It’s in his kiss.

 You've had a great first date. The conversation was stimulating, eating habits were acceptable, he doesn't live with his mother or look like a serial killer and he even offered to pay for dinner. You think finally, the search has ended, I've found the one who will adore my cellulite and jiggly bits forever, no other jerk need see me naked. You eagerly lean in for that blessed and magical first kiss and…………ewwwwwwww - did a Saint Bernard sneak in and replace my prince charming?

 You open one eye for a peak and yep - to your dismay it isn't Rover slobbering all over your face, it's him. Once again, too good to be true, you thank him for a wonderful time and never call again. Do lousy kissers make lousy lovers? Women seem to think so - a study done by the University of New York found that "women place more emphasis on a kiss and are more reliant on kissing as a mate assessment technique than men".

 The average woman spends 336 hours of her life lip-locked. If that's true, can you blame us for ensuring we enjoy swapping saliva with you? Plus it's not an easy task finding the person you want to share bodily fluids with daily - the average chick kisses 29 men in her life before she's found her smoocher for life. Most men view kissing as a means to an end. Women feel the opposite, it's a means to a beginning. Get it wrong the first time fellas and you can kiss (pardon the pun) goodbye the hope of exchanging of ANY bodily fluids ever.

 And I'm not alone in man bashing here - most books and articles written about the art of kissing are geared towards men, so there are a few serial slobbers, suckers and slug-tongues out there. It is worth the effort of perfecting the pash. Men who kiss their partners before leaving for work average higher incomes than those who don't. If that doesn't interest you, a good pash will usually end in something more, and the "more" does involve nudity.

 So what is a good kiss? Hard to explain really. A bad kiss is much easier to describe. A bad kisser can suck loose your fillings, mistake your chin for your lips, produce so much salvia you want to call OOO (police, fire, and ambulance number here in Australia) for a life saver to rescue you from drowning, act like a happy puppy and lick your entire face like a lollipop, stick their tongue so far down your throat they can taste your last Tim Tam, or dart about like they're looking for some lost keys. They press so hard, your lips are somewhere between here and desert and if they are not overzealous they are so motionless you're not sure if it's their tongue that's comatose or their brain for not trying.

 Bad kissing should be a crime. In some countries it is. Well, maybe not bad kissing, but perhaps the laws were initiated by bad kissing. In Indiana it's illegal for a moustached man to habitually kiss human beings. Don't know about you but I'm not a fan of tickly tonsil hockey. In Hartford it's illegal for a husband to kiss his wife on Sunday - obviously someone wanted a day off from poor pashing.

 In Iowa it's a crime to kiss a stranger - maybe if whoever was kissing random strangers in Iowa was a tops kisser he would have been forgiven. So let's outlaw bad kissing for good - it's hindering our population growth. Share your thoughts on the perfect kiss and maybe all the bad kissers will read and learn - or maybe all the bad kissers have hooked up with all the other bad kissers and don't realise that they are bad kissers because they have nullified the effect.

Maybe, just maybe?