She’s walking toward me. Her pace quickens. She reaches for something — it’s me. She was not interested in conversation. She just wanted a hug. I got the standard “Hi how are you?” then watched her disappear into the mist. She could have just as easily said “You’re a piece of meat that I just want to parasitically latch onto.” I was left feeling used and walked away with more evidence of a problem that plagues our university: Pepperdine has touch issues. More specifically we are hug-abusers.
At Pepperdine we hug a lot. A lot. I will not discount all hugs but there is something going on when everyone you run into feels the need to hug you. When we go home people don’t touch us this much. It’s like we are constantly afraid that people have stopped liking us or that we’ll loose our friends so we go for the throat when it comes to casual displays of affection.
It’s a cheap fix. While hugs are great in the right context it’s an abuse to use them as a substitute for conversation and normal social connection. Also if they aren’t sincere or really wanted they’re awkward. It seems like we are so socially underdeveloped that instead of a substantial conversation we have no other choice but to shove our bodies up against each other. Granted our mind power is drained from class and devoted to other things but we won’t develop substantial friendships when an embrace is the foundation for our interaction.
As humans we want to be affirmed and valued by others. We want to know that others care for us. Going straight to physical affection not only cheapens the affirmation but is just an easy solution for a symptom of a bigger problem.
Physical affection is the easiest conversation to engage in. You don’t have to think at all just let your body think for you. It indicates laziness. Granted it takes work and effort to look someone in the eyes and connect but it’s a skill that we need to develop if we want to call ourselves human.
Humans need physical affection but we inherently don’t know how to use it properly. The human race has a gift for taking beautiful amazing things and turning them into a shadow of what they were intended to be. From the dawn of time love and affirmation has been shown through physical contact. We are hugged tickled and kissed by our parents to show how much we are loved. We run into trouble though when we become dependent on affirmation through physical touch. We end up perverting it.
Physical contact can easily become the indicator of how much we are valued. The need for physical contact is built into us and a serious part of our human identity. It’s a powerful drug. But any relationship that is built on physical contact or intimacy is destined to fail: It means your relationship is determined by your physical bodies. Bad choice.
Our bodies get old and wrinkly and we are subject to nasty radical changes in feelings and emotions. The physical is no realm of virtue. If we choose to root our relationships in physical feelings that change with the wind we will be subject to very unstable friendships and marriages. Research shows that couples engaged in premarital sex have remarkably higher rates of divorce than couples that wait for marriage. We may not be having “relations” with others but you don’t need to be playing the ponies to make big money. In other words it’s not just the boundary of sex that needs to be crossed in order to have a relationship that is solely built on the physical. We deceive ourselves when we say “If I just stay in this box I’m fine.” This doesn’t solve the real issue.
While we can ensure that we don’t leave that box of physical restraint we have created our hearts can be prancing around outside of it which is no less of a problem. If that is what is completing us and determining who we are we have already crossed the line. And here we uncover the real issue — letting things that don’t have enough divine substance determine our identity.
College is largely for figuring out who we are outside of the context of the families friends church and community in which we’ve been raised. It’s a time to figure out who we are. The hard part is we have so many things that we could get our identity from: success Greek groups money academics status relationships etc. But are those the things we want determining our identities?
It depends on how substantial you think those things are but our insecurities won’t go away if we make more money. They also won’t go away if we hug people. Through hugging we may inadvertently be attempting to affirm our identity by wrongly using others. Instead we need to find substantial identities based on what will last. Hugs can encourage comfort and make you feel special but that happens only with right motivation. We should show each other physical affection with an embrace but respect the hug. Don’t just give it away. Use it wisely so that it will actually mean something when you give one.