When I first met Sean, I immediately wrote him off as a typical, run of the mill guy. He was flirty and charming and possessed an uncanny ability to make girls like him. Sean had a no holds barred approach to the girls he chased. He went after any girl that showed interest in him; and sometimes he even went after girls that showed no interest. From what I could see of Sean in the few months that I worked with him, all he was interested in was sex. After all, his nickname at work was “Wonderboy” and there were several rumors about him having sex in the walk-in freezer. So I talked to Sean when it was required for me to be polite, and that was that. Or so I thought.
There’s an old quote by Amores Perros: “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” Well, God laughed at my plans. A few months later, I was given the chance to get to know Sean better. Despite all the stereotypes I’d placed on Sean, we slowly became friends. Don’t get me wrong, I was right about some things- like he was really just interested in sex. But there were many more levels to him then I’d originally believed. Sean tended to act a lot worse then he really was, because that’s who people thought he was, and he was content with the charade.

At first, I tried to be cautious. I knew from experience that once I let myself get emotionally attached to a guy, I was very easily hurt. I had been through my fair share of heartbreaks in high school, and wasn’t willing to hand Sean my heart to break once more. Over the years I had built up walls guarding my heart, but Sean quickly tore down those walls without much effort. For all the outer differences, Sean and I are very much alike. We both have struggled with depression and we both know what it’s like to be lonely. We think a lot a like, often coming up with the same conclusion after evaluating a situation. Sean and I are both overly sarcastic and share a dry sense of humor. Most of all, we both use sarcasm as a defense mechanism, so Sean saw right past my defenses. He knew exactly how to make me trust him.

Sometimes in life we are fortunate enough to form emotional bonds with people that we would never have chosen under normal circumstances. That was the case with Sean and I. For some reason, I was able to open up with Sean like I do with very few people. I would rush home from work, hoping that Sean was online so I could talk to him for an hour or so, then change and head to class. After class I would get back online and talk to Sean until I absolutely had to go to bed. If we got involved in a conversation that was too intense for typing, we’d call each other and talk for hours on the phone.

It was during one of these marathon phone conversations that Sean revealed that he was addicted to kissing. The minute he said that, I wanted to kiss him. Probably not a good desire for a girl who wants to keep her heart from being broken, but it’s what I felt. After that phone call, I was officially interested in Sean as more then just a friend.

I don’t doubt that Sean felt the same way, in fact, we had hinted at our feelings for each other time and time again. There was just one problem- Sean had a girlfriend. But he also had all the classic excuses for why it was okay for him to be interested in me. They were only together out of habit; he didn’t really like her anymore; it was long distance and not working; they were going to break up soon. All the text book lines that boys use and only naïve girls fall for. Well, I fell for them.

Being that Sean lived in Clearwater and I was going to school in Gainesville, I hadn’t seen him since we stopped working together, nearly a year before. One weekend when I was home, Sean tried to convince me to come visit him at his house. As much as I wanted too, I couldn’t bring myself to do that. It wasn’t that I was scared Sean was going to rape me or anything. I just knew that if I went over there, chances were, I would give in to my feelings for him. As much as I wanted to kiss him, I didn’t want to deal with the emotions that would come after the kiss.

Sean was persistent though, and one night I finally gave in. I drove to his house at like midnight. I was really nervous that once I was with him, I wouldn’t be able to talk to him as openly. It wasn’t like that though. Spending time with Sean was like spending time with a childhood best friend; we talked non stop and laughed a lot. We decided to go for a walk on the beach, since he lived only a few blocks from it.

You can imagine the setting. It was late at night, and there wasn’t a single soul on the beach except for the two of us. The waves were crashing and the only light we had was from the moon. The sky was clear and there were tons of stars out. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect moment to be kissed.

I was still hesitant, though. I had been hurt one too many times and wasn’t ready to risk it again. Besides, Sean just had way too many strings attached. He had a history of being a player, not to mention he had a girlfriend. So I played the good girl and tried to convince myself that I didn’t really want to kiss him. But we both knew the truth. Sean asked me a single question- “Would you rather look back at tonight and regret having kissed me, or look back and wonder what would have happened if you did?” It was with that question that I realized that life doesn’t have to work out perfectly. Sometimes it’s okay if the ending isn’t just like a fairy tale, and sometimes it’s even worth the heartache. Garth Brooks put it best when he sang, “Our lives are better left to chance, I could’ve missed the pain, but I’d of had to miss the dance.”
So I kissed him. Waves crashing, moon shining, sand between my toes. I kissed him and I haven’t regretted it for a moment since.

Sean and I didn’t live happily ever after. He didn’t break up with his girlfriend and we didn’t become the perfect little couple. I did end up getting hurt, because anytime you allow yourself to become that emotionally attached to someone and it doesn’t work out, it hurts. But I moved on, and I can look back at our night on the beach and smile. It’s definitely a dance I’m glad I didn’t miss, no matter the pain that followed.