The unspoken rules of "les bises"

So whilst sitting in my flat and contemplating how I can get away with avoiding going outside for the next 3 days until it stop being a ridiculously cold temperature, I started thinking about les bises(tenueous link). A fundamental difference between England and France (and many other more romanitic less prudish European countries), les bises or kissing each other as we would say is something that takes a while to get used to when first moving to France. What you must remember is that officially there are no rules, anyone can end up kissing anyone, old kissing the young, gay kissing the straight, macho men kissing other macho men, it’s a veritable saliva fest out here and it’s important to realise that there are in fact things to remember if you don’t want to end up embarrassed and a prude-like English tourist. For example: there’s always that awkward rite of passage where you go for one side and Monsieur Blachier, your French exchange partner’s Dad goes the other way and you end up meeting in the middle, planting a wet smacker right on his lips. Cringe!

I’m in two minds about les bises, on one hand it allows you to meet every person in the room when you enter a party, rather than the standard awkward English wave and dart across the room towards the person who invited you before you have to talk to someone you don’t know. However at the end of the night, when you’re tired, smashed and your breath reeks of that garlic saucisson you’ve been munching sans cesse all evening, you HAVE to go round and interrupt every conversation to press your cheek against a load of people who you didn’t even interact with all night (apart from the initial cheek touching when you arrived) seems a bit much to me. It also means you get to kiss beautiful French men who you may never have the chance to kiss if they were not obliged to do it as part of French politesse. Unfortunately this works the other way too as you find yourself faced by the pustule covered cheek of a friend’s pervy uncle, expected to get up close and personal.

Then there’s that confusing moment where you’re not sure whether to go in for the bises or keep it professional with a handshake. In most professional situations a handshake suffices until you know the person very well. But when working as a teacher in a Lycee, I discovered that some teachers wanted to kiss me and some didn’t. Had I offended the ones who didn’t? or were the ones who did trying to smell my hair? Who knows! I was confused, but not as much as the time I bumped into my neighbour in the swimming pool. Is it appropriate to embrace someone you barely know whilst floating in water wearing swimwear?? I have no idea, I couldn’t even touch the floor. I was really in the deep end. (sorry couldn’t resist that one)  I’ve learnt to just follow the French’s lead, my advice is to go for it, nothing really wrong with a bit of kissing. It is acceptable however to deny people les bises if you have a cold and are in danger of snotting on their cheek.