Hugging Makes It Worse

Of the people in this lovely world of ours, there are those who are known as "huggers" and those who are not.  There are also the kissie types, but, if you grow up in an Italian Family, that is a foregone conclusion, of which you have no choice in the matter.

Now, I happen to be a hugger, and a kissie type, but I generally reserve these signs of affection for greeting people. I may even be on the reserved end of hugger-osity.  I've noticed that there are some out there who seem to really dig the hug thing, and I've discovered that I'm not a huge fan.  A short, 2 second hug is fine, anything longer than that is just awkward to me.

We once had an "Employee Week" at an office in which I worked, during which there would be all kinds of surprises and stress reducing activities for the employees who worked there.  Ice cream socials, cookouts, chair massages, psychologists, etc.  I was mortified about the massage thing, and was endlessly harassed that I refused to have my stress "reduced" by having some stranger touching me.  My (male) team lead even walked up behind me and massaged my shoulders (don't do that!) saying how much it would relax me.  (why would someone do that?  If I said I didn't like spiders, would he gather them up and put them on my desk?)

Now, I know that seemed a little off-topic, but the point of the massage story is that there are some things that I consider too intimate to be sharing with a non-paramour.  Don't worry, this is not going to get dirty, Mom.  Long hugs, massages, weeping uncontrollably, those things are not to be shared with co-workers, or distant cousins, in my humble opinion.  They're for private times.

Bringing us back to the subject at hand, I'd like to talk about "comfort" hugs.  I feel that "comforting" hugs do not feel comforting.  As a matter of fact, I think that hugging makes a sad situation even worse.  Comfort hugs make me want to cry.  That's not comfort.  That's misery.  

I don't know if it's just my personal thing, but frankly, I don't want to cry in someone's arms.  Unless it happens to be the arms of one of my various lumberjack I'm-here-to-protect-you boyfriends, of course.  Other than that, I don't like them.  I suppose that the intention of the comfort hug is to let the person know that you care about them, share their sorrow, and to allow the person to "let it out" if needed.  Honestly, I don't want to let it out.  I'm trying to hold it in, because maybe I've been letting it out all day long behind closed doors and need to have an hour or two of non-bloodshot eyes and non-Rudolph-like nose.

I had a friend once who was going through a very difficult personal matter, and she was crying hysterically in my arms.  For a long time!  Longer than 2 seconds, at least.  Obviously, this is something that she needed, and apparently it was comforting to just break down in the arms of a friend.  I remember thinking at the time, apart from doing the whole soothing thing, how long I was required to maintain the hug.  I know, that sounds awful, but I couldn't fathom how crying more in someone's arms could be helpful.  I guess I feel that sorrow is a very personal and private matter, and I would rather be distracted by humor or doing the distracting, rather than honing in on the thing that's making us upset in the first place.  Is that weird?

I don't think so.  I'm not some stoic, cold fish, and I believe in the whole cleansing process of crying your eyes out.  If people need long hugs, that's fine.  I guess I'm just not the go-to guy in that department.  I'll bake you a cake, I'll tell you a joke, I'll give you a 5 second hug if you really need it.  But unless you're a lumberjack boyfriend, don't expect more than that, and don't ever massage my shoulders.  No matter how stressed I appear.