Hugs

I come from a family of non-huggers.

My mom may dispute this, because she's taken up hugging during the last few years, but seriously, we don't hug. Brothers No. 1, 2, and 3 got/gave hugs when leaving and returning from their LDS missions. Brother No. 4 gave them when he left, and will probably give them when he gets back. Brother No. 5 has years before he'll have to hug anybody, since he's only 16.

Hugs = Too much touchy-feely! Space bubble! Get awaaaaay from me!

It's not that I don't know how to hug — I had a boy teach me when I was in 10^th grade, and he was a very good teacher. I'm quite a good hugger . . . when I feel like it.

But I don't often feel like it.

I've always known that part of my hugging problem stems from the fact that I have a giant space bubble. I spent most of a 15-minute meeting at work last Friday feeling uncomfortable because I was standing two feet away from a girl when I could have been standing six feet away.

(The space was there; I chose my floor location without thinking the situation through.)

In high school, I took to being anti-hug because it was funny. My friends got a kick out of torturing me, and I got a kick out of playing up my reactions.

But back in February, when one of my roommates was about to move to San Francisco, I realized that I now use hugs as a sort of weapon with which I purposely try to make people uncomfortable. I like to watch people squirm as they wrestle with the impulse to hug while also fighting against the waves of awkward I'm sending in their direction.

Why am I so vindictive?

I don't know, but it's sure funny.

The day my roommate was due to move away, I was sitting in my room building a bookcase when she poked her head in the door. She was trying to find the source of the hammering noise in the house; I was trying to avoid her and the good-bye hug that I knew was coming.

Me: Are you all packed?

Roommate: Yep.

Me: So . . . guess this is good-bye.

My brain: HAHA! I'm sitting in the middle of a bookshelf and you can't even open the door all the way because my room is full of wooden shelves! This is brilliant!

Roommate: Not yet. I'm not going to leave until early tomorrow morning, so I'll come back and say good-bye tonight.

My brain: Boo.

I went to class that night thinking that maybe she would be asleep by the time I got home, and came home to find her running around the kitchen and talking about how much she still had to do. My plan to avoid the inevitable hug had been foiled again.

At this point, I had to make a choice:

1. The usual (i.e. say good-bye from a safe distance and exude enough don't-even-think-about-it vibes that the target is unwilling/unable to break through the awkward barrier)

2. Instigate

For once, I took pity on the victim.

I instigated.

It won't happen again.

(Incidentally, sorry Layton, for using the hug awkwardness vibes against you when you left for your new job. I still feel bad about that . . . minus the fact that I was mentally laughing the whole time . . .)

If I ever say, "Okay, give me a hug," just know that I'm choosing pity.

In case you are a current hugger and have suddenly decided to reform and become a non-hugger, here's a final word of advice from an expert: I've learned that when trying to avoid a hug, it's best not to make sudden movements — or movements of any kind, actually.

This is why: