14
Meagan Hensley
At 14 you could say a young Meagan was trying to act too grown for her age. I was always stuck with the teenage disease of wanting to grow up too fast. I longed to be older like my sisters and hated being stuck in the body of a barely teenager. I had matured fast, but I still wasn’t old enough to do any of the things I had deemed to be cool. In terms of teenagers now I was falling behind. I had never been kissed and I had maybe been on one “date”. I felt awkward and left out. All my friends had at least kissed one guy and some of them had gone farther. It wasn’t that I really wanted to kiss someone, it was that I felt I needed to. That kissing would be the final step that would transcend me to the land of adulthood.
I want to take a moment to note that the thought of this now is disturbing and I would never encourage anyone under the age of 15 (minimum) to partake in anything other than hand-holding, but alas I was young and maybe just a little bit dumb.
To set the scene, it was a hot summer day in July. I was at the fair with some of my friends waiting under the bright neon lights. I never really liked the fair, it reminded me of throw-up, musty smells, workers who would linger too long with their eyes, people you didn’t want to see, and being annoyingly very very dizzy. However, I always went. Dragged along by my friends, I bought the full bracelet even if I only rode a few rides. I went that night because I was on a mission. I was overly determined to meet a guy whom I had known for years. A guy who, to use the gen-z term, played me repeatedly. When I found him towards the end of the night, we went to sit under the dark trees. I remember being nervous and filled with butterflies waiting for him to kiss me, but the time was ticking and this boy was not making any moves. School was about to start and I was determined not to enter 9th grade as a kissing virgin.
Finally after what seemed to be hours, but was only a few minutes, he kissed me. I had expected it to be like the movies. To make me nervous, to make me giggle, to be the perfect most beautiful first kiss. That's how it always happens right? Wrong. Very very wrong. Extremely wrong. It was the most slobbery, tongue-down-your-throat kiss ever. I did not want to run to my friends and tell them about my most spectacular first kiss. I was embarrassed.
Now, as an almost 18-year-old looking back at this time of my life, I wonder when kids start growing up so fast. I think of my mom who didn’t have her first kiss until the end of high school while I was rushing to have mine before I started 9th grade. I think of the differences in how we grew up. A big part of my life as a teenager that wasn’t present for my mom was the media. Especially visual media in shows and movies. Everyone blames all of our problems on social media, but what about the TV shows and movies we consume? TV shows on Netflix are filled with all types of lust, so while the producers are shoving in your face a new couple, are our feelings regarding sex changing at a young age?
I have always loved watching TV, so naturally I was always watching people in relationships. Kids my age are falling in love on my screen, so I longed for the same thing. In the hit television series, “Stranger Things” fans are encouraged to ship two of the main characters, Eleven and Mike. They are both roughly twelve at the start of the show. Fans are encouraging two minors to be in a relationship essentially taking away from the main part of the show. Instead of longing over the horror of the “Demogorgon” we are watching ship edits of two children. It is hard to find a series that isn’t surrounded by lust in this day and age. Viewers aren’t just fed love, they are fed the perfect love. Which is most definitely not an accident. Shows that do acknowledge the imperfections of love often get cancelled after the first season. The creators make it so the characters have the perfect kiss, the perfect date, and eventually the perfect “first time”. Making it only natural that a young 14-year-old Meagan would expect her first kiss to be just that, perfect. When things turn out to be less than perfect visual media is not to be blamed, instead it is the immature undeveloped kids taking the hit for trying to act too grown up.
Maybe there is nothing wrong with wanting to grow up fast or wanting two people to fall in love, but isn’t it odd that’s all the media wants to give us? I am all for a big love story, however in shows directed towards minors, is it wrong to just ask for fun and adventure instead of fun, adventure, and a weird amount of sex?