In Defense of People Who Hate Hugs
I love you. I just don’t know what to do with my arms.
Touch has never been easy for me. Unless we’re in love, which, to be clear, hasn’t happened in over 15 years or I am infatuated with you...another rare occurrence. I’ve had a casual encounter or two before but casual isn’t for me. You get the point. I’m not a hugger, and so for the most part, I just… don’t touch anyone.
Somewhere in the news, a statistic appeared: humans need 4 hugs a day to survive. Then I read another line. 8 hugs for maintenance. 12 hugs for growth. It has haunted me. By that measure, I should’ve been declared clinically dead around 2008.
At parties, I perfected the art of evasion: drink-in-hand, a slight wave, strategic “oops, shoulder pat.” My early internet career was built on meme-ified hostility toward hugs which always went viral, confirming what I suspected: there’s a whole secret community of us who fear physical contact. I wore my anti-hug stance like a badge, a subculture in its own right if you count a side squeeze as tradition.
The problem is, hugs are social currency. Refusing them doesn’t just make you eccentric; it makes you suspicious. It brings to light the very trauma you’re trying to hide. Once, I gave a man I was basically in love with a lopsided one-arm hug which I obviously named “a half-hug”. He laughed and said, “That’s not a thing.” He was right. It wasn’t.
There are other offenders: the rib-crushers, the back-patters, the lingerers who hang on a few beats too long, the accidental nuzzlers. Entire novels could be written about the microphysics of hugging.
On my birthday, I saw photos of myself with friends and noticed that in every single one, my hand was just barely resting on someone’s shoulder, like a moth that couldn’t quite commit to landing. It was Keanu Reeves with fans, except I wasn’t with fans. I was with my best friends. It was funny, but also telling: affection, for me, has always been something I almost do.
The truth is, I want touch. I want to be kissed on the cheek without flinching, to feel someone’s arm draped over me without panic, to lean in instead of pulling back. But I learned early that wanting too much could make affection disappear. So I trained myself to hover.
The internet hasn’t helped. Online, you can signal closeness endlessly. Llikes, comments, heart emojis without ever risking the mess of actual skin-to-skin contact. It’s intimacy cosplay: performative, convenient and hollow.
And yet, lately, I’ve been practicing. Sometimes I even ask for a hug, and when I do, it feels startlingly real as if naming the need is the only way to make it fit.
Could the four-hug rule actually not be about numbers but about wanting the hug you’re in, instead of dodging or enduring it? For some of us, that’s its own radical act.
So I remain a defender of the half-huggers, the side-squeezers, the hover-handers. I see you. I know you probably gave yourself a pep talk in the mirror before the party: we are not going to be awkward tonight. And I appreciate you for trying. Because even the smallest crumpled fist on a shoulder can be its own quiet declaration: I love you. I just don’t know what to do with my arms.
