If I ruled the world...

from here

If I ruled the world, I’d standardise greetings. At the moment it’s a veritable quagmire: Does one kiss or hug? Or kiss and hug? Where should the kisses go, and how many? Or, should the kisses be ditched altogether in favour of a hug? And then how long should the hug last – exactly how many seconds (microseconds?) pass before a hug moves from “Ah, this is nice!” to “Okay, this is weird.” You don’t want to be the first to pull away from a hug (this could be read as, “I don't like hugs as much as you like hugs,“ but it will probably be read instead as, “I dont like you as much as you like me“), and you don’t want to start to pull away only to realise it’s too early and recommit just at the point when the other person (who picked up on your desire to end the hug) decides to pull away.

There is too much potential for embarrassment tied up in this ritual. For example, after a bit of confusion trying to work out which cheek my grandmother was offering, my ex-boyfriend accidentally kissed her on the lips. And more than once I’ve thought the whole scenario was over only to notice the other person leaning back in for a kiss on my other cheek. We need a system. As in Europe one can now expect to pay in euros no matter the country one finds oneself in, under my reign, everyone in the entire world would be able to expect the same kiss/hug routine no matter where one, or one’s family or friends, resided. I’d get the whole thing ironed out once and for all. 

And then I’d work on world peace.