As if it isn’t already broken.”

Thank you for those words! As it it isn’t already broken, please don’t deny this, people!

I am so grateful to have grown up in an embracing family, hugging, kissing, holding hands. I’m 28 and live 17 hours from my parents, but if I did go home and went for a car ride I’d still probably hold my dad’s hand….

So now, as an adult, it’s interesting to encounter people who aren’t the hugging/touching type. I can sense them, and know when it would be completely inappropriate to throw an ‘embrace’ on them. Yet a lot of times I will simply warn them as I go in for the yes-I-just-met-you-but-goodbye hug. Most of the times I get a rewarding hug in return. I will forever continue to do this.

You said:
“But emotion-free, intimacy-lite hook ups are probably less of a psyche-eating danger to Those Kids Today than is untrammelled, soul-scarring, love ‘n unprepared early marriage.”

I can’t wait for the day people stop marrying so young… yet I know it won’t happen in my lifetime. It’s such a fine line to create the proper perspective in a child’s life that they understand the importance of love, while being able to embrace the fleeting nature of teenage love.

I’m in a relationship with someone my age who has an ex-wife and two children. Without wanting to resent any of them, I can’t tell you how much that ‘unprepared early marriage’ comes back to haunt our relationship. Sometimes I wonder if we will end up missing out on ‘us’ because of the decisions that were made too early in his life….

http://bohophotography.blogspot.com/2010/06/cedar-drumming-on-blue-almost-19-months.html

another post on touch.

i think, at least for myself, i am so dang worried that whomever i try and hug or touch is going to be offended by that offering…but maybe there’s nothing to lose. maybe they are offended…and then it’s their misery they can deal with, not mine, right?

*sigh*
thanks for posting this. i’m going to share it on my blog if you don’t mind.

I know some of you will think that I am somewhat stunted in my development, but, I just don’t get all that excited about a hug. Maybe I should move to some more open country so I can get my hug-o-meter fixed!

In the UK up until the early years of the 20th century, if a married couple were expecting a visit from, say, a childhood friend of one of them then the other spouse would be expected, quite naturally and unquestioned, to sleep in another room whilst the two old and dear friends shared the bed together. This arrangement was gender
based, that is only friends of the same sex would do this, which includes men much to everyone’s surprise.

The emphasis of closeness being only appropriate in an exclusive sexual relationship is comparatively recent. And I believe that we are the poorer for it.
about a minute ago

and wow. John. You can make this space your home, any time.

Once again I have so many thoughts and feelings on this issue and once again I thought that they were unique and I am so glad to hear them echoed not only in your post but in the subsequent discussion.

I hate to throw this kinda stuff in around here cuz I’m not an expert at all (although I did fake it remarkably well on a 100 level anthropology final) but it occurs to me that us humans communicated with touch long before those new fangled forms of communication like, uhhh, speech and writing developed. It is the one form of communication that humans understand from birth. It is hardwired. No learning curve required. And on pondering this point it occurred that the only thing we ever ‘learn’ about touch is how to misinterpret it and if we are really clever, manipulate it.

We talk of having ‘the right touch’ or ‘reaching out touching someone’ (some have even accused me of being a little ‘touched’ myself) so it is clear that even in today’s world touch still holds significance and relevance. It’s an arguable point to contend that it has been given too much significance… that a touch is not something to be shared between family, friends and god forbid co-workers. So we live in a deprivation chamber devoid of touch and this only serves to further reinforce the disconnect.

Given this condition, is it really that hard to understand why youth behave the way that they do when they are given and give permission to touch… without ever having been exposed to it? Full of preconceived or imagined concepts with no basis in experience. Like frat boys at their first kegger… its go, go, go. No one says stop ’till it’s too late. Those things always end up messy.
-J