Single in the City: Can I kiss you?

To ask or not to ask, that is the question.

Sitting on a bench outside a frozen yogurt shop in Soho, cigarette in one hand, chopsticks grabbing at sushi in the other, somehow the topic of whether someone should ask before they kiss you came up. 

We were laughing at first, discussing how one of the biggest mood killers for us is the question: “Can I kiss you?” But then, I stopped laughing, and nothing was funny anymore. I started thinking about the minefield that is the first kiss with anyone- really, someone you just met, someone you're dating, your crush, a friend turned into something more. It's bad enough in a lot of ways already; there's anticipation, perhaps awkwardness, the fear that they will be an awful kisser or ram their tongue in your mouth, or maybe even a split moment of uncertainty. But there’s also tension, intimacy, the start of something. 

My friend turns to me and says, if you have to ask someone if they want to kiss, it's not the right moment. She described a scene between two people of intense, physical proximity, tension, flirtation. The moment. It's clear they want to kiss you; it feels right, it feels natural. Just lean in and go for it, she said.

So I asked her what if, in that perfect moment, he leans back slightly and asks, “Can I kiss you?” Instant mood killer, she says.

I winced; I remembered one of the most horrific moments of my life. And Ed, if you're reading this, please stop now. 

I was 18; I had been friends with this guy Ed for perhaps just over a month. Maybe I was oblivious, or maybe naive, or maybe just excited to have made friends with a man I thought was genuinely cool: captain of the university football team, good fun, down for any chaos that came his way, and absolutely hilarious. I was enjoying my friendship, and yes, friend is the key word there with him immensely. That was until one night at our favourite bar, Jimmy’s. I’d announced I was going to the smoking area for a cigarette, whilst the rest of our friends stayed inside; Ed followed me out. We were having a perfectly normal conversation; everything felt rosy. And then the question, the question that this article is obsessed with: “Can I kiss you?” Except Ed’s phrasing was a little off. 

Ed turned to me and asked, “Do you want to kiss?”

Panic. Shock. Disappointment that my new boy bestie was just another man seeing me as a sexual conquest. In that split second, I responded, pretending to have misheard him: “Do I want to piss? Yes, I’m going to the toilet now,” and hurriedly got up and walked off. 

Now, perhaps it was a good thing Ed asked. But a part of me wondered later that night: what if he hadn't? What if he had just kissed me? Being confronted with the question had thrown me off; it had made me think: do I want to kiss Ed? When I guess thinking is the last thing many of us want to do before we kiss someone. Especially me.

Perhaps if Ed had just kissed me then that situation would've turned out very differently.

Yes, my friend and I were laughing at that story as I told it. But I couldn't help but feel there's something more loaded, more emotionally vulnerable, more complex than just something someone can say that occasionally is a massive mood killer.

First of all, it's undeniable that the question is purely a request for consent. Which is a good thing, of course. But why is that such a mood killer for so many?

Second of all, I’m sure in some contexts and for some people that question would be welcomed, encouraged, or even add to the intimacy of the first kiss. 

Third of all, is dating not just inherently awkward? Is it really possible to date and never have to sit through at least one awkward moment?

Are we all just playing an impossible game: to ask or not to ask? 

Is the first kiss not a psychological game of chemistry, reading body language, communication, I guess, moment-making, and vibe creation?

Perhaps this is why dating is so hard. The first kiss isn't really about consent versus spontaneity. It's about how we navigate uncertainty. We want someone to know what we want without having to say it, because saying it can make us feel exposed. Exposed to our own self-doubt, to the question itself, to the other person.

Suddenly you're no longer in the moment; you’re being asked to evaluate it.

Maybe that's why the question is so uncomfortable, awkward, or a turn-off for so many of us. Because the first kiss is rarely a question of whether you want to kiss someone. It's about whether you think they want to kiss you, whether you think you want to kiss them, whether you think the moment is right, and whether you're both brave enough to find out without completely destroying the moment by talking about it.

I guess it's also that body language isn’t a language with a universal dictionary. Leaning closer might mean “kiss me”. It might mean “I can’t hear you.” Eye contact might mean attraction. Or, it might just mean eye contact. A hand on your arm might be flirtation, affection, or simply where someone’s hand happened to land.

And perhaps that’s the problem with the whole debate. We have somehow created this expectation that the perfect first kiss should be spontaneous, effortless, and completely intuitive, a movie moment. When in reality two people are attempting to communicate something incredibly intimate without actually saying it.

Maybe “Can I kiss you?” doesn’t ruin the moment. Maybe it just changes the moment.

It takes something instinctive and makes it conscious. It forces you to acknowledge what was previously sitting underneath the surface. Perhaps that can feel embarrassing because suddenly there is nowhere left to hide.

There is no pretending you didn’t notice the tension. No pretending you weren’t wondering whether they were going to kiss you. No pretending you didn’t want to know what would happen next.

Maybe that’s why I reacted so badly to Ed’s question.

Maybe that's why my friend grimaced at the thought of even being asked that.

It wasn’t necessarily the question itself. It was that, in one sentence, he had taken something I hadn’t even realised I was thinking about and put it directly in front of me.

Did I want to kiss Ed?

Maybe if he had just kissed me, I would have kissed him back. Maybe I wouldn’t have. I have absolutely no idea.

But the second he asked, I had to decide.

And perhaps that’s the real problem with the first kiss. We want it to feel effortless, but dating itself is rarely effortless. We spend so much time trying to work out what someone means, what they want, what we want, and whether the feeling between us is actually mutual.

So, to ask or not to ask?

Honestly, I still don’t know.

But I do know that if someone asks me “Can I kiss you?” I am probably going to spend the next thirty seconds wondering whether I want to kiss them, why they asked me, whether I looked like I wanted to kiss them, and whether there is now some sort of socially acceptable way to answer the question.

Which, admittedly, is probably not the most romantic thing either of us was hoping for.