Greetings

A modest discussion starter: How do you know how to greet someone? What cues does a person use to choose the appropriate greeting? Relevant to this is a little snapshot in USAToday (January 8, 2009) on kissing as a form of greeting. Men and women differ considerably. Thirty-two percent of men will kiss only the immediate family while 41% of women kiss only the immediate family. Twenty-six percent of the men would kiss very close friends (which seems very high to this greeting watcher) while 36% of the women would. As to the percentage of men and women who would kiss only a member of the opposite sex: 33% of men and only 5% of women. And, of course, the inevitable question: Why these sex differences?