h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I just can't stand it!

Except for EV of course.

I'm not keen. "Hug me, wear my ring" is my motto.

I don't mind hugs - if I like the person. But I really can't stand being kissed in the street. apart from the two kisses hello/goodbye that friends give you. Anything else makes me cringe...

I think family and people I know are worst.

Awww, but cuddles hugs and snuggles are just great

Wait till everyone you might have called family up to your maiden aunt is dead. Then you'll know the value of a sincere hug.

Christopher sounds like he knows of which he speaks. And his point is well taken.
Those who have no close family to support them or anyone to be intimate with really
do need a good hug every now and then.

But too much familiar hugging can be a right bore. Mina is right. There's nothing
worse than an unwelcome hug, especially an insincere unwelcome hug. There is
altogether far too much casual hugging going on.

And it's not really healthy to be swaddled into some stranger's personal space.
I even gave up shaking hands with people during the H1N1 scare.


~jwf~

Am I the only one whose mind is boggling over the phrase 'wear my ring'



It could mean many things and some are way more unpleasant that others.


Seems a bit of a strange reaction to a friendly gesture though. What happens to people who disrespect you?

>>Those who have no close family to support them or anyone to be intimate with really do need a good hug every now and then.

Is that what they're calling it these days?

I thought that* kind of thing was still illegal outside of diplomatic immunity...

It doesn't bother me, really.

There are people I hug every time I meet, and every time I say goodbye. There are people I hug in certain circumstance. There are people I'd never hug at all - well, that much is obvious. It doesn't necessarily depend on things like how close I am to them or how long I've known them - it's more like how you might tell different kinds of jokes to different kinds of people. I'd tell my brother a joke about football, but not my mother - it doesn't mean I'm closer to one or other of them.

But it's never "insincere" if I *do* do it.
I think, in a sense, insincerity is in the eye of the beholder. If you take a hug to mean "I adore you, I'm eternally devoted to you, I want to have your babies and I couldn't live without you", then yes - it might seem like insincerity if someone gives a hug without meaning all that. But most likely it's just that that isn't what a hug means _to them_. It's not necessarily that they are being phoney or insincere or pretending to mean something they don't.

And as for the spreading infection angle - to be honest, I think that's just a rationalisation. Why is it that so often the macho types who laugh in the face of food scares, anti-tobacco laws or "Health And Safety Gone Mad", go all to pieces at the thought of all the nasty germs caused by hugging people in public?

Nah, we're sturdy beasties. Of all the millions and millions of events in your life, only one will kill you. We don't need to worry *that* much.

>>Of all the millions and millions of events in your life, only one will kill you<<

True, KB - except if it doesn't then fresh air will, in the end.

I don't care for the kinda "formal hugging" that folk, usually women from one's extended circle of friends, tend to engage in.

My way of dealing with it is hug them back as much as I can in the manner I would someone, male or female, of my friends that I would spontaneously feel an urge to hug at the end of an evening or upon catching up with each other.
Making it too much like a friendly or intimate hug for the "formal huggers". They tend to keep their hellos and goodbyes and other tactile contact more in proportion after that.

Elsewise I'm all for more hugging amongst friends, especially male friends, heterosexual males don't hug enough. I don't think that's a "macho" thing, I think it's an "uncertainty" thing around good form and personal space.

Oh I'm a huge hug-fan. With someone really sincere, close, important whatever, it can last as long as it likes.

For more casual acquaintances, I like the breaking down of formal barriers, and it's over in seconds.

And there are some times when words just aren't enough, but a hug is.

I am firmly of the belief that hugs are primarily for people (of any sex) within a stable, monogamous relationship. When used outside these parameters, hugs count as foreplay.

Between relatives, where physical contact is deemed necessary (births, marriages, funerals etc), a handshake accompanied by a brief holding of the arm is sufficient. Otherwise a normal handshake is quite enough.

We're not Europeans after all.

Who's this "We" pale-face?

>>When used outside these parameters, hugs count as foreplay.<<



That reminds of places I have lived where single women can't even smile at men because it's taken as an invitation for sex.


The hugging I can't stand is from new-agers and the like who think hugging is mandatory. Not only can't they tell when someone else doesn't want to be hugged, but the person not wanting to be hugged is seen as somehow deficient.

Hugging for me is alot about chemistry and paying attention to each other's needs and whether they match in the moment.

I asked because although I was very miserable the day I couldn't carry my son anymore because he was too heavy, and had lots of sitting down hugs then, he tried to hug me yesterday, just before I posted the thread, and I was horrified at the thought of being enclosed.

One brother always wants to hug me goodbye. I have to force myself to bear it. I hugged my dad on his birthday because it was expected, but it was very brief!

Mina hi, can I ask was you everwhen you was younger? As this could be why you dislike beennow, I wasn'twhen I was younger, so thats probably why I find it difficult to hug my partner, I just find it rather strange that you want the attention but you also want to push them away, saying to one's self I can't breath. I don't hug my sis+bro we're not close It's very I know. So here's some s for you

Smiggle The Little

No, my mum was always 'too tired'when I tried to have a cuddle, and that hurt. Then when she started fostering two little girls they ALWAYS got hugs.

So you can maybe imagine how upset I was to not like it when my son wants to hug me. I get round it by making an appointment, so I can prepare myself.