Decoding Kissing Patterns

Another distinctive characteristic of our Arab culture is the unique way we greet each other. In the exception of some parts of Kuwait & UAE where they greet each other by knocking their noses together, Arab people tend to welcome each other by the act of placing a cheek next to a cheek and vacuuming off the air in your mouth and ultra-shrinking the size of your lips to make a "mwah" voice.

In western societies, the above "kissing" welcome is only witnessed among the females whereas men avoid physical contact and stick to the default raising eyebrows and a 3 word welcome of "you alright?" or "wussup amigo/homie/cuz/ my man/ buddy/dude?" that varies from a country to another.

Although Arab girls share their western counterparts in their similar greeting methods, the western man is usually left puzzled when he sees the complex different patterns that male Arabs greet each other. Sometimes it is not as simple as one kiss on the left and another one on the right.

Personally, I am among those who get confused especially each time I go to Amman to greet my family members. Each one can be identified by his kissing pattern much more accurately than DNA sample or fingerprint recognition. Here are few examples of the anomalies I faced:

Cousin A: Kiss on the left, two kisses on the right

Aunt's Husband A: left,right,left,right

Aunt's Husband B: left, right.

Uncle A: left, right, right,right,right,right,right

Uncle B: left,right, left and then he goes on a kissing combo spree that differs each time he sees you. Of course, this is directly proportional to the number of cigarette big packs you buy him from the duty free shop in the airport.

Uncle C: left, right, right, right, left, left.

Cousin B: Kiss on the left, kiss on the right and once you start withdrawing, he grabs you for a surprise last one that can be on either cheek (depending on his mood)

 

These are all the examples I have documented so far. I am still in my data collection phase of a much larger project; A project that I need because I discovered that my attempts of avoiding such confrontations has not been fruitful.

I dream of the day where we only use facial expressions or hand shaking to welcome each other rather than those complex kissing patterns.

But then you get to meet someone, like the case that happened with me 2 years ago, who refuses to shake hands justifying his decision saying: "I am not gonna shake with a hand that you might masturbate with"

You know what? I'll stick to raising eyebrows.