The first romance party wasn’t romantic at all

By looking at this picture, it might have made you think that it was a romance party. Arguably the first romance party in documented history, the photo was taken on August 14, 1945 at New York City’s Times Square, celebrating the V-J Day and the end of World War II. While they looked like the perfect couple, they were actually total strangers. Not until 2012 when the media reunited George Mendonsa and Greta Friedman at the same spot that the two met again after all these years. "The excitement of the war bein' over, plus I had a few drinks," Mendonsa said. "So when I saw the nurse I grabbed her, and I kissed her.“ At age 22, Mendonsa just came back from the Philippines and dated a woman named Rita who he met at a family barbecue event, and later became his wife. They went out for a movie but did not watch until the end when they heard the news “The war is over.” Rita and George went out and had quite a few drinks to celebrate. Alfred Eisenstaedt, the photographer was also at Times Square at that time. He saw a sailor grabbing every female in sight and kissed them all. Then Alfred decided to press the shutter at that exact moment when George grabbed a nurse, who later found to be a dental assistant. The dental hygiene uniform obviously didn’t matter, a classical photo was born anyways. Greta didn’t seem to enjoy that moment of “romance”, when she described it as “The guy just came over and grabbed” and “It wasn’t my choice to be kissed”. The photo was published a week later. Although that adjective wasn’t even used back then, but the photo surely went “viral” all these years!