How do you feel about affectionate touch?

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A while back an acquaintance touched my hand affectionately and a week later he hugged me, both times caught me off guard. I didn’t invite this or reciprocate and moved away as quickly as I could. I had slightly delayed reactions of anger, confusion and then just feeling silly for the initial angriness.

I am fine with physical contact if it is invited, I definitely enjoy a good hug from people I am close to, but I have become accustomed to not being in regular physical contact with other people and I think my tolerance levels have become quite low.

I like it from a woman much more than I like it from a man.

There are guys who will look for any excuse to hug. And it doesn't mean they're gay.

Nothing wrong with that, really--but it's just not my speed.

I hate being touched by anyone.

Not actually too fond of it.

I rarely touch people. I don't invite people to touch me. If I touch someone's arm or hand, that's a major display of emotion.

Exceptions: My kids. Not to say they NEVER feel like they're invading my space (I'm definitely not always up to have them 'sit in my lap' i.e. full-contact wallow all over me) but exchanging hugs or pats or cuddling with them very seldom bothers me.

I have learned that, once one is married, of one wishes to stay married there is really no such thing as bodily autonomy. Your spouse has the right to request contact in any form, at any time, and if you don't want them to go looking for contact elsewhere, you are better off to suck it up and give it to them. Also when they DON'T necessarily ask for it (because if they always have to ask, that will upset them too). I got over it after a while.

While I don't mind it and even like it from those closest to me, I would have reacted the same way as you in the case of only an acquaintance doing what you describe, particularly being it was a guy acquaintance and not a female. A male FRIEND is another matter, but just an acquaintance, no, I'm not comfortable with that person touching and hugging me out of the clear blue sky. That would feel intrusive because the relationship just isn't established as being close enough for that to be appropriate. To me an acquaintance is practically the same as a stranger, just a stranger I see more than one time, and I wouldn't want strangers hugging and touching me either.

There are circles of permission, in a sense, that are different according to how close a relationship is mutually felt to be, and different stuff crosses different lines according to where that relationship stands.

I'm not saying he should be taken away in handcuffs. Someone is inevitably going to attack what I'm saying. I'm just saying that's kind of "eeehhhh um, no" in my personal book.

I know touch is important for bonding and maintaining relationships and I suppose I could call him a close acquaintance, but not a friend. A hug from a friend would be nice, this wasn't nice though, it was like being trapped for a short while.

Its been niggling at me for a few weeks now, "eeehhhh um, no" sums up how I felt about it.

A few months ago something awful happened in the park to one of the animals all of us park regulars knew well. I have several acquaintances in this park. One of them is a guy who is cheerful and friendly but in our friendly chats he tends to say things that are...well...innuendo-filled and directed at me rather than general. Kind of smutty. I find it old fashioned and unwelcome. He's like something out of an old Carry On film from the 70s. I don't enjoy being spoken to like that.

Well when this tragedy happened in the park and I just found out, he was nearby and so I told him what had happened. He GRABBED me fully and trapped me in a giant bear hug. Okay, if it had been quick I still wouldn't have liked it but it would be over in a second.

But no, he KEPT me there. He was holding me in, like, a death grip, and I felt completely trapped. It was so much more than just a hug, it was more like someone thinking I needed to be restrained!! Which I did not, by the way.

He wouldn't let go and I actually started struggling and in the end I even forgot any sense of trying to be nice about it and the words "GET OFF ME!! !! !" came flying out of my mouth!

He let go and seemed offended, but I have to say I didn't particularly give a damn by that point.

I've spent too many years of my younger life being "too nice" to stand up for myself when things were getting detrimental to me. Things went very wrong in life for me for putting up with stuff I shouldn't have put with, long story. These days I've had enough, and if someone steps over the line it's gonna come busting out.

I totally know he thought he was just being what he thought was comforting to me. But it was so boundary-busting that it just wasn't okay. A female friend of mine who also knows this guy, when I later told her about this, agreed with me that although he means no actual harm, he's crossing boundary lines that haven't really been mutually arrived at to cross.

I agree and I don't even know the guy. It doesn't really matter what someone's intentions are, if they are crossing a line and making you uncomfortable it's not okay. Especially if they are physically restraining you like that! That's really creepy.

I have a hard time speaking up for myself in those situations, it's like I lose the capacity to verbalize anything.

I like to be physically affectionate with someone I am close to. But I wouldn't like this from an acquaintance. It sounds flirtatious and it would leave me wondering about what it meant and whether he would try to go farther the next time. I don't like being caught off guard in general but especially not if it involves touching. I think the feelings you had/have about it are natural and might be your intuition also telling you there is something off about this.

Oh me too in the past, I spent most of my life having a very hard time speaking up for myself in such situations. It took a lot for me to finally develop the ability to do so as it used to be just not in my nature, or at least in my case I think I was extremely repressed about even having the right to stand up for myself.

It took hard knocks, awful situations, deaths that stripped away some nerve endings (figuratively speaking) and outright disaster to my life, plus some talk therapy with a very strong woman, for me to break through that barrier. I'm quite feisty now and have stood up to a persistent stalker recently (gave him a bollocking), someone vandalizing trees on Tuesday, a man letting his son try to stone swans last summer. One of these days someone's probably going to kill me, but I just kind of can't do nothing anymore. It's not an easy way to be but I prefer this to when I couldn't speak up. I totally get finding it hard to do so, though, as I lived that way for decades and it's extremely hard to alter that.

I'd advise point-blank telling him it bugs you, and to please stop.

This isn't a relationship like marriage or parenthood where this person has any claim to any rights of possession over your body, and there are no norms stating that you are in any way obligated to tolerate that.

Let's just say I like my own space. However, that could change if the right "Hunny" came along.

Umm, I don't think being in a relationship with someone gives them "rights of possession" over your body. Just because you love someone it doesn't mean they get to do whatever they want with your body whether you like it or not. That's not how love works.

Maybe not. It doesn't give someone the right to force you into intimate contact in extreme circumstances, or to demand forms of contact that are excruciatingly painful to a sizable minority of people, or to dictate what you do with your body 100% of the time. But if you expect fidelity (or healthy kids) it does mean that you no longer have sole possessorship and therefore cannot do whatever you want with your body whether they like it or not. Once you exchange vows like "to love, honor, and cherish, forsaking all others, till death do you part," or bring a completely dependent human being with its own needs into the world, it's not JUST YOURS any more.

This, however, is not one of those situations. I feel the OP would be 200% within her rights to flatly refuse contact, and to treat any farther attempts to force contact as a hostile act, regardless of what norms are out there about how "nice girls" behave.

Perhaps this is why I don't want children, because the idea of my body not being 100% my own at all times is horrifying to me. I don't think it's right to force intimate contact with someone under any circumstances, whether you are married or not. It is illegal to rape your wife, being married doesn't somehow make unwanted sexual contact OK. That's a really scary thought, to have to give up your bodily autonomy to someone else to be married to them--is that really what marriage is like? I've never been married, but I have been in a long term relationship and I don't remember ever feeling like I had to let my boyfriend do things to me that I didn't want because my body wasn't completely my own anymore. That really sounds terrifying to me.

In those moments I went into flight mode, all I thought was get out of this situation.