It's a good move if you can pull it off. The initiator really must be from some place besides North America for it to work. Or gay. Or both.

I have a couple of friends who do it. They just started doing it at some point.

It's always funny when you're not prepared for it.

I have a couple of male friends who say hello to each other this way. It always makes me smile a little. I very much enjoy the cheek-kiss hello and it's nice to see two guy friends show this kind of enthusiasm for each other.

Men expressing themselves freely with disregard for social criterion is not crap.

H-GM wrote:Men expressing themselves freely with disregard for social criterion is not crap.

What if they're expressing themselves freely about how much Steely Dan smells like a roller rink?

bumble wrote:

H-GM wrote:Men expressing themselves freely with disregard for social criterion is not crap.

What if they're expressing themselves freely about how much Steely Dan smells like a roller rink?

that's ANOTHER reason why they are so great, dammit.

Two of my close amici, they are Italiani. Immigrants of the third or the fourth generation, but with the names di familia like Calabria and Tinti, they are Italiani. We often make the double cheek kiss for the greeting. This kiss, with plenty of "mwwwah," it is forever bringing the smiles to the faces of the giovane adulti with whom we keep the company.

H-GM wrote:Men expressing themselves freely with disregard for social criterion is not crap.

Si, si. But the cheek-kissing between men, she is so much en the vogue in certain culture clique, these who have to constantly remind themselves and others gente how much of the liberal and the open-minded they are. These and partner-swinging. So entirely conventional. So horrible, is crap by association. Is entirely the "social criterion".

tmidgett wrote:It's a good move if you can pull it off. The initiator really must be from some place besides North America for it to work. Or gay. Or both.

I think the single cheek kiss among close male friends is more fitting than a hug or handshake, but I'll gladly do whatever they're comfortable with. Some friends of mine, they're not so touchy-feely, so, you know, whatever!

I hug my friends when, say, their cat has died. I shake the hands of strangers and acquaintenences. My close friends, who I haven't seen in a while, I give those fuckers a kiss on the cheek (and lip-kiss a couple of 'em).

Maybe it's just a subconcious attempt to throw off the shackles of a Midwestern/Texan Protestant upbringing. Maybe I'm half a fag!

mb

So so CRAP if you are an American.
If I saw American dudes do this I would leave the room and vomit. Europeans can do whatever they want, I don't pretend to get the whole European thing. It would not suprise or shock me if one visiting me pulled his pants down and took a dump in my living room, then kicked it at the wall....I'd just assume that's what they did over there.
An Itallian friend who barely spoke English lived at my house for a few months, he'd get up in the morning to cook breakfast and all he'd be wearing is his little European man bikini underwear. He'd walk around like that for hours like it wasnt no thing.
I tried to explain that it was real uncomfortable for everyone and put some fucking clothes on but he just didn't understand what the big deal was. Next day he's wearing a t shirt and no pants making eggs. Nice guy though, he'd go on and on in broken English about how fat American women are and how disgusting and filthy he found them. Dude ruled on playstation tennis too.