Confessions of an inappropriate kisser

The other day I told my brother-in-law that I love him. This was a bit awkward. He’d called me on his way home from work and we were arranging for him to come for dinner with his girlfriend the following week. As we tried to pick a suitable night, I was standing in my kitchen with the phone wedged between my ear and should, my laptop open with my diary on it, kids running around and my husband trying to communicate something to me in sign language about the recycling bins.

As the conversation wound up, I absently said, “I love you!” in the way I do before ending a phone call with my family and close girlfriends. And then I remembered who I was talking to.

“Oh, wait, I didn’t mean to say that,” I blurted out. “I don’t actually love you… well, I do but not like that, because, you know, that would be weird and…”

My husband was unperturbed by my declaration of love for his brother. He’s used to my effusive approach to communication. I love frequently and expansively and often non-discriminatorily.

Last year, I was interviewed for my first magazine profile. One of those ones where the journalist comes to your house, talks to your friends and does research. It was a strange, squirmy experience but when I read the finished story, one observation made me laugh. “Freedman’s warmth is immediate and disarming.  If she’s ever written an email to a woman not signed ‘xxxx’, I’d like to see it.” Me too. Because it would be very rare. Yes, I am one of those people who sprinkle kisses over my electronic communication like sea salt. Even work emails. Even to people I’ve never met. Disturbingly, this can extend to kisses in real life too. I’m forever kissing people on the cheek unexpectedly and even though it’s many shades of uncool, I can’t seem to stop.

Like the night a few years ago when I attended a glamorous event for Madison magazine. I always feel quite awkward in party situations, so when I saw a former workmate across the room, I bounded over to greet her with a hug and a kiss. Totally appropriate. We’re friends. Then I turned to the two other people standing with her, one of whom I also knew a little bit and kissed. Borderline.

The third person, I recognised but had never met. “Mia, do you know Lisa Ho?” ventured my friend and I immediately replied “Hi!” while moving in to kiss the fashion designer on the cheek. Poor Lisa looked mildly startled and said, ‘Um, hello’ in a way that sounded a lot like “why-does-the-crazy-lady-have-her-lips-on-my-face?”. And fair enough too. So why did I? Ugh. I think it’s because I’d kissed everyone else and I didn’t want to seem rude, didn’t want her to feel left out.

The bit I missed was that most people don’t WANT to be kissed by strangers. Normal people prefer to start with a handshake. Or a wave.

Now that we’ve established I’m a socially inappropriate kisser, you won’t be surprised to learn that this extends to my professional life too.

A few months ago, I did a video interview with Minister for Youth and Employment Kate Ellis. At the end, with the camera still rolling, I thanked her for her time and gave her a kiss on the cheek, something I also did when I met Tony Abbott.

Laurie Oakes doesn’t do that, even in the green room I bet.  And yet he still gets Walkely-nominated scoops. Imagine what could happen if Laurie took my approach to kissing his interview subjects willy nilly after interrogating them? Political anarchy, I bet.

The list of other people I’ve greeted or farewelled with a cheek kiss is long and cringe-worthy. It includes employers and employees, my kids’ teachers, a school principal or two, my cleaner and the press secretaries of several politicians. Now that I’m writing it all down, I’m quite mortified and have decided it really must stop. Is there a program for inappropriate kissing? Something that will tune my appropriateness radar a little more finely?

It’s not clear exactly where this effusiveness came from but partly, I’m a product of our times. Those of us under 45 are pretty comfortable with expressing our emotions physically and verbally. Most of our own parents didn’t say, “I love you” very often but as parents ourselves, we never bloody shut up about it. Seriously, I tell each of my kids I love them several times every day. Hourly when they’re being cute or making me toast.

But the word has certainly chilled out. People in their teens and twenties are very comfortable with using the word love – to their friends, their parents, even their mates. They end their conversations and texts with “luv u xxx” and to them it’s as casual as ‘see ya’.

Maybe that’s how the currency of love has been, well, I don’t want to say ‘devalued’ or ‘diminished’ because that makes it sound like a bad thing and in my opinion, it’s not. There are worse things than too much love flying around. ‘Til next week. Love you.