As Usual, The Times Styles Section Is Right On Top Of Current Trends

You know it’s hard out there when you primp:

The social kiss is unpredictable, agreed R. Couri Hay, the society editor at Hamptons magazine.

“I never kiss on the first meeting,” he said, “but if someone offers a kiss, I feel I have to be polite and take it. Generally I really don’t want to be covered in lipstick.” The kiss “has been dumbed down,” Mr. Hay said. “It is supposed to be a sign of affection, but I’ve seen people recoil when they see someone they don’t even know coming in to lick their cheek.”

Despite the awkwardness, the cheek, or social, kiss is displacing the handshake, once the customary greeting in American social and business circles. It may be a growing Latin influence, an aping of European manners, the influx of women in the workplace or just a breakdown of formality: no one seems to know. It’s not just celebrities smacking the air or diplomats puckering up with the European style double kiss or Soprano family wannabees mimicking a sign of forced fealty.

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The awkwardness — and inevitability — of the social kiss has led to strategies to deal with it. “I position my face just slightly to the side,” said Jeff Elsass, a Pilates instructor at the BioFitness Center in Manhattan, who is frequently greeted with kisses during his workday, “then I wait and see what the other person is going to do. That slight turn of the head can take you past the lip and the cheek.”