I wasn’t looking for a benefit from Covid, in fact I was shocked when I realised that there might be one. Now I’ve found it I’m thrilled and delighted that we might have put an end to one of the blights of modern society. Social distancing has put an end to the ‘kissing’ syndrome.
I’ve no objection to the occasional snog, but I’ve no time for the false kissing of everyone you meet.
As a kid you’re obliged to kiss all adults and accept their slobber. However, the use of the kiss declines from about the age of four, after which it was usually reserved for your mum, nan or great granny who was inevitably bristly. The kiss then re-emerges around the age of 14 as a fantasy but one that was specifically targeted (as a boy) at some generally unavailable girl, often a few years your senior. Then, in my antiquated experience, it eventually erupted in a generally inadequate, ill-executed, first kiss. The rest of that is history, but fortunately was restricted to you girlfriend, partner and children. All were bona fide kisses directed at people you love.
Now we have created a ‘Hug and Kiss’ hierarchy where kissing slips lower and lower down the list.
1 Strangers, handshake if necessary.
2 Friend, longer handshake (used to be the end point for all men) increasingly a ‘kiss’.
3 Close friend, hug but not too close or of too long a duration (to use the Big Bang time standard), one Mississippi. (These can be male/female, male/male if you’re on a football pitch*, female/female.) The ‘kiss’ is obligatory and often appears feigned.
4 Very close friend, a two Mississippi more snugly sort of hug but without rubbing or over intimate contact. (These can be male/male if one of them has just scored a vital goal, but generally seen only among women, though some women will inflict it on men who they feel they know very well, while the men are thinking, ‘who is this woman?’)
It may be necessary to use musical nomenclature to identify gender specific hugs. Women do the augmented hug (a sharp) while men will go for the diminished hug (a flat) which is barely a hug at all.
To complicate the issue, this ‘kiss’ has made a relatively recent appearance. The kiss is something totally different. In my innocence I grew up thinking that a kiss meant your lips actually make contact with a person. I now admit my ignorance. It has grown from the formal medieval chivalric kiss on the hand (taboo nowadays unless the hand has been very recently washed while singing Happy Birthday) to an exaggerated pantomime gesture where cheeks are waved next to each other (the lips not coming within four inches of the face), the lips are pouted and various forms of ‘moi’ emanate.
Being British, most of us forced into such contortions omit the sound effects, but there are a growing number (and too many, in my opinion) who go for the Oscar, that is best sound rather than best actor. And, where you were safe in only being kissed by female blood relatives and your own offspring, nowadays many women will inflict this on you at meeting you for the second time – and in the presence of you partner (which leads to other issues, not for discussion here).
If nothing else, maybe being out of Europe will enable the normally cold-blooded Brits to readjust their kissing procedures as we have neither the style or aplomb of our French and Italian counterparts.
(*Long gone are the days when, after a game of sport, you would merely shake hands with the opposition. Today you have to grip opposing hands and reach round to pat each other on the back with the free hand. What’s that about?)