Do modern greetings make anyone else’s head spin?
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As we move slowly towards an easing of restrictions and face-to-face social interaction, Jo Pybus asks—what’s with modern greetings?
Whilst we are all currently forced to stop being so kissy-kissy, smoochie-smoochie (due to the COVID Pandemic of 2020 in case this ends up in a time capsule, and you are reading it from your flying car), I can take respite from something that’s been bugging me a while.
Greetings! No, I’m not saying hello—I am referring to a topic which has been playing on my mind for some time.
In the current crisis of all things germs, I’ve been alarmed at how easily I come into physical contact with others I’m meeting socially.
Where others see doom, I see opportunity; the opportunity to recalibrate our greeting rituals which, quite frankly, have gotten out of hand (pun totally intended).
For decades I have wondered how we got from being awkward, eye averting kids who’d barely manage a squeaky ‘hello’ out of pursed lips, and adults for whom a brief handshake (mainly men) would suffice, to hugs, double-hugs, choreographed tango-esque dude shakes, and one-cheek, two-cheek, three-cheek kisses of time-consuming proportions—‘hurry up will ya; dinner is getting cold!’
I first took notice when my kids started High School.
When they met their friends, social hugs were the common greeting, a peculiar hug that involved chests contact, back-patting, but with heads far enough apart a magician could wave a wand between them proving there was nothing concealed.
What particularly blew my mind is it didn’t matter what gender combination was involved! I say this because when I started High School I would greet my girlfriends at the door and…well… let them in, maybe I’d even say hello—but I would under no circumstances greet a boy in any way whatsoever, verbally, physically, and would most likely have been too embarrassed to even answer the door.
I might be desperate to steal a kiss at the local movies, once the lights went down, and would apply my Kissing Potion lip gloss in a frenzy of anticipation—but I was hardly going to say hello come Monday at school. Sheesh!
As an adult, I’m now subjected to so many variations it makes my head spin—literally! One cheek, two cheeks, three cheeks. Real kiss, air kiss, and—wait for it—the occasional smack straight on the lip kiss, that I grew up thinking was the sole domain of Grandmothers with their teeth out.
I grew up with a Dad who would shake another man’s hand, and a Mum who would say ‘hello’. I don’t ever recall her kissing the cheek of her female friends. Hugs were for family members and, as already mentioned, wet sloppy kisses for grandchildren. But that was it!
My family are very Anglo though, and I’m sure my European-heritage friends would tell a different story. Hugging is something I personally embrace* (again, pun intended), as I’m quite a tactile person, but I do recoil somewhat at anyone trying to cause me a head injury when they zig, and I zag.
Like you all, I respect the restrictions in regards to our current pandemic and feel optimistic now we’ve demonstrated our ability to flatten the curve.
I would be interested to see how much quicker that may have happened, however, if the data was based on the greeting rituals of 1979.
Unless my Kissing Potion had found its mark, or Mark (you guessed it, pun intended), I feel certain I would have been low risk.
*Obviously not right now, however.
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