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You are here: Home Life in Blogs & photos Pucker up!

13/10/2005Pucker up!

Expatica's blogger explores the peculiar European treat of the 'kiss and greet'.

I shift awkwardly from one foot to another.

I avoid eye contact.

How do you react to the European kiss?

"I had a great time, thank you," I stammer.

I never make the first move.

Suddenly they lean in.

"Oh no, which side are they going for," I ask myself, "and how many times?"

It's the first kiss.

Canadians aren't big kissers, at least not the Canadians I know.

If I meet up with a friend I haven't seen in a while, I'll give them a big hug. When I am introduced to someone new, I shake their hand. When I am leaving their company, I shake hands again.

I wouldn't dream of kissing someone in a work environment situation. In fact, the only people in Canada I kiss, besides my husband, are very close family members.

Europeans seem to kiss everyone. However, there doesn't seem to be a set of 'standard kissing rules'. I am always worried that I am going to be embroiled in a kissing catastrophe.

My first kiss was in Amsterdam. Our patient Dutch friends explained that in the Netherlands, the traditional greeting is three kisses, starting on the right. The right-left-right kiss is repeated when departing company.

 

By the end of our stay in the Netherlands, I had this down pat. Then we arrived in Brussels …

As I observed the Belgian kissing practice, I couldn't make sense of it. Some people were using the right-left-right, but others were only kissing once or maybe twice. Now what would I do?

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