MsJ wrote:
I like hugs from cute boys!
And from a few select friends. Other than that, they're tolerable, I guess. Except from my parents, especially my mother, who I have never gotten along with (she exacerbated my feelings of being strange and made me feel like I was wrong all the time. She still thinks I am weird). The every-so-often times she has tried to hug me, it makes me cringe.
-J.
I know how you feel, especially concerning feeling 'weird' about giving hugs to my mother. She and I NEVER got along for most of my life, and it took me almost 25 years to finally tell her (over the phone) 'I love you.' She didn't say it back. She does now, of course, now that she's an old woman trying to get into heaven, but it's still very awkward when we try to show affection (that neither one of us really feel toward one another). It's like we only hug and say 'I love you' because we're
supposed to, or something.
I'm not a touchy-feely person, and I dislike being touched or hugged by anyone I don't know or am not related to. I'm not a germophobe or anything, it's that I just don't feel comfortable with casual human contact unless it's absolutely necessary. I try to avoid shaking hands for the same reason. There's a woman at work who likes to hug people every time there's a social gathering of workers. I try to make sure she's gone or at least preoccupied when I finally show up. It's not her fault, it just makes me extremely uncomfortable, that's all.
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Terminal Outsider, rogue graphic designer & lunatic fringe.