Saluting JackieLikesVariety’s suggestion (from the IMHO “Polite” thread) for a thread.
What kissing accidents have you had or been a victim of? For example, in this thread ^^ I wrote about my discomfort with cheek-kissing rituals and how I ended up planting a wet one in my BIL’s ear.
So, smooch away!
Not really wrong, but…
In Spain, in theory for social situations two women or woman+man air kiss or kiss lightly twice, men say hi (they may slap each other’s backs and stuff like that, but mostly they just say hi). For work situations, in theory everybody shakes hands, except when we say hi or air kiss, soooo… many times, specially when there’s women, you end up getting a situation where people kind of look at each other… loooooook at each other… and then one person initiates the greetings and everybody follows suit, but “you know, we really should define this better, I never know whether to shake or kiss” comes up quite often.
A long, long time ago… I spent a month in Ireland, with a group organized by my school. There was a group brought by Social Services from Lyon, who studied at the same summer school as we did; the groups were mixed, but their calendar and ours were different. They’d arrived before we did and also left earlier. On the day they were leaving, one of the French guys kissed a Spanish girl’s cheek and then stepped back, and we said “ah no no! The Spanish way is TWO kisses!” and the Spanish girl grabbed the guy and planted a kiss on his other cheek. The French people said “ooooo… you know what? In France, someplaces it is two, someplaces it is four!”
We proceeded to kiss everybody four times multiple times… “you know, I think I’d already kissed you goodbye” “I think so, but let’s make sure!”
Right after I quit smoking a long time ago, I was using the time-honored post-quit flavored toothpicks. I picked up my girlfriend at her dorm, and I forgot to take out the toothpick when I kissed her. That was the end of the toothpick habit.
You should never be embarrassed to kiss someone.
Embarrassing non-kiss incident: had a pleasing win at work and we were pretty cheerful and a female employee who’d been working with me came to my office to tell me of the win and said something like:
“You know I don’t know if this is the right thing to do but…”
and stepped forward with an arm out, and I got the wrong idea and kind of cringed backward with a slightly horrified look on my face and she continued…
“I feel like giving you a high five.”
Awkward laughter all round.
This is an on-going source of confusion and mild embarrassment between the Belgian and the French.
Here in Belgium, the regular way to greet someone you know (family, close friend or even co-worker) is ONE kiss on the cheek. For the French, depending on their region of origin, it’s either TWO or FOUR. So, this always leads to some step-back-lean-forward awkward ballet until someone says: “OK, how many is it going to be?”
When I was in Ontario, I also learned that cheek-kissing was not done. A friend had to take me aside after my first few days at school to tell me to stop doing that because it was embarrassing. So that was why the girls were always blushing when I greeted them !
Actually, cheek-kissing is something of a rite of passage here. I remember having a mental list of all the girls I was on “cheek-kissing terms” with at school back when I was 13, feeling all grown up and worldly. The ultimate triumph was to look at my little brother with a blasé look on my face as I was kissing a pretty classmate on the cheek :D.
I was sitting at the bar with a woman I’d been seeing for a few months. She tells me, “OMG, my mom is here!!”
I’d talked to her mom on the phone a few times and texted back and forth with her many, many times. I felt like I knew her pretty well and I was pretty buzzed. Plus, like her daughter, she was really pretty.
So I turn around/stand up/kiss her full on the lips, all in one smooth motion.
The woman I kissed was actually standing next to “mom”, trying to get the bartender’s attention so she could order a drink. I bought her one and apologized, then went on to meeting “mom”.