My long held social interaction when saying farewell to someone was always a little upper arm rub while saying something like 'Thank you for the coffee, see you soon, Bye' but things have moved on so far and so fast that before i knew it i was being hugged which was immediately uncomfortable but now cheek kissing is the norm and the social awkwardness that brings.
To pull away when a pair of lips come in search of your cheek is bad form but then the decision is which cheek to go for and the amount of cheeks to kiss.
Some people kiss on one cheek, some two, some go back to the first one for a second time and some go left then right while others go right then left which can lead to the embarrassing moment when noses clash if you get it wrong.
Science has managed to answer party of the quandary as a study by Ruhr University found that in a study of couples kissing, they found that both participants went to their right in 65% of kisses with only 35% leftwards.
If you aim for the other persons left cheek, you will therefore avoid a bruised nose two times out of three but that is only half the conundrum solved as how many cheeks should be kissed and how many times.
The standard seems to be a one kiss on the cheek for someone you know such as a colleague and the two kiss greeting (one on each cheek) for long term friends or someone you know very well.
I still persist with the good old upper arm rub and try to get that in first as i say my goodbyes before any kisses are aimed my way and that works enough of the times but sometimes you can't escape and then you have the dilemma of how quick you can wipe your cheek of the faint coffee smelling film of saliva on your cheek.
Whatever happened to just waving goodbye to people??
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