How do you handle unwanted hugs?

Wasn’t raised in a huggy family, converted as an adult. Don’t mind to give or get some hugs now, at all. Totally understand some don’t care for it.

The hugging I loathe is when you go meet your hubby at the bar, and his stupid friends, who’ve been there all afternoon. They all want to give a big hug, and I’m all like, “Yeah, yeah, you love me! Get off!”

I may not have been gifted in height or weight, but I did get these very pointy elbows!:slight_smile:

And I WILL use them!

You, sir, are a true gentleman.

I think that was advice for pregnant women who have uninvited people touching their bellies.

As for hugs, I’ll put up with excessive numbers of them from Mom & aunts at family reunions (one or two when we first meet is OK, but then they tend to go on). Other people, I’ll do my best to dodge.

My mom died in 2006, and my favorite aunt a couple of years later. I’d put up with endless hugs from Carl if I could get one more from either of them.

Has she got any double-blind studies to prove this? :smiley:

I’m fussy about who touches me. This does not include exuberant acquaintances in the grocery store. So be it.

I tend to think this is a cultural thing. My mother’s family is originally British and German. We are not huggers. And we don’t do a lot of “sharing”, thank god.

I have some friends who hug and I don’t mind it, and some who don’t hug and that’s fine too. I think my best friend of the last 30 years and I have hugged…eight or nine times? Tops? We just aren’t huggy.

For me it was more a religious thing. Growing up Roman Catholic and going to large-ish churches, we never hugged anyone. Later, I switched teams and became a Lutheran and went to a small church (about 35 regular attendees) and the ‘standard’ greeting was for everybody to hug everybody. Took me a while to get used to hugging other men, but then I got comfortable with it.

It’s not unusual for people to demand hugs and insist. I insist not.

Oh, bullshit. I don’t get or give more than 3 hugs a month, and I haven’t dropped dead, I haven’t failed to bathe and I haven’t stopped growing.

Like this.

That was it! It would probably work for the hugs too, though.

I do that too, except I put my inside arm across my chest, in between us, so we don’t actually touch, while putting my other hand on his shoulder. That second hand also keeps anyone for closing in.

And I smile and ask how he’s doing. Most people figure out damn quickly that I don’t do hugs. It surprised the hell out of a few overly people but they generally never try again.

It’s actually not an aggressive move, just defensive, and quick.

Guys typically aren’t harassed for hugs unless they encounter an older relative. I guess Skald the Rhymer could start rapping a rhyme. They wouldn’t try to hug a dude performing would they? It’s kind of hard to hug a moving target.

I tense up so abruptly that I hope it’s clear I don’t want to be touched.

Confession here- learned the hard way not to hug some people. They cringe. (Once is enough, the mistake is recognized, and I apologize). On the receiving end, if I’m unwilling to be hugged, I turn to the side, cross an arm over my chest, or in an extreme case, knuckle them in the solar plexus. Apparently my willingness to follow that with two stiff fingers to the base of the throat is evident is clear because I’ve never had to do that. Mostly I don’t mind.