hugs

i've been told that my love language is physical touch. i love hugs. great big bear hugs are the best kind. when i touch other people i'm expressing affection and when others touch me i see it as a sign of their affection.

growing up at jaffray we were always so careful about boundaries and we made sure guys and girls never hugged. i definitely saw the value in that because when it comes to teenage boys and girls and hormones...well, you know. but i also wondered at the back of my mind whether this was just a hyperactive sense of propriety. here at citadel everyone hugs everyone--guys and girls, young people and old people. so over the past year (it's been almost a year!) i've been consciously adjusting my jaffray mentality so that when a guy hugs me i don't automatically interpret it as romantic interest on his part.

this shift in mindset has also led me to initiate hugs with guys every so often. it's not something i'm entirely comfortable with, but i have done it when i've felt the situation called for it. recently, my classmate's best friend died and my classmate was kind of a mess so i gave him a big hug on a few occasions. also, i hung out with a couple of friends this past weekend and at the end i gave this one guy a hug. these situations had seemed relatively innocuous to me, but it has come to light that in both situations my actions were misinterpreted as romantic interest by either an observer or the hug recipient. awkward...

so what's come out of this is that i'm going back to my old practice of hugging only women, family and someone i might be in a relationship with. of course, if there are extenuating circumstances, such as a male friend needing to be comforted, showing genuine care will take precedence and i may waive this "rule". also, if a guy initiated a hug i would not refuse because that would just be rude. but i think i need to be a little more cautious when it comes to these things, not because i'm worried about what third parties might think, but because being respectful of members of the opposite sex (especially brothers and sisters in Christ) includes being clear about intentions and not cloudying up the water with actions that are easily and often misinterpreted.

if you have any thoughts, drop me a line :)