I’ve noticed a lot more people hugging each other lately – mostly women hugging women on meeting in the street but a fair proportion of men hugging men too. Now, as you know, men, in general are traditionally not given to overt displays of mutual affection, especially in public, probably for fear of looking too wet, vulnerable, sentimental and hence weak. I personally learned hugging was OK from my dad, himself a ‘real’ man among men - who used to get hold of me and give me a full-on breath-stalling bear-hug every day when he came home from work and continued to do so whenever we met until he died last year. So for me, it’s normal, natural and has never been a problem to greet another man I feel love for with a hug. In fact I tend to give all my close friends, family members and even some business associates with whom I’m close, a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek, sometimes both, whichever their gender. I admit that occasionally I weaken and through a moment of shyness or fear of being seen too familiar, might punctuate the hug with a bit of back-slapping – mostly, though, to allay any discomfort the other might feel about such intimacy – sometimes I go as far to play out an entertaining, almost entrancing, short rhythmic pattern of some complexity, such as a paradiddle or accented roll with my palms on their upper back. There are times I even go for the new-fangled, fist-to-fist, left front shoulder to left front shoulder, with brief, light slap-on-the-back move favoured in certain hip hop circles. But it’s the full chest to chest affair that really hits the spot for me, without the added distracting, manly slap on the back, because there’s nothing that transmits human warmth quite as effectively – and personally speaking, I’m a bit of a human warmth addict, providing I like whom I’m sharing it with. Because such public physical displays of affection between people are mainly anathematic to British culture – indeed touch in general, other than for shaking hands, having sex, medical examinations, helping someone cross the road, ballroom dancing or officially giving a massage or healing, tends to be anathematic here - so I wonder if this increase in hugging is a result of watching American movies and TV series like Sex In The City, as hugging in its new incarnation is, in my opinion, essentially an American import, its origins dating back to the Californian encounter groups of the 60s, where two guys with ponytails on meeting would hug each other and say earnestly, ‘I love you, man’. I had a very new age style friend when I lived in New Mexico myself in the late 70s, who always insisted on engaging me in a deep, meaningful and overly long hug whenever we met, with him ending it by holding me away a few inches, looking into my eyes, taking a deep breath and going, ‘mmm’, in profound acknowledgement of the divine in me meeting the divine in him – after a while it got so spiritually gloopy saying hello, I actually started avoiding him. I’m not into making a dog’s dinner out of it, in other words, but I do believe if more of us got into hugging people we loved or just liked, it would make the world a warmer place for all of us and so am here today to proselytise the cause of the hug and humbly offer instructions should you be out of practice and wish to experiment with it for yourself. The perfect hug is best instigated by taking the initiative and opening your arms in a wide open embrace on reaching approximately 5 feet distance from the person you’re greeting. This signals your intent and gives them the option to duck out by offering you their right hand to shake instead. Providing they go with the invite, however, you’ll notice them open their arms in response. Closing the distance, it becomes a simple matter to negotiate the placement of arms. Next, position your chest so that the centre of both your breastbones meet. This is where the warmth is transmitted. Put your hips into it aswell, otherwise you look a bit daft with both your bums pulling away from each other. As soon as sufficient warmth has been transmitted, pull away gently – don’t linger like my new age friend and without embarrassment, carry on as you were.
