Keep the kissing under wraps please

Meaghan Isaacs

They’re on the buses, in line for a cup of coffee, at the movies, in class, and on some occasions even hiding out in a back room at your workplace. They’re the smug couples who think everyone wants to see them macking on each other, who may be blissfully in love, but they’re also annoyingly ignorant of their surroundings.

Last week, I was at work shelving books, and had to squeeze past a couple to put Gordon Ramsay’s latest cooking title away, since they were up against the shelves having a moment. Cooking? Really? It does that to you? At least when I find couples going at it in the fertility section I’m not all that surprised, but Gordon Ramsay’s dessert book doesn’t really get me going. Tempted to pull a Gordon Ramsay myself and tell them to get the %*#* out of my way, I bit my tongue and slipped past them as they stood there, cradled in each other’s arms, totally unaware of anyone else’s presence.

Not to be labelled a bitter old prude, I feel like I should clarify. It’s nice to see couples holding hands when they’re out for a stroll and I haven’t swatted someone away when they’ve tried to give me a quick peck in public, but this incessant making out and groping all over town has got to stop.

There was a couple who would always sit directly in front of me in first year, constantly swapping spit until finally after a few weeks, it got so out of hand that the professor had to speak up and tell them to tone it down or get out.

It seems one can’t even enjoy a movie these days, without having someone’s bra be accidentally thrown in your face from the row behind or your armchair being used as a hoist for one of their legs.

Just the other day, I watched from my bus as a young couple said their goodbyes before one was heading home on the Greyhound at the University of Ottawa stop, probably just for Thanksgiving weekend. They were so wrapped up in their goodbye kiss, he didn’t even notice the bus drive right by him. I sat there beaming from ear-to-ear as my bus went by, getting a sick kind of pleasure, like retribution from that couple that made me miss my stop the day before when they were too busy kissing to notice me trying to exit at the backdoor.