No Hugs Please

While chatting with another blogger yesterday he said he asked me if I have been in a relationship longer then a year. When I told him the answer was no he said he didn’t think I had. How did he come this conclusion since I have actually met this person in the flesh? He told me he didn’t think I was emotionally available because I didn’t like to hug.

Now I don’t have a real aversion to hugging just a slight one. There are a couple of reasons that I have a problem. The first is that my family is Irish. We are not a huggy kissy people. We are let’s get drunk and fight kind of people. There was very little hugging going around with my extended family. Even now if I go to hug one of my aunts or cousins I get a “ what the hell are you doing” look first followed by an awkward negotiation of the proper way to touch with out offending the other person.

The other reason is when I was young my parents belonged to a few very charismatic religious organizations, the groups were either Catholic or non-denominational. These people were the hippies that found Jesus. Their friends were always hugging me, even when I didn’t know them very well or had just met them. When I was about thirteen I tried to put an end to the practice by offering my hand when I was met with someone with their arms out stretched. It never worked they always slapped it away with a “come here give me a hug”. All I could do was stand there waiting for it to be over. They always grabbed me like they were going to wrestle the life out of my poor skinny body. I would be just catching my breath from the first offender only to be faced with about 30 more.

Through the miracle of time and many hours of therapy I have overcome this problem. But I still do a tuck and roll when anyone moves toward me to quickly at a potluck dinner.