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herlife | spotlight
Andréa
Demirjian
t h e k i s s i n g e x p e r t
by ann e. butenas
“I
believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.”
Who could forget that classic line from Bull Durham, sensually
and directly uttered by Kevin Costner? And when it comes
to kisses, celebrated author Andréa Demirjian knows all about such
kisses…and then some! Her hit book, Kissing—Everything You Wanted
to Know About Life’s Sweetest Pleasures, takes an analytical scoring of her
own personal accounts and magically transforms them into kissable tales
of wonder, lust, love and heartfelt emotions to which many of us can
relate and for which many of us pine.
This New York City native, graduate of Skidmore College in
Saratoga Springs and former advertising executive who has spent the last
12 years consulting her own clients, recalled how she accidentally on
purpose became the author of such an engaging title.
“If you had ever told me that I would write a book about kissing, I
would never have believed it,” she recounted. “However, this book just
came about after an amazing and unexpected kiss that led to some silly
introspection on my part. It was as if that single kiss awakened the Sleeping
Beauty within, reawakening my spirit and restoring my confidence.”
That reawakening led her to pursue the quest of her romantic side
while indulging her analytical side. She began to keep a spreadsheet of
her kissing activity, but such precision for an otherwise emotional act was
nothing new for this ambitious woman. And setting the stage for obtaining
a kiss began years before she had scribed her book.
“When I was in seventh grade, Spin the Bottle was popular,” she
laughed. “Before the night of a particular party, I would draw up a floor
plan where the party would be and designate make-out points where my
friends and I would kiss the boys.“
Her calculated spreadsheet, then, came as no surprise to those who
know her well. “I had columns on the sheet for the person I kissed, his
age, hair color, eye color, how he was dressed, his profession, political
preference and even who made the first move,” Andréa explained. “It
was very detailed and highly insightful.”
“If you had ever told me that I
would write a book about kissing,
I would never have believed it.
However, this book just came about
after an amazing and unexpected
kiss that led to some silly
introspection on my part.”
It was very fascinating, too, and when she showed this spreadsheet to
friends, they saw things in it that Andréa didn’t, or, no pun intended, had
failed to read between the lips! “My friends saw trends and patterns in my
kissing behavior,” she said. “This led to further insight into the process that
allowed me to objectively learn something about myself. For example,
when I was younger, I favored darker skinned, darker-haired men, but as I
got older, I seem drawn to fairer-haired and fairer-skinned men.”
Self-indulgent folly or fodder for a great book? Yes…and yes. Andréa
figured she had stumbled upon a unique opportunity to teach others to
analyze their kissing behaviors. While she initially considered crafting
an article to pitch to various magazines, she broadened her thinking and
decided she had enough to write a book, one that is not only academic in
nature but is tempered by a very frivolous and fun ambiance.
40 HERLIFEnewyork.com