With Valentine’s Day coming up, I’d like to talk about kissing.  One of the most important lessons I’ve ever learned about life is this — women like kissing.   I’m not a natural kisser.  I’m have a feeling that most men are not born kissers.  In my younger days, the kissing was just an excuse to set the clock into motion before my hands came out to feel the woman up.   Who wants to be stuck at “first base!”  If you told your friends that you kissed a girl, you got a big yawn in return.  But if you touched her BOOBIES — then you were a hero!    Even now, at night, deep in sleep, when my mind is at the most open and aware, I rarely have a vivid dream about me KISSING a woman, if you get what I mean.  Well, kissing may be involved, but it isn’t the main goal of the exercise, if you get what I mean.

Even after many years of marriage, I’m not the greatest kisser.   Ask Sophia.   This is very difficult for me to admit to the general public, but I think it is important to make other men feel comfortable with themselves and their less than stellar kissing abilities.   If I can admit it, so can you, Mr. Blogging Guy.  Together we can learn to study and improve, and make our women happier.  My biggest problem is that I’ve never perfected the whole kissing and breathing at the same time.  After a bit, I need air.  Maybe if I fix my deviated septum, then I can breathe better through my nose.  It’s sad, really.  I’ve tried to make up for my less-than stellar kissing in many ways, but it always comes back to the kissing.  Is there a class at UCLA?  I have a feeling that my admitting the truth about my kissing may lose me some important female readership, but I think it is important to keep this blog honest. 

Blogging has only made the situation worse.  I’ve IMed with many women, and have heard countless stories of how important a first kiss can be in making your decision to date someone.  Some of you even REJECT a perfectly good man because of a mediocre peck on the cheek.  You can apparently tell tons of information from the locking of lips:  how good he will be in bed, his earning potential, his social security number, and even what your children will look like.

I have one single blogging friend who likes to tell me the intimate details of her dating life.  She IMed me this morning, telling me about this amazing date she went on last night. 

“I had two orgasms.” she said.

‘Wow.  Did you stay over at his place?”

“No, this was outside the movie theater.”

“You had sex outside the movie theater?!”

“No, silly.  We were kissing.”

“You had TWO orgasms by kissing him?!”

“He’s a really good KISSER!”

Jeez.  Even my Penis was depressed hearing this news.  He likes to believe that he is always the main attraction.

I do remember that, as a teenager, I practiced kissing by making out with my arm, sticking my tongue into the pores and slobbering all over the elbows, until my ARM got fed up and threw me off, saying she’d had enough of my wimpy kisses.

Lucky, the digital age offers a new way to kiss a woman — and a place to live and learn.  It is called Facebook.  Over the past few days, I’ve been getting all sorts of messages that women want me to “Kiss Them.”  And who I am to say no?  So, this morning,  I downloaded this “Send a Kiss” application, all ready to give some hot babes a few orgasms through my virtual kisses.

A few hours later, my bad kissing karma remains — even online.  How the f**k do you use this application?  Am I too old, or stupid?  Am I supposed to be sending a kiss or asking for a kiss?  Do I HAVE to send kisses to “twenty of my friends?”   What is the difference between kissme, most kissed, kisslog, kiss fortune cookie, and kiss crushes?  When did kissing become so complicated?

Maybe I need to first practice on my virtual arm.

One of the bloggers I met during my trip to San Diego was Modigli.  Meeting her was particularly exciting because I’ve been interacting with her as a blogger for more than a year.  I’ve “been with her” when she lived in Cleveland, when she took a trip to Florida, when she fell in love with another blogger in San Diego, when she moved to San Diego, when she couldn’t find a job, when she took a crappy job at Starbucks, when she finally got a teaching job, etc. 

I know more about her than some of my real friends.

So, I see her for the first time as I’m getting out of my car in front of her apartment complex.  But do I feel joy?  No!   Being a neurotic person, I feel only anxiety.  Why?  Because all I could think about was, “How do I greet her?”

“Do I hug her?  And do I hug her in that fake way or give her a real hug?  Should I give her a kiss on the cheek?  Will she think I’m too forward?  Will her boyfriend get mad?  Should I just shake her hand?  Should I kiss her “French” style on both cheeks?  Will she think me unfriendly if I don’t kiss her at all?” 

Luckily she came and gave me a big hug so I didn’t have to worry anymore (until it was time to go home when the thoughts came up again).

I enjoy meeting other bloggers, but I don’t like feeling anxious.  So, please help me and tell me now AHEAD OF TIME how you would like to be greeted – in case I ever meet you in person.

Would you like me to:

1)  Hug you weakly?
2)  Hug you strongly?
3)  Kiss you once on the cheek?
4)  Kiss you on both cheeks?
5)  Kiss you on the lips?
6)  Kiss you on the lips with tongue action?
7)  Kiss you while feeling you up?
8)  Kiss you while squeezing your ass?
9)  Kiss you while grinding against you?
10) Shake your hand?

Thanks for your help. 

And remember, tomorrow is Blog Appreciation Day.   Show your love to another blogger!  If you are sending a photo to someone, and you’re not afraid of revealing your location, show the daily newspaper or something specific so the person can feel proud that his blog is being read in Memphis or London, or wherever else you might live.

A Year Ago in Citizen of the Month:  Can Anybody Find Me Somebody to Hate?

Pauly has another amusing post today — this time about "dog kissing."  And since I always find him inspirational, Pauly got me thinking about the subject of kissing (and not just with dogs). 

I miss kissing a lot, although I still try to get in a little kissing with Sophia if I can get her drunk enough.  The fact that I like kissing is surprising to me because I’m a bit of a hypochondriac.  Kissing is one of God’s greatest inventions, but if you think about it, it’s a germ-filled activity that can get you a cold.  Maybe the Eskimos have it right by kissing with their noses.  At least it’s sanitary.

Last night, I was watching a Tivo-ed episode of Average Joe, one of those second-rate dating reality shows.  This uninspiring girl goes out with one guy after another, seeing which one she likes the best.  All the guys are "amazed" with this dull woman.  Why are they so amazed?  Is it because she seems to have real boobs and they haven’t seen that before?

I would be a terrible reality dating show contestant.  Why can’t they ever find a smart woman who’s also beautiful? 

This year, Average Joe had a "twist."  Some of the nerds were kicked off, then came back after an extreme makeover.  All of a sudden, Marlena, or whatever her name is this year, was all hot for the guys because they were now looking good.  This time she used the word "amazed" over and over again.  All the guys were salivating over the opportunity for a second chance.  I was grimacing as one by one, they each sucked up to her by saying how amazing she was.  Now I’m as ass-kissy as they come, especially when it comes to wooing a woman, but these guys were making me nauseous.  Have some self-respect, guys!

If she picked me, I would say, "Screw you.  You didn’t want me before.  Now that I got the nose job and a trendy earring, I’m off to meet a woman who didn’t make me feel like a loser the first time." 

None of these reality show relationships work out anyway. 

If I were on the show, I would spend more time flirting with the female executive producer than the "girl," hoping to work my way into a new job. 

Oh, yeah, right… back to kissing.  In each episode of Average Joe, the woman goes on several dates with the guys.  At the end of each date, it’s inevitable that the couple starts kissing.  And it’s always some intense, open mouth kiss that the camera zooms in on.

Now, if I’m on a date with this woman, and I know that two hours ago, on her last date, she was french kissing some other guy, and three hours before that she giving some tongue action with a third guy — am I really going to want to kiss her?  It’s not even the fear of catching mono.  Maybe it’s me, but I think as I was kissing her, it would feel as if I’m kissing all the other guys — once removed.  And that’s just disgusting.

If I just wanted to kiss all the guys, I would just hang out back at the mansion rather than going on a boring date with this dumb chick.

But that’s a whole other reality show.