Talk About Marriage banner

Is in USA kiss to check is normal?

4K views 37 replies 23 participants last post by  ABHale  
#1 ·
My husband told me in America kiss to strangers cheeks normal, like you know them 3days?
 
#5 ·
No, no kissing.

Maybe after knowing someone (a year?), maybe never.

In the USA, we shake hands, sometimes a chest and shoulder hug.

With the Wuhan virus being active, we now bump elbows.

He is mistaken, or he is being dishonest.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jlg07
#6 ·
I had that happen regionally but a lot of folks had spent time abroad or were married to French people for whom it was very normal to kiss on both cheeks. Outside of that it is not considered normal in US as far as I can tell. In France, Italy and Switzeraland that is considered normal in my experience.
 
#12 ·
So, this is her husband. This happened 8 years ago, while I was in Vietnam for work. Keep in mind, I was not with her at the time. Anyway, I met a girl everyday for about 3 days in a cafe. I was getting ready to leave the country, and when leaving a gave her a light peck on the cheek and said nice knowing ya. Never intending on talking to and or seeing her again. None of my intentions were anything but friendly, is that so astonishing?
 
#13 ·
In my experience, it is not normal, but it also isn't unusual. There are a lot of factors. For example, within the gay community it isn't unusual, and that ends up extending to their non-gay friends. I did notice it more frequently in the SE when I was stationed there (maybe it has shifted since then. it's been over 2 decades). Not a lot, but there. It also seems to depend upon level of friendship. Personally I have several female friends and a few male ones, whom I will kiss on the cheek, but it's not every greeting or parting.
 
#15 ·
Near and Middle Eastern countries, including Persians, often do. It is usually males kissing each other on the cheek. A Muslim man will not touch a female, non relative. Persians seem the exceptions.
 
#17 · (Edited)
Eh. I'm Southern - south east US - and we do tend to hug or kiss on one cheek in greeting or parting. But, only with close friends or family. There are a lot of men I half-hug and kiss on the cheek when I see them. We've known one another for years, since childhood, and it's pretty much just automatic. I've never had anything remotely like a sexual or romantic relationship with any of them. I greet their wives and children (grown or not) the same way - and they greet me that way, as well.

The US is a very big place, so there may be some cultural differences from one region to another.

The real issue, OP, is that this seems to bother you. It may or may not be normal or expected where your husband is from. But if it bothers you, ask him to stop. If he's not willing to, knowing you are bothered by this, then that's another problem entirely.
 
#22 ·
It depends on where you are from and how you grew up. Family on my mom’s side is French, she was born and raised around New Orleans. Kiss on the cheek very common around them and friends of the family, even when met for the first time. Also when visiting family in Quebec.
 
#23 ·
He was SINGLE when he did this, folks.

Tons of people even have SEX on the first date, within knowing each other for mere hours, so I'm flabbergasted that people think kissing someone's cheek when SINGLE is so outlandish.

Cheek kissing someone you haven't known long, bad. ****ing someone you haven't known long, okay. ?????!
 
#27 ·
Tons of people even have SEX on the first date, within knowing each other for mere hours, so I'm flabbergasted that people think kissing someone's cheek when SINGLE is so outlandish.
What would truly be outlandish, and some may say boorish, is kissing only a single cheek, and not both. (FTR, my wife and I had sex about a week before our first date.)

I'm teasing Livvie a bit. But OP IME it is far less common in the US than say in Europe (where the number of kisses is a real thing).
 
#28 ·
Some - but not many - will kiss cheeks, even on a first meet. More will hug on a first meet; in my experience, it seems to happen more often than not.
 
#29 ·
In the end, as shown by all of our experiences, there is no one hard and fast rule. It's going to be up to you to determine whether or not what he is telling you is accurate for his experience.
 
#33 ·
Just come to South FL. Kissing in the cheeks as a greeting is customary in a lot of circles. If there's one thing about my fellow americans is how uptight in average they are sexually and socially. The older they get the more (hypocritically so) in many cases they are.
 
#36 ·
No, we don’t typically do that. I do it with my relatives because we immigrated from Belgium and it’s normal there. My girlfriend’s family is from India and they don’t do that. Most Americans don’t do this - if they do they’re trying to make themselves look worldly.
 
#37 ·
Not in my experience except for these instances, certain Italian families, my relatives when I was young, my childrens elderly ex french teacher, in all those cases it was non-sexual, but generally you are rude to do so and inappropriate.

In my experience I've also seen it, in those certain Italian families they kiss my wife not me, old friends of my wifes younger brother who had the hots for my wife years ago, drunk men, foreign guys who tell my wife it's their custom in their country, a young guy at my wifes previous church and serial cheating men.

If your husband only kisses good looking girls it is definitely a higher level of inappropriate.