I mean the French custom of greeting each other by kissing on each cheek. How many countries worldwide do this? Is it only the French or is this more widespread? I’ve seen show business types in the US and UK do this but that’s usually only the females and it’s very much seen as an affected stagey kind of thing.
ETA I think I’ve seen Russians doing this too.
Spain as well.
Poland, 3 kisses on alternating cheeks. Hungary, one on each cheek.
Latin Americans in general, but in my experience an air kiss on one cheek, not both.
But either at least one of the people involved will be female, or both will be gay males.
Quebec, but of course that’s probably related to the French.
Yes, although in Québec, (straight) men don’t do it amongst themselves.
<humorous side comment> In an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies … some fancy pants feller was makin’ to court on Elly May … so he done did kiss her hand in greeting like them folks in Paris do … Elly May then hauled off and decked him but good … “But, Pa … he tried to bite my hand …” </humorous side comment>
Several Arabs nations and Iranians do too.
And these are real kisses insofar as there is physical contact of lips to cheek?
I can’t remember if in France I got some cheek-to-cheek contact but air kisses only, or if a) they did that because they sensed my American reflex to pull away, or b) I’m conflating it with some similarly awkward embrace stateside.
As everywhere greetings are complex depending on relationship and sex–Borat showed us a lot about what goes wrong. Even in France, it’s more of a woman thing on the axes of sex vs. friendship/close affection: i.e., it takes a lot more for men to do it. I think.
Related: the hand kiss (different constraints, historicism, etc.): I was told or read somewhere that that definitely is an air kiss, or was in the social circles where that was done more commonly, and movies and men influenced by them do something creepy and/or slobby (not so, of course, to women not brought up to see it that way).
In the Middle Ages the English were the ones known for kissing — 700 years later it was the French who had that reputation.
On the other hand, people in Britain and other countries are amazingly puzzled by American men embracing with big hugs.
If two men hugged in public in England, everyone would look the other way until the entire awful thing was over.
A shake of the hand is more than enough, and we don’t really insist on that.
I’ve lived in the UK for over 20 years. It’s very common for men/women and women/women to greet each other with a single kiss on the cheek – not just show business types, and it isn’t seen as being affected. Sometimes (usually with the London or public school crowd) you get the double kiss instead. I never know whether to go for the single or double kiss, and invariably start pulling away just as the person I’m greeting is going for the second kiss.
Not sure what alternate universe you live in, but the man hug has been around in the UK for at least a decade. Another US import.
Well, not in East Anglia. Nor in the Scottish Borders. Although that might be since in the old reiving days a dirk could be secreted in a sleeve.
Maybe amongst football fans, but those are barely human.
Ah, it must be an age thing then. I’m in my 60s and no Englishman would have done this in my younger days. The English were known for their reserve back then.
Mahmoud Abbas and the Pope just kissed each other on both cheeks
For Spain it’s actual contact unless large amounts of freshly-applied or stage makeup (i.e., likely to run) are involved.
In Switzerland it’s three kisses as standard - this is between women, or between a man and a woman. Men tend to just shake hands.
France has even more complex kissing codes, which I only learnt about recently from a friend who grew up in the south of that country: How Many Kisses Make a Proper Greeting in France, Mapped | Mental Floss
Ditto for the Dutch.
That surprises me because I once saw my Swiss friend meet his wife in an outdoor location–and they shook hands. They were both from Zurich, but they had been living in a French canton for decades.