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How do you feel about affectionate touch?

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Amity
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24 Jun 2016, 6:17 pm

dianthus wrote:
Amity wrote:
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 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.


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



Amity
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24 Jun 2016, 6:30 pm

BuyerBeware wrote:
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.

It is a problem with being nice to people in general, I think I need to work on consistent boundary setting, I make a conscious effort to put them in place at the start, but then I relax and this sends mixed signals.



esoterica181
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25 Jun 2016, 6:44 pm

I try to avoid touching people. I think it's an extension of my general dislike of connection. I find myself emotionally overwhelmed by connection. And, when somebody wants to hug, and I don't want to, I have a hard time declining their advance. I think I reach a point of decision where I'm either forced to connect with them one way by touching or another way by expressing that I don't like hugs, and between these two, I'd rather fake hug than expose my underlying feelings. I can see the fallacy in this approach as I will never really enjoy physical closeness until I can learn to connect emotionally. I'm also inconsistent about hugging vs not hugging people I don't know well.
I have a friend who always asks before she hugs me and no surprise- I like hugging her. In fact sometimes I think I make her uncomfortable!



BuyerBeware
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25 Jun 2016, 8:30 pm

Amity wrote:
BuyerBeware wrote:
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.

It is a problem with being nice to people in general, I think I need to work on consistent boundary setting, I make a conscious effort to put them in place at the start, but then I relax and this sends mixed signals.


It is a problem with being too nice. Women are taught to be accommodating, and autistics are taught that our needs are wrong and should be denied.

Within the context of intimate relationships, that might be true. But this isn't an intimate relationship.

You don't have to be unkind. You can just say something to the effect of, "I like you, but I'm not comfortable with you hugging or touching me. Can we wave or something instead??"


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dianthus
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26 Jun 2016, 12:50 am

For me when someone touches me very unexpectedly and crosses a line it's usually not even a question of wanting to be nice about it. It's like my verbal capacity just shuts down. I try to form the words and they don't come. It's kind of the same as how I feel during a sensory overload.



esoterica181
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26 Jun 2016, 12:34 pm

That anxiety is there for some good reason. Pay attention to it!