French Kissing

ooh la la!

In my mid twenties I found myself living in a dorm with 5 other postgrads. Each of us had our own room (together with time capsule/spaceship-like shower/bathroom combo where you could basically brush your teeth, pee and take a shower at the same time) and a shared kitchen. It was awesome. One of the best times of my life.

And then my birthday came around. I was standing at the sink washing some dishes when one of the guys walked in. He was a Greek God. Let’s call him Adonis. Allow me to slip into cliché – he was tall, dashing, dark. And quite the player. Nope, not talking about football. Anyway, into the kitchen he waltzes and roars ‘Happy Birthday,’ as he gives me a congratulatory kiss. Don’t worry folks, it was just your run-of-the mill two cheek affair. Strictly above-board. And yet, being quite the blushing wallflower, I didn’t actually make much contact and made sure to leave a safe distance between his rugged jaw and my own (hmm. That construction didn’t work out very well, did it? – Let’s subtract the rugged on that last one, ey?).

Feeling that unaccustomed nothing by way of contact, Adonis was dissatisfied.
“You call that a kiss?” He said, chiding me.

Rather embarrassed, and not knowing how to extract myself from the conversation, I just brushed it off as best I could. After all, it’s like the French do when they meet acquaintances – there’s no real touching. Just a kind of leaning in gesture where no one has to actually feel the other person. Air kissing. You know what I’m talking about. And so that’s exactly what I told him.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” I smiled at him. “I’m used to french kissing!”

There was a momentary silence. First he was dumbfounded. And then a little smile started to emerge on that handsome visage. And that’s when I realized the depth of my mistake. Oops!

My face was now a bright red. “Oh, no! Ha, ha!” I laughed like an imbecile. “I just meant – you know, how the french kiss when they meet. They don’t actually touch each other. And uhhh..”

He was still smiling. He wasn’t buying a word of it. But he let me off the hook. Though, I swear I could detect a slight puckering on his part whenever I’d run into him after that.

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