I know that the “distance of courtesy” is different in various cultures. If you’re obviously from someplace else where this might be the case, I can deal with that. I know that once you hit a certain age you have the right, if you can pull it off, to state that “We hug here” and wrap your arms around me. I know that people who face special problems due to their mental versus physical age may require the occasional hand to hold, and I know that the autistic guy who decided he needed to be no less than six inches away from me the entire tour and to rest his forehead on my shoulder every time we stopped to look at something is in a category by himself.
I have no problem with that. I suspect it’s for the same reasons that toddlers tend to be drawn to me: I’m big and soft and I don’t move too fast, I speak softly and (toddlers only here) I make a wonderful climbing structure.
That still leaves the “touchy-feely people”.
They’re from the same culture I am, their brains have developed normally, we’re not friends and we’re sure as hell not lovers, but for some reason they just have to touch me.
Why do you do this? When I look down at your hand and back up to your eyes you usually stop (sometimes giving me a look like I’d just kicked your dog), but what made you think it was a good idea in the first place?
I’m not talking about cops or bouncers or doctors or anyone who has a good reason to want to have hold of me, or anyone who is in a situation like shaking hands where there is a socially accepted reason to make contact, but about those people who can’t ask for directions without laying a hand on my forearm, can’t give me instructions about work without grasping a shoulder, can’t tell me about the benefits of their new long distance plan without trying to make some form of physical contact.
But it’s been so long since I’ve had sex with anyone, I need that contact to satisfy my longing for physical intimacy. Is it my fault I’m desparate and lonely?
My new co-worker does this to me. It started with her putting her hand on my shoulder when she came up to talk to me. It has progressed in two weeks to rubbing her hand up and down my back. I’ve tried stiffening, moving away and making sure she heard me tell another co-worker that I don’t like to be touched. She continues to touch.
I hope she stops soon. I really don’t want to have to kill her. I only have one good spot left to hide a body, and I’m saving that for someone special.
I cannot STAND being touched, especially on bare skin, on my back, or on the muscles between my shoulders and neck. It’s something that bothers me so much that I end up remembering it for days, even though I know it’s silly and I try not to. I view any touching as a severe invasion of MY SPACE, especially since it’s so difficult to reprimand someone who does it.
… unless, of course, the person doing it is a close friend. With friends, I become the sort of person who sleeps in a big cuddly pile and stretches across people’s laps if we’re short on couch space.
I don’t like being touched. Some people are touchy-feely. The first time they do it, I just say “Please don’t do that. I don’t like being touched.” It’s rarely a problem.
Oh my God, 2trew, imagine living in France where people actually kiss you to say hello! Some of them even kiss you not once, not twice, but FOUR times!
And if you try stiffening or moving away from them, they’re liable to grab your shoulders to make you hold still while they do it!
Sneeze loudly and drippily and wipe your nose on your sweater?
Use cat spray as aftershave?
Declare at the top of your voice “You know, when that hooker suggested it, I didn’t think I was going to like this poison ivy kink very much, but I have to say I’m enjoying the feeling of my skin bubbling up all over my body!”?
(Yes, seriously, the touchy-feelies of this world are terrible, terrible people, and I feel your pain. But I can refrain from feeling you.)
Used to work with a person that EVERYBODY in the place called the “Space Invader.” (There was an early video game by that name at the time.) Had to be one inch from you. I once saw her literally corner someone with more normal personal space needs.
No, I am firmly in your camp, 2trew. I have personal space issues and uninvited touching makes me go goofy. I also apparently look cuddly, although for the opposite reasons as you - where you’re big and placid and quiet, I am small, fast-moving and noisy - or as one of my friends once described me, I look pocket-sized, which at one point in time inspired random people to actually PICK ME UP (and goddamn that Randy Newman!)
As a Girl Scout leader, I once illustrated personal space with hula hoops. The girls had a grand time bumping into one another’s hoops, but after the exerise was over, one of the girls wisely observed: “Miss Wry, I think you need a bigger hoop.”
Now I just try to give off testy vibes when people get too close, and when they fail to recognize them, I start backing up rapidly. What I wouldn’t give to look pointy and sharp!
Ick. Touchy-feely people are creepy. There’s an attorney here who likes rubbing my back when we talk. What goes through a person’s brain that makes them think it’s ok to rub me?
