Belgian kissing

Living in another culture provides endless, uncontrollable swerves into embarrassing situations, and the formality of greeting someone for the first (or second, or third) time, someone you don’t know, someone you hope to build a relationship with (a cousin-in-law, perhaps, or a friend of a friend), offers up the perfect slippery slope down into the depths of the kind of outsider-humiliation that only the most socially graceful can avoid. And if you’re especially socially awkward like I am, the humiliation can just keep coming.

In the U.S., this is problem enough. After not seeing a classmate for ten years, do you offer them a hug? A firm handshake? An elbow bump? But here, the awkwardness is taken to a whole new level.

The famous bisous of the French (two kisses – one on each cheek) are manifest in other cultures all over Europe in various forms. Here in Belgium, I always learned that it was three kisses – left cheek, right cheek, then left again. But the rule is fraught with exceptions. If you’ve seen someone recently, it’s just one kiss. If you know them very well, it’s one kiss. Sometimes there are more Frenchy-types who stick to two kisses (leaving me hanging in the air awkwardly with my lips pressed together like I’m ready to lipstick up). Sometimes you kiss on first meeting someone, but in more formal situations, sometimes you don’t.

My first embarrassing experience with bisous was, of course, in France, those many (seven…wow) years ago. An American friend of mine introduced me to a neighbor, and when she leaned in for a greeting, I literally arched my spine back like a kid trying to avoid a spoonful of spinach. She had thick glasses. For some reason I thought she was just very near-sighted. You know, coming in for a closer look. (I know, that’s a weird assumption. Made sense in my head at the time.) Let me tell you, my friends who were present for that little gem had a hay day with it.

I haven’t learned my lesson. I met a group of people out for dinner a few weeks ago, and gave a firm handshake to everyone in the party in a fashion that I apparently don’t think twice about. Until another girl showed up. Kisses all around. Ah yes, I reminded myself. The funny thing is, it hadn’t even occurred to me to go in for a bisous-style greeting. At the end of the night, while a couple of the other females of the party were getting their cheeks slathered in kisses, everyone turned to me and…waved. Awkwardly. As in: Uh…we’re guessing you object to the bisous? You’re not used to it? We don’t know, but anyway, we’ll be avoiding that landmine for the time being.

Since then, I’ve gradually proved myself a bisous-er in the crowd, and the akwardness is slowly waning. Very slowly waning. And I’m learning, sometimes it’s better to go in and give it all you got. At the very least, I can use my outsider status as an excuse. And, at most, I’ll have a good laugh at myself.