kisses

I love the European kisses goodbye. I love them because they are at once totally casual and totally meaningful.

If, for example, you meet someone you do not particularly like, you can snub him or her subtly by shaking hands goodbye. This will be attributed to your nonEuropeanness, but really you will know what it means.

Or if, for example, you talk with someone and you like them, but you don’t get to know them well enough to exchange numbers and arrange to see them again, the kisses put a warm closure on your brief encounter.

Or if, for example, you hang out all night with your friend Chris and his friend Sven who is visiting from Germany, and you and Sven have nice chemistry and prolonged eye contact but Chris drinks too much and doesn’t have the capacity either to recognize your desire for a little one-on-Sven time or to get home on his own even if he did, you and Sven might give each other goodbye kisses that linger and are dangerously close to the mouth, thus at least leaving you with a slightly reeling head and giggly breathlessness for the bicycle ride home, if not Sven.