kissing googlers

To the girl (am pretty sure it’s a girl, why’d a guy search thus. Oh, maybe he would since the girl is not doing so…. hmm.) who fell upon my ‘Munchies’ post on googling

“should a girl kiss the boys upper lip?”

The long answer: Just like we’d share everything with this other person from toothbrushes to secrets to ice cream to bed to passwords to keys, this whole kissing thing is a two way street too. You share. Lips.

Breaking it down:

1. His upper lip, her lower lip

2. His lower lip, her upper lip

For the most part, the girls are left no choice but to work the 1st method.

There’s also the:

no-choice 1: His Upper lip and Her Upper lip and no-choice 2: His Lower lip and Her Lower lip,

which let me tell you, folks have tried with very unsuccessful and messy results!

So leaving the 2nd messy set out of the equation, why are girls left with no choice but have to deal with that upper lip? The reason being invariably the guy’s already thought this over a million times and he has the whole plan waiting to execute. Especially if it’s his first time. Kissing’s under-rated, frankly. There’s a whole procedure to it as I was made to watch in this show (There are parts 1, 2, and so on so check ’em out, quite amusing! Part 4 has the whole trying out the kiss part.) on Disney or was it Nick (I forget which anyways.. ) last evening. It was quite entertaining in a very informative way. More on how not to kiss than the perfect kiss. Which helps so at least you know there could only be this many ways to mess up, but then again, we are a creative lot. Boundaries of mess-up-ville forever expand with pioneers daily added. Go us!

So yes, going back to the mechanics of kissing, as I have been told in various situations and mediums, the male gender obsesses about everything that has got to do with ‘sex’ . Kissing is part of it. More like a ‘sriganesh’ – I know, not the perfect metaphor, but I shall use it anyway. As I mentioned earlier, since the boys have already rehearsed the whole process a million times in their rooms and other places – alone, they are pretty much rearing to go once the opportunity presents itself. Opportunity is of course having a willing female participant.

Though it might just seem simple to kiss, there are whole lot of factors involved, the combination of which helps or ruins it all.

The hands (what do you do with those?) the chin, the nose (those aquiline sharp noses folks love: look good only in Mughal movies and portraits, the stubbier the better, I’d imagine), then there’s the angle of approach (geometry helps, if you didn’t ace it in high school, chances are you are going to widen the angles formed by your face at the lips and thereby produce lots of overlapping of skin, and not the kind you want), the tilt or the bending by the participants to achieve contact and ultimately, the quintessential tongue. Let’s not even go there. That’s kissing 202. If one is googling on asking if the upper lip was safe territory, then we talking basics.

Coming back to your question. I am not sure about you, but I’d ask to google one more which is o so relevant to how you’d want to go about this.

As boys start becoming men, their claim to fame is the appearance of facial hair. Some take pride in it, some try as hard to make it look like the juniper hedges lining the lawns, but ultimately look like scraggly seaweed as garnish on an otherwise appetizing main dish. This upper lip with a growth of this hair we speak about on boys or men who want to continue to assert themselves, or think cool, will pose a problem. Never mind the fineness or the lack of it, it simply is in the way. Kissing the upper lip, or whatever else you want to do with it simply involves taking into consideration navigating the bristles. It’s an added challenge. Some women like it too, I am told.

Let’s say you get lucky, and the clean-shaven dude is in your stars, then the choices widen. This is when the lower lip starts to look appealing. It always is, no matter the gender, why else would the guys make a beeline for it? Upper lips are usually thin, unless your name is Angelina Jolie or Goldie Hawn or your capability to get botox shots. So the target is almost always the lower lip. Upper lips just hang in there like roofs, like a side artist providing visual interest, without which the lower lip might look orphaned. I mentioned earlier, that with both parties wanting the lower lip, it creates an annoying, messy and ridiculous situation, where the fight’s always on who has the lower hand (read: lip). No fun there.

Sharing’s good. So share, don’t hog, and work it. Dead fish are no role models. Be alive, and yes, you may nibble and kiss. Bite? Nah, not yet. Whatever you do, do not grab both lips at the same time. That’s just so wrong.

The short answer: Depends. The early bird in this case gets the worm er.. lower lip.