I read recently that kissing spreads germs, but we need to keep doing it for our health or something. Its always heartening to find out that whatever you’ve been doing, you should keep on doing.

One day, we’ll all wake up from being cryogenically frozen and discover, like Woody Allen, that baked potatoes with tons of sour cream and butter are the bomb for our health, that smoking kills all kinds of cancers, and that drinking alcohol confers deep insights and improves hand/eye coordination.

(The typing monitor suggested I might mean ‘photogenically frozen’, and I do indeed want to look good in pictures after I’m dead, standing there with a frosty stare.)

I went to the hospital once with a friend to visit their relative. As we walked up to her room, we saw people in freaking Haz Mat suits milling around her room. I don’t know what she had, but I decided, since I didn’t even know her, that I would wait somewhere else during my friend’s visit.  Like maybe Cleveland.

I walked to the elevator to go down to the lobby, and on the elevator was posted a sign that said, “This elevator has MRSA! We don’t know what the initials mean, but it’s bad!”

I could either live a long life, maybe have more children, OR I could take this elevator to the ground floor. If I chose the second option, I should take a radiation shower right after.

The sign may not have said this in those exact words, but I can read between the lines.

Every surface in the hospital is a teeming mass of ineradicable germs. Germs that came to this country In Search of a Better Life.

Germs were standing around in scrubs, having just immigrated to this hospital.

Various articles and shows tell me to avoid bars and restaurants. It seems people like to deposit their feces in pretzel bowls, and distribute their sperm everywhere, and that’s just from the front door to the car.

Scientists use a special green light to see these things. They’re invisible to the naked eye. Can you imagine what you’d see if you clothed your eyes? Did I just develop a listhp?

However, kissing appears to be a safe occupation because the scientists with those germ-discovering green lights have not shone one in anyone’s mouth lately. The Buzz Kills are looking for a reason to ban kissing, I’m sure.

Women can smooch their way to desire and better health. Our lips have more nerve endings than a man’s, and we get turned on by touch, more than by sight. So say some experts.

I’m not sure who the women are they’ve been talking to, but I can state categorically that I don’t care how much I may get touched or kissed by some trolls, I’m going to be a non-starter, kiss-wise.

If Steve McQueen and Woody Allen are standing next to each other, and start making that kissing noise you make when you call a dog, like at a custody hearing  where a couple calls a dog and the one it runs to is the one who gets to take it, I’d run to Steve.

Based purely on his looks. So sue me.

Things can get a little sticky with regard to kissing, other than the obvious. If you’re going to kiss a woman a lot, be aware that there is testosterone in male saliva, and prolonged kissing floods the brain with dopamine.

This affects the same part of the brain as cocaine. A woman may even seem a little dazed after kissing, because dopamine affects the pleasure centers and is associated with food, sex, and drugs.

This is actually an approved technique used in many rehab centers. The centers advertise for, and interview, hundreds of weaselly men who like to fondle women, until they find the perfect specimens.

Whenever a female patient shows signs of wanting to go on a binge of food, drugs, shopping, or alcohol, wham! There appears before her a skanky guy in scrubs, ready to caress and slobber on her. That alone is enough to cure many hard core addicts.

All these great feelings are heady company for a kiss. To compete with ice cream, pizza, and nicotine would not be easy for anyone.

For those who like to multi-task, kissing has also been found to lower cholesterol in both men and women, so heart health and heart’s desire are both positively influenced.

Unless you eat a pizza loaded with everything, while you are kissing.

Wikihow has a page on How to Kiss, and uses pictures to illustrate. Wikihow will end up taking all the thunder away from middle-schoolers, who profess to know everything.

Here are a few of their tips on Better Kissing Through Chemistry:

• Get caught looking (briefly) at the other person’s lips.
• Don’t purse your lips. Keep them softly parted — not so much that you could breathe comfortably through the opening, but enough that you could bite your bottom lip easily.
• Stay at a manageable level of saliva. Slobbery puppies are the last thing you want your date thinking of while you kiss him or her. Avoid this fate by swallowing excess saliva occasionally. If you notice that your lips are a bit too wet, pull away and discreetly purse them to bring the extra spit back into your mouth.
•  Don’t just let your hands hang at your sides like two limp fettuccine noodles — put them to good use!

I have to hand it to Wikihow; they covered the subject thoroughly.

They even have a quiz and a video at the end. I had no help with kissing when I was a teenager, so I learned from my first boyfriend. He was pretty good at it. I learned my technique in the front seat of a Capri.

Falling in love, which always proceeds more smoothly with good kissing, decreases a man’s testosterone levels, and increases a woman’s. This is why women often need a shave the next morning, after a make out session.

Men in long-term relationships enjoy kissing and cuddling even more than women do; women in long-term relationships are more concerned with sexual satisfaction.

I can vouch for that: My guy loves cuddling and touching sometimes more than I do (especially if there’s a sink full of dishes, or something fun happening the next day and I’ve got to pick something to wear), but if that’s all it takes to keep him happy, who am I to argue?

Kissing spreads germs, and germs are hated, so kiss me baby, I’m vaccinated!