Should I let my girlfriend’s husband kiss me on the lips?

To any interested agony aunts, I pose this question. Should I let my girlfriend’s husband kiss me on the lips?

It’s not quite as raunchy as it sounds. The context is a close group of friends that I’ve known forever and their partners gathering a couple of times a year. When we greet each other at a restaurant or at someone’s home, there’s much shrieking and hugging and kissing. It’s a lovely ritual.

But one of the husbands keeps doing the lips thing.

When it first happened, I thought he’d just missed the target. Second time around, I had no doubts. The man is an inveterate lip-kisser and probably always has been, though I’d never noticed it before.

Let me clarify. This is not a stick-your-tongue-in-my-mouth, let’s-swap-saliva pash. It’s a tender pressing together of lips, the kind Roger Federer might give to his kids. And for that I should feel flattered.

So my further question, dear agony aunts, is should I: (a) just grin and bear it? (b) turn my face so he lands on my cheek (and risk offending him)? or (c) open my mouth and have a good snog (and risk offending her)?

Disclaimer: I have absolutely no designs on my friend’s hubby, though he’s a charming bloke. However, should he morph into Idris Alba, I could be persuaded to opt for (c).

The etiquette of kissing today is unclear and not just because of COVID. Even before the pandemic, whom, when and where to kiss has been a landmine of doubting pouters. This appears to be an Aussie thing more than, say, a French one. In the land of love and ooh là là, kissing protocols are much more highly evolved.

The French call their greeting kisses la bise. They usually start with a press on the right cheek, go left, then right again for extra-special people, an air kiss that never actually touches the skin, says culture writer Raphaëlle Renaudin. She also provides a map of France, charting exactly how many kisses to give in which area (of the country). The Lorraine area in the north appears a little uptight with just one kiss. How very unFrench of it.

Taking our lead from France, I think we should start referring to our greeting kisses as “the biz”. When I first met my partner and gradually introduced him to my family and friends, I was genuinely shocked that he didn’t know when to do the biz. He came from a family of country vets who didn’t do a lot of kissing but did spend an inordinate amount of time with their arms up bovine’s backsides (pregnancy testing). Surely a kiss couldn’t be that hard.

But it was. My partner was always unsure whether to kiss my mother every time he saw her and then, 10 minutes later, kiss her goodbye. Then there were my sisters – should he give them a kiss seven days running or just at the beginning of the week? Even after 25 years, when we’re on the way to a do, he’ll list the names of attendees and check about the peck.

Funnily enough, I have the opposite problem, kissing almost everyone including smiley strangers my friends have just introduced me to – all in the spirit of good spirits. Mi casa es su casa – and your friend must be my friend too, right? Sure, but what’s her name again?

I must admit, the biz takes a lot of time and energy, especially if you have to kiss 10 or so people hello and goodbye in the space of a few hours. Because it’s understood: once you start the process, you leave out no one.

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The work front is always a tricky one for the biz, and while it’s generally agreed to stick to the handshake when in doubt, a kiss between female and male or female and female comrades may be acceptable in certain circumstances like winning an account or defrosting the staffroom fridge.

Former PM Julia Gillard must have found President Obama highly acceptable when she kissed his cheek on his first trip Down Under in 2011. If you look at the photos carefully, you’ll see both opening their mouths before zooming in to land. Maybe he was oxygen-deprived from the flight. Maybe she was over-oxygenated at the prospect of meeting the most famous man in the world. Journalist Patrick Carlyon observed: “In Obama’s company, Gillard looks like she’s won a date with George Clooney.”

Back to my platonic lip kisser. I’ve worked out the perfect strategy to avoid the biz altogether. Arrive late, kiss the palm of your own hand and blow it around the circle in a big theatrical gesture. No one will come near you. Guaranteed.

Jo Stubbings is a freelance writer and reviewer.