Just say no to...hugs?

I think it's safe to say that physical affection is NOT my love language. Growing up, I remember thinking that my school teacher mom was a bit odd because she openly stated that she didn't particularly enjoy receiving hugs from her students. "Who doesn't like hugs?" I thought.

Fast forward a few years and I understand where she was coming from.

I see hugging as an activity reserved for specific circumstances or individuals:

Individuals:

• Immediate family members


• Significant others

Circumstances:

• I have not seen the person for an extended period of time preceding the hug.


• I will not see the person for and extended period of time following the hugs.


• The person or I have done something admirable and am being congratulated/thanked.


• Someone has died.


• We are extending the sign of peace at Mass (reserved for individuals in my speed dial).

Unfortunately for me, I tend to find myself in situations of excessive hugging. My boss, for example, must think that hugging is one of my favorite things to do (right up there with singing children's camp songs). I am greeted each morning with a hug, hugged during the sign of peace at daily Mass (boss is not in my speed dial), and hugged at the end of the day before going home (15 hours does not fall under my definition of "an extended period of time"). That's 3 hugs per day. About 2.873 hugs over my daily quota. That's on a good day.

We recently finished hosting a 2 1/2 week volunteer training. 14 volunteers+2 aspirants+2 nuns=18 people not including me. We began the morning with Mass, and let me just say, this was a very huggy group. I'd say I definitely ended up hugging the people sitting on either side of me, then maybe averaged 2 more either in the row in front of or behind me.That's 4 hugs, but still only 1 more than I have learned to tolerate. But it didn't stop there. Every evening we ended with a sign of peace. Which meant that I was forced to hug EACH other person. Count them, 18 MORE hugs, bringing our grand total to 22 hugs each day. I always hoped that our little goodnight hugging ritual would somehow be overlooked, and a couple of times we came so close! Until someone would exclaim "we forgot the sign of peace!" and hugs would begin all around. One night the ritual began when we were all going inside for the night and I hoped to be able to sneak inside before anyone realized that they only had 17 instead of 18 goodnight hugs. Wouldn't you know that I was locked outside until the whole thing was finished (and I was forced to take part)?

Recently I've been working on subtle ways to avoid some of my daily hugs, and occasionally I even succeed. Moral of the story: Just say no to hugs!