I’m at the opening of an art exhibition in San Francisco. Someone introduces me to a friend of a friend, a backcombed lady around 70 in a black cocktail dress. Instinctively, I smile and lean in, because this is what one does. My body moves before my brain catches up.

I go left. She goes right. Or she freezes. Or she extends a hand that hovers midair like a failed peace offering. For a brief, excruciating second, our foreheads—and worse, our lips—nearly collide. In that suspended moment, I realize: the double cheek kiss does not travel well.

It’s the same every time. I can’t refrain from initiating the first kiss; it would feel rude not to. But to stop there, to deny the second cheek, its symmetrical counterpart, feels like mutilation.

So, I turn the awkwardness into a moment of national pride. Immediately after the second kiss, when my new acquaintance is still frozen in polite bewilderment, trying to figure out my next move, I clarify, almost triumphantly: “I’m giving you two kisses because I’m Italian!” Relief floods the room. “Oh my God, I love Italy!” they usually reply, as if I have just offered them a weekend in Tuscany rather than a minor social ambush. Decorum is restored.

In Italy, the double kiss is as natural as gesturing with both hands while insisting you’re calm. No one explains it. No one rehearses it. There are no instructions. One simply grows into it. Two light touches of the cheeks, a soft sound in the air, and the greeting is complete. Not one. Not three, as is sometimes the case in France. Two. Why two?

The answer comes from Ancient Rome, where kisses were classified with surprising precision: the osculum for friendship; the basium for affection; the suavium for passion. The greeting kiss functioned as recognition, a gesture that signaled alliance, familiarity, and trust. Decades later, Christian communities adopted the “holy kiss,” meant to demonstrate genuine, non-romantic love as a sign of fraternity. The kiss survived throughout the Middle Ages, in diplomatic rituals and courtly ceremony, and over time, the double kiss became less ritualistic and more reflexive. It settled into daily life, between relatives, friends, and colleagues who’d crossed the threshold from formal to familiar.

Today, the terminology has vanished, but the need to read and negotiate social relationships through greeting rituals remains. My own updated Ancient Roman taxonomy would look slightly different: a quick kiss on the lips for my gay friends and for my husband when we meet in public; a vigorous handshake for newly acquainted straight men, to reassure their masculinity (or mine); a more neutral handshake for male strangers; and double cheek kisses for everyone else.

The system, admittedly, is improvisational. But it reveals something essential: greetings are never neutral. They locate you. They define the perimeter of intimacy. And, as a matter of fact, they can occasionally be lethal.

When European explorers first reached the shores of New Zealand in the 18th century, they were greeted by the Māori according to a customary ritual: warriors stood and raised their weapons. The explorers, perhaps understandably, misread the gesture as a sign of imminent attack and opened fire, giving relations a decidedly frosty beginning.

Most greetings, fortunately, are less catastrophic, though they still follow a precise social script. The double kiss, in particular, is a form of proper contact. One begins by leaning left, offering the right cheek, then shifts right. The motion is light, more symbolic than anything. And, most importantly, one never actually kisses the other person’s cheek.

It also encodes subtle hierarchies. Younger people initiate toward elders. Men can kiss men, although context determines whether it feels affectionate, formal, or exuberant. Among women, it is nearly automatic. Among colleagues, it depends on the elasticity of office culture. The double kiss is socially literate. And yet, outside Italy, confusion persists.

There are YouTube tutorials explaining “How to cheek-kiss like an Italian.” Grown adults rehearse the angle of approach and the number of repetitions, a gesture so intuitive in Italy that it requires a manual abroad.

Perhaps the discomfort stems from the Anglo-Saxon emphasis on personal space. In Italy, distance can suggest reserve or distrust, while physical proximity signals familiarity and ease. This may partly reflect a tradition of extended families living under one roof, where closeness was woven into everyday life. It might also help explain why public displays of affection are relatively common.

The double kiss is a small ritual of belonging. It closes the distance between acquaintances without abolishing it, a way of saying we know each other without having to say very much at all. It accompanies arrivals and departures, bridges public and private life, and turns the abstract notion of familiarity into a physical act.

And perhaps that’s why, no matter how many awkward encounters I have abroad, I can’t bring myself to give it up. A handshake might be safer. A wave is certainly less dangerous. But neither feels quite right.

Two kisses. No instructions. And, occasionally, a minor social incident.