Have you ever thought about something and realized, after a very long time, that you actually needed this one particular thing?
Well, that’s me. Hi.
I’m one of those people who hate hugs.
Goodbye hugs,
“hey, how have you been?” hugs,
friendly hugs.
I know some hugs probably mean nothing complicated. They’re just a way of showing affection, showing that you care about someone. Maybe physical touch is simply your thing, your language, whatever. But the idea of physical gestures without an actual connection feels hella awkward to me.
I think part of it is because hugs have always felt weirdly intimate to me. Even the casual ones. You’re letting someone into your physical space, and somehow you’re expected to immediately know how to respond to that.
Sometimes it feels almost performative. Someone opens their arms, so you open yours. They hug you, so you hug them back. There’s this unspoken social agreement that you’re supposed to participate, even when your brain is going, but why are we doing this?
Maybe I’ve always needed a little more context before I let people that close. I need to know what it means. I need to know where I stand with someone. And hugs don’t really give you time to figure any of that out. They just… happen.
I also think I’m much better at giving care than receiving it. When I’m the one taking care of someone, I know my role. I know what to do. But when someone turns that care towards me, especially physically, suddenly I’m the one being seen.
And apparently, I’m not very good at just letting that happen.
I also don’t like the idea of surrendering. Of admitting something.
Some hugs carry a different kind of weight, and I don’t always like carrying that weight.
You can imagine how stiff I become when someone suddenly hugs me. I genuinely don’t know what to do. There are immediately too many things processing in my head:
Okay, and then what?
Should I hug them back?
Where are my hands supposed to go?
What am I supposed to say?
So now I’m starting to wonder whether I actually hate hugs, or whether I hate the unexpected feelings that might come with being hugged.
Because sometimes a hug is almost brutally uncontrollable. You can’t edit it, rehearse it, or intellectualize it fast enough. You can’t really prepare for what you’re going to feel, and you definitely can’t take back whatever your body decides to reveal.
There has always been one main exception, though: my husband.
He’s the person I’ve always felt most comfortable hugging, or letting hug me. I’ve hugged my mom and my little sister too, of course, but even that is rare. Usually only in those quiet, sleepy moments when we happen to be lying down or sleeping next to each other.
With my husband, it’s different.
I never had to think about where my hands should go, how long I was supposed to stay there, or what any of it meant.
Don’t ask me why.
It was just him.
But something changed my perspective recently.
One of my team members at Lippielust hugged me unexpectedly after a very intense meeting, and she cried on my shoulder. Her voice sounded so concerned. So genuinely caring. And somehow, I could feel all of it in the way she hugged me too.
What made it even more unexpected was that, during the meeting, she barely said anything. She didn’t show much emotion either, even when some of the others had already started crying. I was crying too. She mostly asked general, almost technical questions, things like, “Would you be okay?”
So when she suddenly hugged me afterward and broke down on my shoulder, I really didn’t see it coming.
Fuck, what just happened?
My brain desperately tried to generate a rationale.
She kept holding me tighter, almost as if she was trying to reassure me, and maybe herself, that everything was going to be alright.
In that moment, the barrier I had kept up for such a long time just… fell apart.
That feeling of not wanting affection from anyone suddenly disappeared.
I melted that day.
I cried on her shoulder too.
And for once, I didn’t just stand there wondering what I was supposed to do.
I hugged her back.
Turns out, I don’t hate hugs.
I just hate that I can’t calculate what happens during one, or what happens after.
Maybe that’s the beauty of it.
