Any way to stop myself flinching away when people touch me?

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example;
i was in the bank earlier and the man was like 'this way' and steered me the right way by putting his hand on my shoulder.
i flinched away from him and then got stressed out and couldn't remember any of my details.

this also happens when 'friends' touch me- not my real friends but just people i know, and hang out with.

is there any way i can just stop doing this?

ohmygosh this happened to me today too. my mum was kind of half hugging me/rubbing my back in a jokey way in the kitchen and i flinched away (i didnt even realise that i did) then she started laughing about that, saying i'd done it since i was a baby.

i dont know how to stop it because it seems like an automatic reaction to me, something i just do naturally and (apparently) always have:/

lol maybe i dont trust my mum then

it doesnt seem like something you can consciously stop really, because it's not like you know in advance that someone's going to spontaneously touch you and so the reaction you have is a total knee-jerk one, rather than something you decide to do because you dont like it.

whatta conundrum

It may be helpful to go into a situation preparing to be touched. If you're hanging out with friends, someone will touch you at some point. Be prepared for it, and you may not react so noticeably. It will require more effort on your part, but eventually you will get used to it. I have to do the same thing.. now I can handle being touched, though of course I hate it. It's when someone touches me for a long time and won't go away that I freak out and have an anxiety attack.

To desensitize yourself from touch you use a medical brush and brush it on yourself multiple times a day. I'm not really sure how it'd work in your situation if it's not severe. The point is even if you never become completely accustomed to being able to touch people, you won't meltdown or react violently/extremely to it.

Jeez! When I came to Greece, tactile people! everybody started to touch me all the time

- When they laugh with you they will put their hand on my shoulder
- When they friendly introduce you to someone they will put their arm around my neck
- When they want to show you something, they will grab your arm
- When you said you knew nothing about their favorite soccer team (there are 3 major teams in Athens so I my legendary luck failed me all the time) They will grab you and rub you like "raaah... bad guy!"

The first months it froze me all the time, after a year of observation and constant discovering by surprise (no preparation possible I think unless you become paranoid), I just kind of started to do it myself, silently thinking: "ha you see, I can rub you too!"

After a couple of years I still have a little bit a surprise and I touch other with a bit of premeditation. But for them it is natural, like an extent of their feelings, a whole part of a thing to say.

So for the advice, I did martial arts for quite a long time and it was a completely different kind of touching: useless
The brush might work if it is someone else brushing you, I felt a little this odd feeling of being touched when I had a massage, maybe you should try and tell the masseur that you want to get used to surprise touch.