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Greeting & Farewell Etiquette - To kiss or not to kiss?

GPK26

I’m a 54 year male, late diagnosed ASD and would welcome thoughts from forum members on the subject of greetings and farewells – to kiss or not to kiss?

This is something that I have long felt slightly awkward & unsure about, but have tended to go in for a nice squeezy hug and peck on the head or cheek with female friends (sometimes the same with male friends).

I have a limited number of friends, with perhaps five or six close friends with whom I share a high level of trust. My greetings and goodbyes with these individuals are typically sincere and meaningful, and they provide me with considerable comfort.

I would be interested to hear about the approaches others take in similar social situations. Currently, I am navigating a particular circumstance related to this topic, which is prompting this inquiry. I will provide additional details later once I have gathered some perspectives from this discussion.

So, what do you tend to do in such situations?

Parents

  • Don’t feel that you have to do anything you don’t want to do. I liked that Covid stopped people immediately going in for kiss on the cheek thing but then it started again. I just put my hand out for a hand shake ahead of time now to stop them. Don’t mind hugging people I know. 

  • in reply to JD-on-sea

    The thing is, there is a quite new friend on the scene and I really do appreciate the closeness of a nice hug and even cheek kiss with her. The problem is that my wife, who is also very fond of the new friend, doesn't like me kissing the friend's cheek/head/forehead. In fact, it has become a real issue in our marriage, with my wife insisting that there be no more kissing, whereas I don't see why it would be an issue.

    For context, the "new friend" is in fact our yoga teacher and we have been going to her classes for a year or so. More recently, in the past couple of months, we have grown closer with the three of us spending time outside of yoga class (walking, coffee, lunch) a couple of times and we intend to continue. I have also helped the friend with home maintenance on a couple of occassions. My wife and I are very fond of the friend, but my wife does feel threatened by the situation. I must admit that things I have said about the friend haven't helped the situation, such as wanting to take her away for a weekend...oops! As far as I am aware, and as he friend has prevously intimated, she is not interested when I told her that I REALLY like her (I was not trying to get into her knickers!), all it is and can be is close friendship.

    It also doesn't help that the friend is in the same age bracket as us and is recently divorced.

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  • in reply to JD-on-sea

    The thing is, there is a quite new friend on the scene and I really do appreciate the closeness of a nice hug and even cheek kiss with her. The problem is that my wife, who is also very fond of the new friend, doesn't like me kissing the friend's cheek/head/forehead. In fact, it has become a real issue in our marriage, with my wife insisting that there be no more kissing, whereas I don't see why it would be an issue.

    For context, the "new friend" is in fact our yoga teacher and we have been going to her classes for a year or so. More recently, in the past couple of months, we have grown closer with the three of us spending time outside of yoga class (walking, coffee, lunch) a couple of times and we intend to continue. I have also helped the friend with home maintenance on a couple of occassions. My wife and I are very fond of the friend, but my wife does feel threatened by the situation. I must admit that things I have said about the friend haven't helped the situation, such as wanting to take her away for a weekend...oops! As far as I am aware, and as he friend has prevously intimated, she is not interested when I told her that I REALLY like her (I was not trying to get into her knickers!), all it is and can be is close friendship.

    It also doesn't help that the friend is in the same age bracket as us and is recently divorced.

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