I’m The Wedding Guest Who Keeps Clinking Their Glass For The Newlyweds To Kiss And I Won’t Stop Until I See Some Tongue
Awkward public displays of affection is my love language.
When it comes to love, words mean nothing. An hour-long ceremony where you profess all the reasons you fell for each other doesn’t prove anything. Neither does the polite peck at the end. As your witness, I need to see you two kiss multiple times throughout the night to believe you’re truly in love.
That’s why I’m clinking my glass at the reception for the seventh time — not because I want to bring attention to myself, but to help you, the bride and groom, prove to one hundred and fifty of your closest friends, family, and parents’ old college buddies that you’re in it for the long haul. I promise I will get this entire banquet hall to join in, starting with the kids’ table. And we will re-clink if there’s no tongue.
Ignoring my requests only makes me want it more. Go ahead and pretend like you didn’t hear a stainless-steel knife bang into the heart of a crystal-clear glass, but we all know the power dynamics in this game. You’re the one who provided me with utensils and an open bar.
We clink, you kiss. That’s the deal we made when your parents invited me to your wedding. It may have been implicit, but so was the unspoken agreement I made with the DJ that, if he doesn’t play “Cotton Eye Joe,” I will drink my chardonnay within spilling distance of his equipment.
As wedding guests, we fly in, book hotels, and gift you an entire house full of Crate and Barrel. Sure, you provide dinner and dessert, but I can get that at home. What I can’t get is a front row seat to your plump, interlocking lips, meshing together as one. Really, it’s a work of art — your nose nuzzling up against his. Your hands cupping her soft, rosy cheeks. Your tongues twirling in sync — it leaves us all gasping for air.
Time’s a-ticking so let’s start a-licking. In three hours, the waiters will clear the tables. You’ll be off to Fiji. I’ll be left here, alone in the dark, clinking for no one.
Think about that the next time you are biting into a piece of chicken or exiting the bathroom and hear clink, clink, clink, clink, clink… No matter how inconvenient it may be, we make noise to help you two find each other through the maze of tables so you can properly swap spit in front of your boss and estranged uncle.
You should be grateful that any of us even want to see you kiss. As soon as the sun shines tomorrow morning, no one will care. You think if I ever kissed someone, people would smile and aww? No. No one would even clap. It makes me sad that weddings and kiss cams are the only places left in this world where we can force two people to kiss.
Yes, clinking glass encourages public displays of affection; and yes, I admit I get a rush of dopamine when I witness it, but no, that’s not perverted. I love love. If anything deserves a scornful side eye, it’s those other traditions like tossing the garter or throwing the bouquet that reinforce the stereotypical notions that all men get ego-boosts from flaunting their sexual conquests, or that all women are desperate to get married, or that gender is binary and that the entire history of weddings is steeped in a racist, classist cisheteropatriarchy.
Oh, you still do the bouquet? Noted. Well, in that case, why don’t you send us all some good luck by gently grazing your teeth against each other’s lower lip and finishing off with a playful tug?
Today is the happiest day of your lives. All I’m asking is to share in that brief moment of desire so we can all forget about the bleak lives that await us outside this banquet hall. It’s like living vicariously through characters in a movie. I want to be you and kiss your husband, and I want to be you and kiss your wife. It’s quite beautiful when you think about it.
So, let us raise our glasses and honor this besotted couple by coercing them to smooch it up for our and only our enjoyment. May their lips never get chapped. Clink! Clink! Clink! Clink!
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