When Heads Meet Butts

Allow me to continue on the theme of social etiquette for a moment. I may have been to hasty with my claim that restaurants are potentially the most fertile places for awkward social situations to arise. I am reminded of the time I tried to give up the much beloved, and yet much feared KISS GREET.
In Canadia, we do not not kiss greet. We hold steadfast to the handshake, and even that's getting a little to intimate for our liking. Most times is a casual head nod of recognition or a 'hey'. 'Man'.
When I started living in Britain, I must admit, I was surprised you guys were on the kiss greet system. It just seems so, European, so French. But no - you're all over this shit.
The problem with the KG Integrated System of First Social Contact is that although the moves are pretty standardized: you lean in, you air kiss cheek one, you air kiss cheek two; somehow, no one in this country ever gets it fucking right.
And what's more, it is possibly the worst way to interact with a total stranger. Why must we offer up our bodies for a blessing of saliva, bad breath and body odour? It is a strange baptism. I didn't try to give up because I'm a retent or anything, I gave up out of necessity.
As I said, a number of things can go wrong. The most dangerous is the cross sparring of heads when one of you goes for the left side when the other is going for the right. Then you get a broken nose when you merely wanted to say hello.
Also, I could be wrong on this, but we are all on the understanding that it's AIR KISS only right? Right? How many times have you given air and received a big, fat, sloppy wet freaking labrador suction lock? I've ended up with hickeys from women for god's sakes.
There is just too much room for error for my liking. And I'm not saying I've got this thing locked down either. I've kissed earlobes. I've whispered sweet nothings. I've cupped the back of peoples boyfriends' necks. One time, I just blanked out, I went in for the KG and I ended up
kissing some guy's knob. I swear to god.
And even when you do think you've got it down, you meet a Dutch person. Those crazy bastards are on not one, not two, but three fucking kisses.
Even the inevitable wait before you are going to have to kiss greet someone makes me anxious.
Are we as a nation, that un-coordinated, that awkward we can't nail the system we've been practicising for a few hundreds years? Cripes, even Tim Henman threw in the towel quicker.
I'll tell you one sportsman (and Frenchman I might add) who has the whole thing down: Zinedine Zidane. A quick headbutt would put me and everyone else in this country out of their misery.

My Side Of The Story

Look, I'm sorry for all the butt talk. I realize it's not everyone's favourite topic. I realize it doesn't get most people fired up. You know what does though? The touchy subject of social etiquette.

I don't care how old you are, what culture you're from -animal or human kingdom - everybody has a fucking opinion on the matter. And you can bet your bottom dollar I do too.

I let most perceived 'faux pas' pass by. But it all changes when money is involved. Take eating out with whoever. I really think the restaurant is the most fertile ground for strange social etiquette to rear it's ugly head. And I'm not talkin' some blind date scenario. Quite the opposite- you can have relatively normal friends, and boom - they make a clucking noise at the waiter to indicate they're ready for the bill or some shit.

Recently I've discovered some odd dining behaviour on the part of a female friend. She cannot go to a restaurant without ordering what she believes to be the best dish on the menu. Completely indecisive. This is a word of advice - never dine out with indecisive people. A menu in and of itself is a list of choices. It's like taking an overeater to the Twinkie factory.

So to avoid possibly ending up with a sub-par meal, she will do anything to do some embarrassing re-con. You can't make eye contact because they're too busy watching shit come out of the kitchen. I've been there when she has asked fellow diners to rate their meal on a scale of 1-10. What, suddenly I'm in a fucking focus group? I thought I was going out to eat. Not work. Eat. A nice meal.

When did eating in restaurants become a fucking chore?

Then she started asking people at our table to share things. Like, "I'll get the salmon, and you get the goat cheeks and we'll share."Okay, maybe couples can share. But what is the fucking problem with eating your own meal?

Or it can even get down to a weird sub-side-dish sharing level. To that I say - just, say, no. Happiness lies not in a side of nutmeg-infused-cardamon-squash-brulee.

Ring of Truth

I harp on about the women and esthetics, beauty, treatments, therapies, what have you, but I think men are spending an inordinate amount of time on this shit too. Like just when did we become so interested in our bodies?

Recently a male friend of mine felt he needed to undergo colonic irrigation. Lord knows why. People can be convinced of anything - even lettting, no paying for a stranger to stick a tube up your ass. I asked him why he was having it done and he tells me:
"Did you know the human bowels carry 7-10 pounds of fecal matter!!"

So I say "You're full of shit!". Sorry - no more shit jokes. No actually I said "Um, isn't that what they're supposed to do?"

And then he tells me "Yeah and the therapist," (or Shit Technician as I like to refer to them) "told me I have piles."

Now being Canadian, this wasn't a term I'm familiar with. So I say "Piles of what? Shit?"

I mean piles. PILES. That word kills me. It's so blatantly disgusting, and, well un-British. Surely Haemorroids is the way to name it.

But back to my friends' piles. I'm thinking, how do you even know if you have piles? How does one self-diagnose this? The thought of poking your finger around there is just nasty. The whole assal region is just not an area I'm comfortable with. My nipples I'm fairly cool with. I salute them every morning. My hoo-ha I'm on fairly good terms with. Put it this way, when I see it, I'm very, very nice to it.

Come to think of it, I don't even think I've ever seen a human butt hole. I guess for most of my life I've always liked to think of that part of my body as an anatomically smooth, non-descript part, like a Barbie or Ken doll. You know how Barbie as the nice, smooth, round mounds for breasts, and Ken's package is just a bump in his built-in skin coloured pants? I guess I've pictured it as a plug hole or something. Maybe it's even plastic in my head.

So I feel guilty and think maybe butt-hole health is something I should be concerned with. I summon up the courage in the shower one day to do a little primary exploration. And since I've never felt it before I'm not sure what it's supposed to feel like, but let me tell you, it's fucking disgusting. It has like, sinews and shit. SINEWS. It was like going to a Halloween party when you're a kid and the parents make you go blindfolded through a tactile house of horrors and make you feel peeled grapes and tell you they're eyeballs? Okay well this was nothing like feeling eyeballs, but I was like a blind person down there, and it was horrifying.

I'm not sure if I'm naive, or if everybody is on top of this, well, shit. Their bodies. I thought I knew anatomy. So I convince myself I have piles and head to the chemist for the fantastically named remedy....

Vagisil.