"It's not a touch phobia, it's a germ phobia. If you'd like to put on a pair of latex gloves I'll let you check me for a hernia"
- Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory
I like physical contact. I love hugs and holding hands and kisses and just being close to people. My mother was big into babywearing and was never hard-up on hugs. When my sister and I were little there are lots of pictures of us waddling around together, hand in hand, lots of pictures with her arms around me. Whenever we go back to Asia to see family there were no shortage of aunties and cousins to carry me everywhere - and as I got older I babysat for my little cousins and my niece and nephew and all the children there are just really comfortable and familiar with touch. I can't sit on the sofa with a book without one or both of my dogs plonked on my stomach - sometimes I wake up and Skye's standing on my chest or parked herself on my feet. I'm also really cold all the time, and I swear there is nothing warmer than a big bear hug from a seventeen-year-old guy. In Korea if my uncle saw me in the snow he'd say 'Cold?' in Korean - one of the few words I understood back then - and then automatically pull me into a super tight hug. I miss that.
The only people I don't want to touch are people I dislike or find distasteful. Some people can do it but I simply can't bear physical proximity to people I don't like - I don't like sitting next to them or shaking their hand or just anything to do with them - for me it goes beyond just avoiding conversation. I know this sounds horrible but I only really get like this if someone has really hurt me - with most people I am extraordinarily comfortable with physical contact - I've had boys casually pull 'the move' or hold my hand in theirs when they look at my ring and thought nothing of it.
I don't understand people who completely avoid physical contact - even with so called 'boyfriends' or 'girlfriends' or 'best friends'. How can you be close to someone in any way without expressing it physically? My theory is that touch has become so sexualized and sexuality has become so stigmatized intimacy in itself - the most natural, normal, instinctual form of human interaction - has become taboo. Which is why people are shocked that I like physical contact, because as far as they're concerned being in the same room as someone is plenty contact enough. I've seen girls visibly squirm when they have to sit next to a guy or between two guys, even if those guys are 'friends' and don't smell like Lynx and old carpet (which is the only time you'll see me pull a face if I have to sit with boys)
How tragic.
Sure, there are sexual ways to touch people, but if you jump if I pat your arm or give you a fleeting hug you've got issues. Every square inch of skin is sensitive but I think people who aren't used to being touched overreact massively and assume that they're about to get raped or something. I'm so accustomed to touch that I'm not only used to it, I need it or I feel like people aren't as close to me as I am to them. I don't understand people who say that we're 'close friends' and then insist on standing several metres apart. There are only so many ways you can interact with a 'close friend' verbally.
Then there's commitment phobia - some guys think that just because girls hug them or kiss them on the cheek they're going to get married next week or something. Whatever. A hug is just...a hug. It can mean whatever you like.
And then there are the people who are so obsessed with appearance we can't treat them like friends, but like museum pieces behind the security glass. You know - the boys who are like DON'T TOUCH THE HAIR or WATCH THE CLOTHES every time you go in for a hair ruffle or a hug. Let me tell you. Guys who do that aren't cool, and perfectly architected side bangs aren't indie. You're just a twerp with a touch phobia. If you look at all the guys who have got girlfriends and lots of girl friends they're the ones who are always up for a hug, always up for a hair ruffle - not the ones with the perfectly ironed clothes or perfectly sculpted hair. It's pretentious.
So what's with the touch phobia? How can you be close to people if you keep them an arm's length away?
No comments:
Post a Comment