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.