In continuation with my "flirty" post (and my "I need a hug" post), today I am going to write about touch. Touch is a strange thing. Some people are all touchy feely with everyone and others aren't. I don't know if it was a Minnesota thing, but growing up, my friends were all pretty touchy feely. We were always hugging and cuddling and holding hands. At parties there would always be 10 people piled on the couch, bodies woven into each other. It was nice and I am constantly craving physical contact because of it.
Super____connected@xanga commented on my "I need a hug post" (on the Datingish main page though, not on my page) and said:
"
I read somewhere that humans need so many instances a day of physical contact (not sexual, just a pat on the back or hand on the arm) to maintain a healthy state of mind."
I think this is totally true. This is part of the reason that moving to New York was so hard. People here are not touchy. Everyone likes to have their own personal space. The most touch I usually get in a day is being pressed up against people on the crowded subway (and that is not my idea of a positive experience). But after 4 years of living here, I have started to get to used to it. I have even become less touchy I think (except for when I drink... haha). In fact, I would even go so far as to say that it has made my hyper-aware of touch. When anybody touches me, I notice and I analyze it. It's starting to confuse me because guys that are my friends will touch me (you know, put their arm around me or touch my arm) and I'm sure it's just a friendly gesture but I can't help but over-analyze it because people in New York just don't really do that very often. And then I think "ok, you're just being conceited. Clearly they're not interested in you, you're just friends." And then sometimes when I just dismiss it, it turns out that the guy actually is interested in me. It can be awfully hard to read sometimes! And, as I said in my previous post, I am a flirty, touchy person and I worry that sometimes I might be leading people on. If a guy friend comes over and puts his arm around me, I'm not going to push him away and I'm probably going to put my arm around him. But if he's interested in me, he could see this reciprocation as a positive sign that I'm interested in him too, which I don't want him to think. And so by that logic, I should probably just not touch any guy I'm not also interested in. But that's stupid. I don't want to isolate myself. I like hugs! I like cuddling! So what do I do? How do I walk that cautious line between friendly touching and implying that there's more than friendship?
Comments (3)
I completely understand your confusion because that happens to me a TON. I live in Boston and I used to live in Chicago so I also understand big city mentality. Granted, New York is way bigger, the people generally tend to be the same regarding personal space and the limit/extent that you can be in physical contact with people. I've also lived in the suburbs so I understand that small town, lovey dubby cuddle factor.
But what I figure is that if someone makes it a point to touch you, you'll know. If they make positive eye contact with you right after, that's a definite yes. If they realized the touch and don't like it, they'll awkwardly move away. Some people realize the touch but don't make any sort of conscious effort to acknowledge it. Maybe that's the direction you need to go. That way you can show your friend that you're not leading him on nor will you think that he's leading you on.
I could be very wrong though. I just realize that most of the guys who make the effort, acknowledge the effort with a smile or something sort of coy, but the guys who don't just tend to brush it off like nothing. Just try and remain neutral and ambivalent either way. That way you won't psych yourself out. Plus it's not your loss, haha, it's theirs! Hope that helps!
Hugging is a social thing friends do, if you hug everyone then maybe there is no wrong impression.
Or while hugging you can just say, "Don't get the wrong idea, I just wanted to hump your leg for a while."