Huggy Huggy Kissy Kissy

Ramadan Kareem everyone. Mbarak aalekum il shahar :)
Today I was invited to the company Iftar party at one of the nice Dubai hotels. All was going great: there was a prayer room set up and ready, a HUGE line up of food, employees brought their families so you had kids with face paint fighting with balloon swords, people introducing their spouses to others...all in all, it was a success.

After the get together, I waited for my car at the valet (not a fan, but I couldn't find parking myself). And there it happened, I saw a male x-employee with his wife walking over to say hi, he was happy to see me and planted a kiss on my cheek. Now different Arabic women respond differently to the kiss on the cheeks (the mmwah mmwah from one cheek to the next). Their reaction falls according to the following categories:

1. Some are down with it, and lean right back in
2. Some are ok with a handshake but do not favor a kiss on the cheeks
3. Some are not only "not cool" with it at all, but they don't want to shake hands either.

I'm in between the last 2. I prefer they "hey, how are you?" and not get huggy huggy with a guy. The handshake is also ok, but I always roll my eyes and think to myself "damn it, do I have to do my ablution again for my prayers!". I'm wearing strappy heels and now I have to go to the public washroom again and open the thousand buckles in my shoe, and make sure I have enough napkins to dry the place when I'm done, and hop around to wear my heels again, then suddenly the automatic dryer switches on, and now I'm freaking out. COME ON ! Don't you realize that my shoe fetish comes with a price, and you are making my life difficult?!

"A kiss is just a kiss" the song says. No it isn't. It's an invasion of my personal space. Most of the men who do, don't even know me that well, and go right ahead. Not only that, but what really ticks me off, is that some men go through a line shaking hands with every woman, then when they see me, they say "heeeeeeeeey how are you?" and lean right in. I mean for god's sake, you were perfectly polite all through the line, why meeeeeee? why do I have to be so polite yet awkward when I was perfectly comfortable before you walked in and made me feel "so welcome and loved". Let me say right now, I don't need that to feel like you are nice to me, a kind word is MORE than sufficient. Yallah, I'll take the handshake too, but let's leave it at that my friend.

I've heard so many manners experts who explain that in a greetings setting, a gentleman mirrors what the women does. If she goes for the kiss, you go for it. When she shakes your hand, you give yours. When she smiles and shares pleasantries nodding, or with her hand on her chest, you share pleasantries only. Sounds easy enough, but why doesn't that always translate in reality?

So the moral of the story, do what I do. When you see the head coming at a 45 degree away from my body, and my lips getting rounder forming a pout, you can huggy huggy kissy kissy. Otherwise, kindly, back off.