Dear Spanish couples,

Look, I get it. 
This isn’t America.  People
are allowed to express their affections more freely in public on this side of
the Atlantic.  To a certain extent,
that’s great.  Catching
the occasional glimpse of two high school kids eating each other’s faces is
fine because that means that I, too, have the privilege ““ nay, the right – to
eat face in public as well. 

But you gotta draw the line somewhere. 

Last weekend I entered a metro stop to meet up with some
friends before a night out.  When I
walked onto my platform, I quickly realized that there were just three people
waiting for the next train: 
Myself, a woman sitting on a bench, and her boyfriend, who was face-deep
in her chest, “motorboating” her bosoms in a circular motion. 

Clearly, a guy like me who grew up in prude, puritanical
America has no point of reference for what constitutes acceptable or
unacceptable hard-core PDA here in Spain. 
Where I come from people have the decency to practice ALL of their more visceral
affections in the privacy of their own home, or, at the very least, a place
where they can find a few moments of privacy.  Like the backseat of a vehicle.  Or a guest room at a friend’s house.  Or a walk-in freezer at the local
IHOP.  

You see, we Americans, fat, uneducated and bad at soccer as
we may be, have a strong set of values. 
We believe in freedom, justice and the unalienable rights to free
speech, fair trials and gun ownership. 
We believe that two consenting adults have the right to do pretty much
whatever they want to each other, wherever they want.  However, we also believe that innocent bystanders have the
right to NOT see two strangers going at it in public like a couple of apes on
Animal Planet. 

It’s the classic Catch 22 ““ how do we protect the
preferences of the silent, less-handsy majority without violating the civil
liberties of the noisy, sloppy minority who thinks that a bus stop is a great
place to play “doctor” with their tongues? 

Truth be told, there’s no easy answer.  We could revert to American rules,
which subject the publicly affectionate among us to loud throat-clears and
dirty looks anywhere outside of the aforementioned acceptable venues, but that
would be downright draconian.  Then
again, we could eliminate the rules altogether and turn every street corner
into an IHOP walk-in freezer, but who needs that much kissing, groping and
maple syrup in their lives? 

As in most of life’s great queries, the answer here lies
somewhere in the middle.  Every
bystander deserves the right to stand up for themselves in public whenever some
couple makes them feel like the third wheel in a wet dream, but we can all look
the other way as long as they keep the volume down and the groping to a
minimum, right?

So, let’s all join hands, work together, and in the spirit
of international cooperation, draw a line that benefits both public
affection-displayers and innocent bystanders.  With your help, we can make public places safe for loving
couples, and rid the world of public motorboating forever. 

We can do this. 

Sincerely,

Danny