There is too damned much hugging in this world. Hugs from family, friends, lovers is very good. BUT—this hugging by people you see occasionally and possibly don’t like has gotten out of control. Good god, I’ve been hugged by people I’ve just met. A pox on premature familiarity. I particularly hate situations in which I have to evade the hug of some flaming posterior orifice who thinks it’s his right to grab and slobber on women he has no business touching. Yuck! Quite frankly I want all grab and slobber assholes off the planet and I don’t care how they’re removed.

I don’t know how this idea of hugging EVERYONE got started. There is talk about people not connecting face to face due to SM, i.e., social media. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. are taking us further and further away from actual human contact. I wish more people would spend more time on social media and keep their paws off me.

Perhaps this urge to merge, briefly, is due to social media. Without being conscious of it, we are anxious about not spending enough time with corporeal, rather than avatar, people. So, handling those in whom we have little interest, or possibly don’t want anywhere near us, is a way of persuading ourselves that we don’t spend too much time texting, tweeting, Facebooking with “friends,” some never met. I’ve hugged, ergo, I AM connected with real people.

Isaac Asimov, in “The Naked Sun” tells the story of a murder committed on a planet on which the inhabitants live essentially as hermits, viewing each other by hologram. Actual seeing is too painful. They are attended by robots. Perhaps we fear becoming acclimated to living as hermits, taken care of by technology. That fear is producing the urge to grab and hang onto anyone who won’t respond aggressively. This might be utter nonsense but there has to be some reason for hug, hug, hug.

I with it would stop happening to me, except when done by family, friends, lovers. I think I’ll get a large name tag that reads, “I do NOT need a hug.  Nor do I want one.”