I don’t necessarily mean that you’re beginning a new long-term relationship. I mean that you’ve recently met someone whom you like romantically (whether for the long term or just Friday night) and who reciprocates your feelings. Would you rather initiate first kiss yourself, or be taken in the other person’s arms and kissed?
I’d rather be kissed. I’m insecure, and I always worry if I initiate a kiss that they just went with it to be nice rather than really really liking me.
That’s kinda pathetic.
I am a straight male in my 20s, I have to initiate the first kiss becuase if it were up to the dumb ass girls I seem to attract, they’d never make the first move and the whole thing would be over before it began.
And our two posts, one right after the other, seem to describe the problem perfectly. 
As a bi female, with girls, I’ve initiated about half the time. With guys, I’ve probably only initiated about 25% of the time. I guess it kind of depends on what the relationship is like. With a hook-up (just for sex kind of thing), I didn’t mind doing the kissing first. With a relationship, I’ve had problems being “overzealous” and I was afraid I’d push the guy away if I kissed him first. So I kinda settled into a habit of letting him kiss me first.
Pathetic or not it’s exactly how I feel.
I’ve been both the initial kisser and the initial kissee, but one thing’s for sure: that moment before the first kiss, when you’re both wondering “will we or won’t we?” and the air is so electric your hair’s practically standing on end - that is the best feeling there is. Kissing my husband is still pretty awesome, but it isn’t a patch on the kissing we did in those heady, teenage, first-date days.
I feel the same way as torie and Opal. In fact, I don’t even think the guy would go through with it just to be nice, I figure guys in general will pick low-hanging fruit just because I put there in front of him, regardless if he likes me or not.
I’ve certainly hooked up with enough randoms to know that many guys, if not more than 50%, will engage in sexual acts (from making out to full on sex) whether they like the person or not. I have no problem with (safe) random hookups now and again, but I really can’t tell if someone really likes me or if they just wanna fuck me. The signals look the same to me.
And past experience bears out whenever I have initiated, the guy often perceives that as pressure, or putting demands/expectations on him (regardless if that was my intent, they never ask to clarify), and that seems to be offputting. I now have a firm policy of not initiating unless I am 100% sure the guy is into me. I just busted out a move on a friend because I thought it was moving past friendship (because the “I like you” and “I wanna fuck you” signals look the same to me) and he immediately made it clear that I was assigned to the Friend Zone and basically, the friendship has sort of fallen apart since then.
I suppose that’s kinda pathetic too.
Two reasons:
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I’m too scared of rejection to initiate a kiss
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I like the idea of a girl wanting to kiss me enough to take the first step
Likewise. Thankfully, with any luck it’ll never be an issue again. 
Straight male here, and I said it depends. If I’m sure the attraction is there, or even semi-sure, I’d rather initiate the first kiss. It feels manly, and I think most girls like it that way. If I’m not sure there is attraction, then I certainly wouldn’t mind being kissed first. I don’t think I’ve ever been kissed first… so it would be a nice change of pass once in a while.
Straight female here. I’ve been both the kisser and the kissee: most of the time I don’t really care who initiates it, but I answered based on how I feel right now*. Which is that I’d rather be kissed.
*I’m (finally) just starting to want to date again after a 2.5-year relationship that included a year of living together. My ego’s rebounding nicely, but could use a little boost. grin
Come on - girls don’t initiate first kisses, that only happens in Hollywood movies.
OK, I’m going to contradict myself here - it did actually happen to me once. But I really don’t think it’s the norm. I always expect that I’m going to be the one initiating.
I’m going with “it depends” (straight woman), cause really it does. I think I’ve initiated the first kiss before, but I vastly prefer being the one being kissed. Even if we’ve both acknowledged a mutual attraction about a half hour previously and he’s teaching me how to bachata, alone, in a deserted dance studio.
Early in my dating career, I was super nervous about initiating first kisses. Later on, I figured out that even if a woman is repulsed by me, she’ll still be less repulsed if I’m all “hey, baby” and try to plant one on her than if I seem freaked out and make a big deal out of it, so why not? Besides, if she doesn’t want to kiss me she probably has severe mental or emotional problems anyway so what do I care what she thinks?
Lucky for me (and women in general), I’m happily married, so it’s no longer an issue.
Straight male: I would rather be kissed, but I have almost always been the one who iniated. On the few occasions they kissed me, though, it was a very nice change of pace.
I’d rather be kissed, because I’m apparently a dumb ass girl.
I’m good either way. I’ve been the “kisser” and the “kissee” - either I’m feeling that we’re at that point and the mood is right, or she gets that look in her eye and wraps her arms around my neck.
I’m a guy and used to hate having to do it because of the fear of rejection part. In the rare time that she does turn to try to get me to kiss her cheek, I don’t follow through and usually laugh. At that point I know there’s nothing that’s going to happen with that relationship so now I don’t have to worry about whether or not she likes me. She doesn’t. They usually don’t give me the cheek though. 
I don’t like initiating the first kiss. There is basically a giant gamble that I’ve read all of the signals correctly and since asking for a kiss is horrible form there is no way to check your read. On the other hand I’m a straight male and so I’ve never been kissed first. I’ve learned to deal with the fear after realizing that I’ve never been regected once I go for it and there are still a couple of passes that I still regret.
After the kiss it’s all down hill because communication becomres ok so I can double check my reads.