How many times have you been in a restaurant, theater, or anywhere else and noticed two people hug. Whether it’s two women, two men, or a man and women, it seems more and more I see these fake, disingenuous “hugs”. Everyday it seems that I see them more and more and I kind of get tired of seeing it. It’s not that I’m some “macho man” who doesn’t believe a man should show any type of affection in public, I just believe that hugs are somewhat of a personal thing and most of the time these “hugs” seem extremely superficial and disingenuous.
The ones I notice the most are the hugs between two women, who are usually friends, that see each other in a public place. They smile, put there arms around each other and pat each other on the back without really touching. A significant portion of the time one of the two seem to not be totally comfortable about the experience. What’s worse is when you see two men give the “bro hug” in public. They usually run up to each other, bear hug, and then do a triple fist bump on the back. I bet it even sounds more ridiculous to you hearing it explained doesn’t it? As I stated earlier, I’m not against “public hugs” or what some would call PDA, but to go around hugging everyone you see is just a little over the top. Maybe that’s just me, maybe I’m over-analyzing it but I really want to say something to the people I see, maybe ask them if they know they look a little ridiculous.
As I stated before I’m not totally against hugging someone, male or female, and I do on occasion hug someone in public. I guess it’s just the fake and disingenuous nature I see that really gets me. If I see someone who is special to me then I have no problem with a true genuine hug. My daughter, who is a preteen, lives with me and I hug her all of the time. Just the other day a friend of mine, a female, returned from Afghanistan and I haven’t seen her in about six months. The first thing I did when I saw her is give her a big, warm genuine hug. I’m not sure why I have this mentality, maybe it goes back to my days in the Army. I joined the United States Army just before Gulf War I and I was constantly being deployed somewhere. Although I was single at that time I had family, friends, and significant other who were very important to me. I gave a lot of hugs to my loved ones when I was leaving and when I returned. These hugs were genuine and meaningful and they had purpose. I’ll never forget the hug I gave my girlfriend right before I stepped on the plane to deploy to a combat zone for the first time. I hugged her, held as tight as I could, for as long as I could, and I told her I loved her. Now that was a genuine hug.
I would like to hear what you think agree or disagree.
Modern Day Machiavelli 
Uh Oh,,typo lol ten should be then, I think..But, I digress…I like your article and totally agree! TY
I found it and corrected it ASAP, thank you so much for taking the time to read my post and make me aware of that.
Hello. I was just discussing this with someone earlier today, and decided “what the hey…i’ll just see if I can find anything on the subject”.
I completely agree with this article. I am African (if that has anything to do with anything), and in agreement to what you wrote, I reserve or try to reserve hugs for “special” occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, etc, or for “special” people like Mum and Dad, relatives, people returning after a long absence, or people leaving for a long absence.
For some reason those around me (I live in the U.S. now) can not fathom the idea of not hugging (all the time). Now, I am so used to repeating ALL THE TIME that “I DON’T HUG…PERIOD!” which sounds mean sometimes, but that always leads assumptions that I had a bad childhood “with no love from my parents”. Can someone say “UGHH!!”?
One that really gets me is when you see two COMPLETE STRANGERS get introduced and they do the
“let-me-bend-my-knee-and-stoop-before-hugging-you-because-I-know-we-just-met-and-this-looks-awkward-and-we-both-look-awkward-but-hey-people-do-it-for-whatever-reason-so-we-will-just-do-it-and-not-let-our-bodies-touch-instead-of-shaking-hands-or-nodding-our-heads-like-we-are-supposed-to-as-strangers” hug.
Anyway, I am very glad someone finally shed light on this “tradition”: the tradition of hugging all people all the time and significantly reducing the importance or value of the act. I really enjoyed the read.