Monday, April 22, 2013

Hugs

My family are not huggers.  We were not raised to be huggers.  Our parents weren't raised to be huggers.  We are trying to break the cycle with our own kids and grandkids . . .

What this means is that I am not a natural hugger.  So of course I went and married an enthusiastic hugger.  His family are all huggers.  I bet his parents were raised to be huggers.

We've been married almost 30 years now and I'm pretty used to all the hugging now.  I still find it very difficult to initiate hugging but I really do enjoy being hugged.  I'm kind of a huggee rather than a hugger.  I'm working on it though.

Most of my friends are used to my husband being a hugger especially if the friend is someone he doesn't see often.  Hubby popped into a social event I was attending on the weekend.  He, of course, began hugging people.

And then he heard someone whisper behind him how disgusting it was for a married man to be hugging women who were not his wife.  He felt awful and thought maybe he was doing something wrong and we had all just been too nice to say anything.  So if any of my buddies were wondering why you didn't get a hug on Saturday, you now know why.

He didn't tell me until today what had happened.  He was still feeling very bad about it all.  But he also worried that he might have hurt some feeling by not giving them their usual hugs.

What an awful thing to do to someone so loving and affectionate!

I told him he has my permission to hug the stuffing out of anyone who would let him.  Be prepared.  He has a lot of hugging to catch up on.

There he is hugging two of my friends.  I'm in the background.

3 comments:

  1. I have always appreciated your hubby's hugs. I'm glad he's a hugger. And it's ok that you're not. You should have sent him to hug that lady who complained. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think this is so sad. In my family we were raised to be huggers. My husband's family no so much but he has gotten used to it. Tell Hal to hug any time he wants. I agree with Heather he should have hugged the lady who complained.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm a hugger, in a family of huggers. However, in today's work environments, touching is pretty much verboten.

    Today, one of my coworkers left on leave because tomorrow she will be getting a mastectomy for breast cancer she was just recently diagnosed with. Screw corporate policy; I hugged her good and hard. Life is too short not to hug everyone you meet every time you meet them. It might be your last chance.

    ReplyDelete