Driving into town for an ice-cream today, the subject turned to kissing. I can’t remember how or why. Elisa told me, with a sly grin, that she had kissed Martin in kindergarten although kissing is not allowed.

“How did you manage not to get  found out?” I asked.

“We sneaked away somewhere so no-one could see us”.

Then she added that she asked Martin to marry her. I asked whether he had accepted, and she told me no.

“Were you sad?”, I asked.

“Yes,” said she with a giggle.

“He might change his mind when you’re both a bit older”, I consoled her, “but perhaps it might be better if you let the boys do the proposing”.

As I spoke, I cringed inwardly realising what an un-emancipated attitude I was demonstrating to my young friend, but I believe that the laws of Nature still prevail and males prefer to do the chasing.

Elisa then announced, with a squeal of laughter, that she had kissed all the boys in kindergarten bar one, who didn’t want her to kiss him. “I didn’t want to kiss him anyway!”.

I asked her if she had kissed Luke, the boy she’s been in love with for ages.

“No”, she blushed, “he started school already”.

“Maybe you’ll get a chance when you start school at the end of this summer. Does Martin know you’re in love with Luke?”.

“No”.

“Perhaps you should tell him before you marry him”.

It was clear from her expression that this was getting far too complicated. Fortunately, we had arrived at our destination and the subject was dropped.

On the way home we were chatting about this and that, then Elisa said:

“This is boring. Let’s go back to talking about kissing!”.

I agreed, so we did. About Elisa’s kissing experience – not mine!