic lead in my theatre teacher’s thesis show for his master’s degree, “You Can’t Take It With You.” The first time I met the guy who ended up being the male romantic lead was at call backs. Things at our first rehearsal together became super awkward when I realized he was going to be my first kiss and I didn’t know him at all. Our director freaked and asked us to spend time together off stage so we could attempt to develop the chemistry we needed onstage. So, we did. We started hanging out together before school, in between classes, and during breaks at rehearsal. As it turned out, we really hit it off and I fell for him. Rumor around the theatre was that he had fallen for me, too. Weeks before our big moment, my friend came up to me during rehearsals and asked, ‘So are you guys rehearsing the kiss scene next week? Have you kissed him yet?’ I hadn’t. And when I told her that, she just smiled, and walked away. About five minutes later, I was told I was needed in the costume shop for a fitting. When I opened the door, it was dark and no one was there except for the show’s male lead. ‘I want you to know I had nothing to do with this,’ he said, quickly. ‘They tricked me too.’ I tried to open the door, but it was locked from the outside. ‘You’re not allowed out until you kiss!’ called my friend’s voice from the other side of the door. We sat there at first, just talking. Him about how he thought the whole thing was funny, and me about how I was going to kill my friend when we got out of there. He smiled and laughed. Then, he took me by the hand, pushed me gently up against a wall, and kissed me. It was so sweet. We ended up dating for two years.”

— Jennifer Sandy, 23, journalism major, Mt. San Antonio College

5. The Planned Kiss

“I started going out with this girl in the seventh grade. We hadn’t kissed yet, and it had been like two weeks. I had been planning, and asking myself, ‘How do I do this? How do I see her?’ I asked her if I could meet her at a mall on a Saturday afternoon. One of her parents dropped her off, and we met outside, in front of one of the stores. I don’t know when I thought of it, but while we were walking around, before we went into the mall, I said, ‘Let’s go to the parking lot.’ The mall had different levels of parking, and I remember that we were going to go up to the top parking level where we could see outside and admire the view. I got really nervous because I kept thinking, ‘I’m going to lay this kiss on her, right now, in the next couple of seconds, or minutes.’ We were going up the winding stairs, and we got to this turn. I just looked at her, put my hands on her shoulders to pull her in, and we started kissing. Right before I made that final move, I could feel my body shaking. After I started kissing her, her reaction was exactly what I needed, and I wasn’t shaking anymore. I remember thinking, “Wow, this is really nice.” I had had a big crush on her for a long time. She was really beautiful, and even though it wasn’t my first kiss, it was my first kiss with her.”

— Michael Aguero, 49, psychology major, California State University, Fullerton

6. The “Online-Meets-Reality” Kiss

“I met this girl through one of those online dating applications, like Tinder or something. I went to a college party, and the next morning, the girl from online asked if I went to a party the night before. She had been at the same party, and we went on a date the next day because she saw me in person and decided that I wasn’t a weirdo. We kissed on the first date in the back of my car. I just thought, with the online thing, that it was such a small world. She didn’t even go to the same college, and was just a friend of a friend.”

— Pablo Garcia, 23, music major, California State University, Northridge

7. Self-Revelation Kisses

“For the first 25 years of my life, I had only kissed boys. It never felt quite right. When I finally kissed a girl for the first time, I immediately said afterward, ‘So that’s what I’ve been missing!’”

— Ashley Aisenson, 26, accounting major, Moorpark College