• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Avoiding the kiss at greeting MIL

WoolPippi

Senior Member
Messages
556
Location
Netherlands
soon I'll be seeing my mother in law again. She's an energy siphon and one of the first people I banned from my life when I fell ill in 2008.

Now I'm up to seeing her. But that dreaded kiss of hello at greeting... having to touch her cheeck... being enveloped in her personal space and perfume and cigarette smoke... Yak!

My solution: face paint. Butterflies on my cheeks. A dragon perhaps.
No kissing possible, obviously. And she thinks I'm nuts anyway so no image shattered there.

I'm actually proud of this solution I thought up. It will work!
ME makes me inventive and ruthless where social subtleties are concerned. I now dare to show my excentricity. And nobody complained thus far. We are more free than we assumed.
 

SDSue

Southeast
Messages
1,066
You're a better person than I. I'd probably be in my lab, mixing up something that looks like a green booger to hang from one (or both, depending on the persistence of MIL) nostril. But hey, that's just me :sluggish:
 

vamah

Senior Member
Messages
593
Location
Washington , DC area
Ugh. I hear you. My husband's family is full of huggers and cheek kissers and it drives me nuts. Not so much with my mother in law (when she was still alive) because I likked her and knew she did it out of geniune affection. But there is this huge extended family of cousins, most of whom are jackasses I can't stand, but who hug EVERYONE because they think they are being all European or something. I am not intyo phony hugs or generally being touched by people I dislike so I try to put something between me and the hugger whenever possible -- like a table or a young child or a city block. The cousins in my kids' generation find this hysterical. They want to get me a t-shirt that says "don't effing hug me."