“No! You cannot leave until this entire room empties!”
Frozen with etiquette fright you spot some people doing exactly what you want to do – methodically cheeking and hugging towards the doorway. You get behind them, following their kissing slipstream and hoping nobody thinks you´re an idiot who has suddenly realised he joined the wrong birthday party.
This is why man invented waving and indeed the more savvy of us know that in a situation like this most Argentines just wave. Its only foreigners who think;
“I must kiss everyone!”
I must kiss everyone that is, except men. The easy physicality between Argentine males unnerves the Northern European. Interhugging for us is restricted to weddings, funerals and football games. So imagine our surprise when an everyday telephone conversation with an Argentine male friend ends with him saying “un beso.” More disturbing is the urge to say “un beso” back.
I have one English friend who gets around this problem by embracing it enthusiastically. He dispenses wet sloppy kisses to everyone he encounters. So much so he leaves people in his wake wiping the saliva from their faces and remarking how all Europeans are just free thinking perverts.
