Jonathots Daily Blog
(1962)
I was sitting here trying to figure out whether it would be characterized as a disease, a fungus, a bacteria, a condition or a rash. I do know that it lasts about six months and seems to have no cure.
“It” is this handsy, saccharine preoccupation that a man and a woman have with each other when they first discover that they are romantically intrigued. For them, it is akin to reaching the peak of Mt. Everest, and for others it is an insufferable tumble from Humpty Dumpty’s wall.
The two individuals appear to be physically connected by a gooey glue, which prevents them from being apart from one another without exchanging an insipidly-placed and performed kiss. One of them could be going across the room to retrieve the gravy bowl, but it would require a moment–meaningless as it is–of connecting their lips to communicate their affection and intention to return.
I have seen it with all of my sons, when in first combat with their lovers. (I use the word “combat” because it feels more as if they are entangled in a hand-to-=hand struggle than in the expression of deep and lasting emotion.)
On top of this particular proliferation of public display of affection is a self-righteousness–“we are the only two people who have ever been in love.” To them, Romeo and Juliet were just bunk mates.
The only thing a mere mortal can do in an attempt to avoid the gagging reflex is look away.
But I think what bothers me the most about this span of illness is that the kissing done is not really kissing, but instead, this insidious peck on the lips, which is not really satisfying nor is it any smooching worthy of discussion.
Kissing demands that the lips be intricately involved, lingering and intertwined. Actually, pecking seems to be a really good name for it–it resembles two chickens attempting to remove grain from each other’s beaks. There doesn’t seem to be pleasure in it. It is symbolic, leaving both parties either yearning for more or wondering if the other person “got his teeth bumped, too.”
I think romance would have a better chance in our species if it was more honest from the onset instead of insisting that it is a red-hot meteor, which falls into a frigid cave, insisting that it plans to melt the surroundings.
Yet I am fully aware that I am speaking to the wind. There is no chance that any kind of maturity can be registered during the onslaught of this infestation. But still, there is beauty after the passage of time has allowed for recuperation, in using kissing for its real purpose, which is deep pleasure and great passion, instead of grazing the lips against another’s face, to make sure they know you wish you could do more.
So in my ongoing search–hunting for the purpose of the peck–I must say that mature love is best expressed by a twinkling eye, a squeezed hand, or fingers gently running across the back, than it is by the often-dangerous drive-by peck.
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Jonathots Daily Blog 