How many kisses?

[Blarg]

I have a big WTF?? to the following story:

Kissing is taking over - Watch the skies!

Excerpts:

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'Excruciating' meetings


And now the chaotic practice of hugs, shakes and kisses is sowing confusion in the once-stuffy business world, where not long ago taking off a tie raised eyebrows.


The start and end of meetings with clients can be excruciating, says Rebecca Williams of CHA, a workplace communications consultancy.


"There's a moment of tense awkwardness when a person leading the meeting kisses a client and everyone else gets a bit anxious - what do we do now?


"Once two people kiss, they set a precedent and then we all have to kiss everyone. It can be really uncomfortable but protocol dictates that we have to."

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"We've no set number of kisses in the UK. A kiss on one cheek might be fine but sometimes you go for two because we've started to adopt other cultures. It all feels very unnatural."


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The British weren't even good at the handshake and now there are other options like hugging, air kissing and even lip kissing, it's a minefield.


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Body language expert
She says she keeps a mental note with different clients, to avoid causing possible offence by accidentally "downgrading" a relationship from kiss to handshake.


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The confusion comes because there is a push to be more intimate at work - through exercises like team bonding - and a pull in the other direction from people hugely afraid of breaching equality and sexual harassment laws.

"If we were heading for a more intimate business world, it wouldn't be confusing, we'd be hugging each other to death. But at the same time we see people massively nervous of anything other than a handshake."

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That would be me. Lawsuits await, and what is fine one day is not fine the day someone gets fired and wants to stick it to the company, even at the expense of someone who was more or less a friend.

What do you guys think of all this? Parisians greet each other with four kisses? What the heck? I can't even imagine where they put all of them, or why it has to go on so long.

Do any of you guys do this kissy stuff? Or wish that others would?