Dec. 19: Public Displays of Affection

Sometime in the summer of 1999, a middle-aged Greek man kissed me on the cheek while we were standing on the first green of the North Battleford Golf and Country Club in Saskatcewan. There was a reason for his behaviour. I was the sports editor of the local newspaper and I had just published a picture of the man's daughter playing soccer. Seeing her picture in the paper thrilled the girl and, thus, thrilled her papa as well. "I have something for you, Mr. Newspaper Man," the Greek guy said post-oculation and he handed me a coupon for a free medium pizza at the restaurant that he owned.*

I am not sure if that qualifies as a PDA or not.

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Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, once pointed out that public displays of affection are only acceptable if you're beautiful. As such they are no longer acceptable for me because I am now a middle aged ugly man. There was a time when I was kinda cute so PDAs were moderately acceptable for me. None of this explains Ron Jeremy but that doesn't matter.

What I do know is that when I was in high school, PDAs were very important to me. It was vital that my peers see me engaging in them because that would demonstrate that (a) I had a girlfriend, which meant (b) that I wasn't a loser. I only managed to have one girlfriend in high school and she grew weary of my constant demand for between class smooches. She was perceptive, smarter than I was, and had deduced that I was using her as a means to an end. This is not what girlfriends were for. Girlfriends were for dancing with at school dances and then having chocolate malteds with them later on.

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Greyhound bus circa 1999. Sitting right behind a teenaged couple who spent about two hours making out. It was dark so I couldn't see them but the constant sound of lips smacking and giggling was really getting aggravating.

Bus stops at a depot somewhere and the driver announces a one-hour break. Loverboy goes into the bathroom and, while in there, is accosted by a whole bunch of his fellow passengers. Keep it down, they say. Their tones are polite, but firm. No one wants to see people make out for hours on end. That's what Ron Jeremy movies are for.

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* I know what you're thinking. "What? A Greek guy who owns a restaurant? What are the odds?"

 



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