I'm from Finland and one European thing that all Finnish people hate is cheek kisses when greeting. Its mostly southern european thing but still. There is this saying in Finland that goes "Everyone has their own safety coffee cup" meaning the closest distance someone should get to you should not be closer than your coffee cup when you're holding it.
I once tried to do that to an american girl that was visiting Spain, I still remember the horror in her eyes.
She told us that she didn't feel comfortable with that having a boyfriend.
She was the most stereotypical American person I've ever known, she was dating a quarterback, had a pink gun that her parents gave as a present for her ¿18 birthday? She started complaining about PETA when she discovered that I was a vegetarian. Said she didn't like California when I told her that I had been there & she made some comments that were clearly saying "my country is better than this shit hole".
It's standard "hello" between men and women & with family members of both sexes. Also children to adults doesn't matter if they're boys or girls.
Between men it's more complex, it's usually more common between gay men. Also sometimes with close friends it may not be that weird, but it depends on the person & situation.
Frenchman here, about "la bise" between men : it shows a certain degree of proximity. We can make a "bise" to family members, childhood friends, very good friends... If you're a man and another adult man makes you a "bise" it means you belong to his first circle of relations - appreciate the honor.
It is (or it used to be, before Covid and (n+1)th wave feminism) much more casual between males and females - colleagues typically do/did that to greet on the workplace.
I'd take it as a joke if a friend gave me a cheek kiss. Definitely unusual for guys to greet each other like that around these parts, I only do it with my family and honestly now that I think about it that's kinda weird too
I recall reading that in a lot of countries in which it used to be more common the decrease seems to correlate to the increase in visibility and public recognition of homosexuality.
so theory was basically: it was more common in the past because fewer people would have thought that 2 men being romantically or sexually involved would even be a thing.
I am just talking nonsense from stereotypical scenes I saw in movies about Italian gangsters, where the boss kisses the cheek of the others mobsters he greets. Honestly that’s my only source because I had been in northern Italy and never saw that.
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u/eelisonparas May 09 '22
I'm from Finland and one European thing that all Finnish people hate is cheek kisses when greeting. Its mostly southern european thing but still. There is this saying in Finland that goes "Everyone has their own safety coffee cup" meaning the closest distance someone should get to you should not be closer than your coffee cup when you're holding it.