Colds, kissing and convention

I have a head cold. When you are sick, you want your own bed and your mother. Yes, even middle aged men. Clearly I can have neither. I have consoled myself with a good book - 'In cold blood' by Truman Capote and with drugs. And I have followed, skeptically but enthusiastically, Api's advice that wine is an effective cure. I have also reflected on the source of the infection and conclude that it is the Dutch habit of kissing-as-greeting.

In the Netherlands, it is appropriate to greet and farewell relatives and intimates with kisses to the cheek. Three of them. Right, left, right. In Australia, this is not done. Indeed, kissing anyone in public other than your mother is a recent phenomenon. And while we do now kiss and embrace, it is a strictly one peck interaction.

If you have grown up in Australia, you are inexperienced in the ways of greeting kisses. You have had no practice and no feedback. You don't realise that this is a refined ritual, that the kisses are light pecks, quickly, delicately, elegantly executed. So you go into the clinch as you would on a first date, full of enthusiasm, lips and smooch. Leaving your stunned partner looking like she has had an unplanned, affectionate encounter with a Saint Bernard.

Recent research on cold and flu virus suggests that transmission is mostly by contact, rather than aerosol. We catch colds by touching people who are infectious or things they have touched. This brings me to the Netherlands and my kissathon of the last three weeks.

Both Joyce and Renee are down with colds at the moment. Both have been victims of my clumsy greetings. Who will be next? I feel like the head cold equivalent of typhoid Mary, moving quietly among my victims. Except for the sneezing and nose honking.