French Kiss

I got to have my face close to some very cute teen girls when I was in France.  And to some women I didn't know.  One guy, too.

The reason was the bisou bisou - the habit of greeting women (usually) with a double cheek kiss when you first meet them, and sometimes on departure, too.  It's not actually a kiss with the lips; its a kiss where you bring your face in next to theirs on one side, make a kissing sound, then switch sides and do it again.  (If you actually kiss them on the cheek, they don't complain, though.)

This happened the first time I met the mother of the family with whom we stayed for a week; it happened every single time I met one of the teen girls who are friends of the family's teens; it happened the first time I met the wife of the fellow in Lyon, and the wife of the fellow in Aix-en-Provence, and when I met the bride in Paris.  Didn't happen when I met the woman in Toulouse (we were moving quickly through an airport at the time).  And it happened each time I met the young woman from Athis-Mons.  Somehow that last one means more to me -  maybe because she was cute (though all those teen girls were no slouches), maybe because I regard her as a close friend.

Whatever, it happened a lot.  It went very quickly from a what the - oh yeah, they do that, here to an expected ritual.  It doesn't mean something -- most of these women didn't even know me, and only one is fond of me -- but it's nice, somehow.  My wife said she particularly liked it when the good-looking teen boyfriend of our host family made a beeline for her.  Can't blame her for that.  I would see two or three bathing-suit-wearing teen girls getting ready to leave the house where we were sitting, talking,  and I'd smile, knowing what was about to happen.  Though I do admit, getting it from the guy surprised me.  Didn't feel odd, though - he's a pretty friendly guy.

The French do a lot of things that I like, and that is one of them.