The first 'alt' girl I ever kissed

The embarrassing journey of a young, Mormon boy who was finally ready to find his indie gf

In high school, I always felt way more close to my friends in band. We were a little more vulgar, were openly democrat, bonded over our music tastes, and genuinely just felt like family. But for whatever reason, I was always hesitant on making them my main friend group. You know, the one that you go to dances with. That destinction went to what I can only describe as the rich (or middle class), Mormon kids, a group that consisted of a few friends I really liked, some that I despised, and a lot that I knew I was never going to talk to after graduation.

The frustrating thing was, I was soooooo close to “converting” fully to those friends from band and band-adjacent groups. They were incredibly talented musicians with awesome music tastes, cool styles, and unique personalities. I mean I was literally in a midwest emo band in high school, but was so embarrassed to say that in front of any of my “friends.” The lead singer of my old band, someone I love very deeply, painted his nails. “Wow,” I thought, “I want to do that,” but would have never had the balls to show up to Cottonwood High School with painted nails. Once, I sharpied my index finger black — just to see — and quickly scrubbed it off once I realized how odd it would be for me to have my nails a different color.

All this to say: I had fun in high school, but I really missed out on making deeper connections with some awesome people out of fear of losing my spot in the “popular” hierarchy.

Fast forward to fall of 2020.

I had just graduated, and my post high school plans were thrown for a loop by a little thing called COVID-19. I was living in my parents’ house in Murray, Utah and taking the frontrunner to Orem everyday to study music at Utah Valley University. It wasn’t my first choice, but… actually there is no but. Life sucked.

One day in October, I was grabbing some lunch with two of my friends from home at the BYU food court. They had a meal plan with infinite amounts of “Cougar Cash,” so I got to eat for free. We talked about classes, life, families, and eventually girls.

They showed me an app they had just downloaded called “Mutual.” If you aren’t aware, Mutual is essentially Mormon Tinder. This was my first time ever realizing that we were actually old enough to have dating apps. This was such a novel concept for me.

Desperate for any human interaction during a time where human interaction was rare, I followed suit and downloaded the app. I didn’t have many cool pictures of myself, so I had my older sister dress me up in cool clothes and take a picture of me and our dog, Kit, in our backyard to put on my profile.

A few days after swiping away at the endless sea of blonde, republican freshmen who lived in Heritage Halls, I was starting to get Mutual fatigue. It was all I ever thought about. In my dreams I would be swiping up or down only to awaken and immediately start swiping again.

Then, one day as I sat in my last class (Percussion Studio taught by Dr. Shane Jones), I saw a notification from Mutual. I had gotten a new match! AND SHE MESSAGED FIRST!

The message from, well let’s just call her Diana, after my crush, Princess Diana, read, “Hehe hi!” Wow!

I could immediately clock that this girl was “alt.” Maybe even liberal.

That summer was the most politically charged era of my life, and most of where I saw that political energy was inside, masked up and on TikTok. There, I realized that piercings, tattoos, unique makeup, and whatever trendy indie aesthetics were happening at the time (forgive me if I can’t remember specifics, it was five years ago) were kind of cool.

Diana had shoulder-length brunette hair, curtain bangs, rings galore, cool posters in her room, and in one picture she had winged eyeliner with tiny star stickers next to her eyes.

“Hi Diana!! Random question, but,” I sent the first message. “Are you liberal??”, with a fingers crossed emoji or something to signal that I was left-leaning too. By that point, I don’t think I was calling myself a leftist or a socialist yet, but that’s neither here nor there. When she responded, “yes,” I fell in love with my phone screen right away. I had never talked politics with a girl I liked before. I had never even seen someone like her on mutual. This was love at first sight.

We then did what 18-year-olds do: added each other on Snapchat. We snapped all through the night. She told me that she was going record shopping that evening, which prompted a conversation about music. I showed her a picture of my drum set and we talked about bands and artists we liked. She liked Thundercat!? AND Slaughter Beach Dog!? She gave me the nickname “Music boy,” because I was a musician. Very creative.

The next day, we decided to meet up. She didn’t have a car so I made the trek from Murray to Provo, picking her up at Heleman Halls, the fresh out of high school housing at Brigham Young University.

I wore a gray sweater over a red and blue flannel, with black pants and light blue Vans skate highs. I made sure my curly hair was just right before hopping into my white 2003 Mitsubishi Galant, whose battery I had to wiggle every other time I started the car, and headed south. She wore a white, long-sleeve shirt that had purple flowers all over, and blue jeans. She also wore glasses.

We talked about music, religion, politics, why Utah county sucks and all the usual things. We had a lot of similar interests, more than any girl I had previously liked. We both couldn’t stop quoting Cody Ko and Noel Miller’s “That’s cringe” series (I know, he’s cancelled now, but in 2020 those videos were all the rage) and even bonded over a shared interest in ska music. I couldn’t contain my excitement. I had somewhat of a weird obsession with ska music as a teenager and the fact that a girl liked — let alone knew — the genre was brass to my ears.

Close your eyes and ears for the next part. We made out in a church parking lot. Could it get more young an Utah than that?

I dropped her back off at her dorm and started on the 45 minute drive back home. I thought I had found the one. She wore cool clothes, was funny, bisexual, she even smoked weed. And she was into me!? No girl like her ever showed me interest in high school. But this wasn’t high school anymore. I was no longer bound by preexisting social groups and images. This was monumental for me.

We continued to go out for a solid two weeks after that. I would drive to Provo, she would take the frontrunner to Murray, all while keeping this a secret from my parents. They could not know I was kissing a girl who lived in a germ infested dorm at a germ infested school during the most germaphobic time of everyone’s life.

I was so incredibly lovestruck.

But after two or three weeks of seeing each other most days, she started to text back less frequent. Then almost no communication at all. An hour before my percussion ensemble concert that I invited her to attend (by then I knew she probably was not going to show), she sent me a text apologizing for ghosting me, but then saying she didn’t want to see me anymore. I don’t remember all the details of the text now, but at the time, it broke my freshman heart. I was wearing concert black and had to play the marimba in front of tens of people, all while suppressing a crying heart. I was God’s toughest soldier.

This part I’m not proud of, but I sent a rather rude text back to her. Something I am fairly ashamed of now. She never responded.

Just like that, the cool indie girl who I was convinced was going to be my wife after our first date was gone in less than a month.

I look back at that moment and laugh. It is canon to have your first fling with someone kind of scandalous. I mean, that is kind of the whole premise of Lindsay’s character arch in “Freaks and Geeks.” I was Lindsay and she was the freaks (unfortunate analogy).

While the fling ended in heartbreak for a young Sam, it was very sweet and exciting to feel so mature and accomplished (and risqué) by dating a girl who had “Black Lives Matter” in her bio in 2020.

This was the first time that I ever thought that maybe I was cool. A pretty girl could like me and not be weirded out by the fact that I like ska music, or play Pokémon, or voted blue. I was short and scrawny and my interests didn’t really bode well for me with many of the people I associated myself with in high school, but meeting Diana made me realize that people will find me. People will like my interests, or my clothes, or my music. People will eventually like me for me? I know I sound like a parent talking to their hormonal teenager, but it’s true.

I don’t really hold any ill will towards Diana. We were kids. We were finding ourselves and when you’re only 18 years old, heartbreak can feel 10x worse than it actually is. I’m pretty sure she did not continue at BYU after that semester, so I never saw Diana out and about when I eventually moved to Provo.

While to her, I was probably just some lost Mormon boy whom she had a little fling with, to me, she will always hold a distinct title: The first alt girl I ever kissed.