Generally, am not scared of most things. I am not scared of darkness, water or animals. Am definitely not scared of dogs. Cute beings, them. I am not scared of closed spaces, blood or dentists. Am not even scared of being operated upon (I think. I'll cross that line when it comes to it). Am not scared of ghosts or otherworldly demons. Yeah horror movies do freak me out sometimes, but that's mostly cos of the sound effects. Mute the damn thing and you'll see me laughing at all the gore. Once upon a time, I thought I was scared of heights, but then I bungee jumped from 764 feet from the Macau tower and whoooosh..I realized I was never scared. But dear friends, let me tell you, there are 4 things am really scared about. Like really, really scared about. Without further ado...they are (drumroll please):
1) Fire
2) Flying and crawling insects and animals
3) Hugging(or any form of intimacy)
From a young age, being an ambivert I had very few but really good friends. And then because till my engineering days I was a goody two shoes, I rarely socialized and hence I didn't encounter much hugging. In any case this hugging thing became a trend only towards the middle of my teens (Screw you Munnabhai MBBS and your Jaadu ki Jhapi!).
By which time I was already stunted by my inadequacy in the vast knowledge of hugging. I mean really, how do you know whether to go towards the right or the left when the person is coming towards you? God forbid in your moment of indecision you end up bumping your faces together! And unlike the movies wherein when such disasters happen, people who bump their faces together by mistake end up kissing each other, am sure, such bullshit never happens in real life. In real life, a disaster is a disaster. When you bump faces, it hurts and all you can do is be embarrassed and run away from each other as soon as you can. I know this cos I have done it. And for your entertainment, let me regale you with the embarrassing story of how I bumped my face into my good friend's face when we were about to hug.
So it all happened on the day of my engineering 'unofficial' farewell. We had all decided to go for a movie and dinner and then part ways towards our respective destiny. When we were parting ways I suddenly became quite emotional, and apparently so did my good friend. And since we were a few feet apart we came running towards each other a la any Bollywood scene where the hero and heroine run towards each other on a vast sunflower field. Except here there was no hero, only two heroines, we were only a few feet apart and it was outside the restaurant. But I did cry out 'XYZ I am going to miss you' just like in the movies, right before I bumped into her. And what a bump it was! Almost equivalent to the roar of thunder!
Just kidding, this is real life, not a Saas bahu series. There was no noise except for both of us saying oww! at the same time out of pain. No one would have even noticed it if it hadn't been for 3 of my extra smart friends who had it in for me right from the beginning. They were the ones who pointed out at us and started laughing. Next thing I know, everyone from my 15 member group was laughing at us and I had to make a quick bathroom excuse to escape.
So you see, am truly in-adept at hugging. And this is not a one-off incident. Very recently, I helped one of my friends wear a sari for a function. Since it was an emergency the girl was really thankful and wanted to hug me at the end of it. So we both turned towards each other to hug, except neither of us could figure out which side to go, and we ended up bumping against each other not once, not twice, but thrice. Yeah am that bad at hugging! Incidents like these is what have fueled my irrational fear of hugging. Nowadays, whenever a person tries to hug me, I slyly turn so that my side is perpendicular to their face, indicating that I don't want to hug. The only option the person then has is to pat me on my back as I pull away happily. If ever there was a course to learn the art of hugging, I'd be the first customer (just kidding, am really broke. So if there is a course don't give me a call, I'll manage). Finally, all I can say is I hope I am not the only one with this inadequacy and there are others like me. If not, aah well, you guys can always pat me on my back as I turn to say goodbye!
1) Fire
2) Flying and crawling insects and animals
3) Hugging(or any form of intimacy)
Dear readers, this post, as you may all have guessed by now, is about my fear of hugging. More likely the fear of hugging people whom I don't know well and then the fear of hugging people I know well for the first time. So how did I get this irrational fear of hugging? Am sure you all must be waiting for a juicy story about how in my childhood I was scarred for life because I was subjected to some sort of abuse and hence I have this fear of hugging people and being hugged by people. Well to be frank, that's as far from the truth as can be. I had a very loving childhood, with no untoward incidents, and yes it has shaped my personality into what it is today except for the hugging part. This fear of hugging on the other hand may be due to the fact that I am a half introvert & a half extrovert. Yes that's a thing. I checked online. Like this post says http://www.fluentin3months.com/stop-being-shy/ we are called ambiverts.
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| Oh yeah! |
I am one of those confused beings who can party really hard, talk to as many people I want to, when I want to, be the life of a party without trying much and yet feel shy while talking to some people at particular times, feel depressed that no one on earth cares about me (when actually that's not really true) and then sometimes go to the extreme of avoiding people when I don't feeling like socializing. So without digressing further, I think my fear of hugging partly stems from this. But again let me say that all this is speculation. In no way am I a certified and trained psychologist.
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So it all happened on the day of my engineering 'unofficial' farewell. We had all decided to go for a movie and dinner and then part ways towards our respective destiny. When we were parting ways I suddenly became quite emotional, and apparently so did my good friend. And since we were a few feet apart we came running towards each other a la any Bollywood scene where the hero and heroine run towards each other on a vast sunflower field. Except here there was no hero, only two heroines, we were only a few feet apart and it was outside the restaurant. But I did cry out 'XYZ I am going to miss you' just like in the movies, right before I bumped into her. And what a bump it was! Almost equivalent to the roar of thunder!
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So you see, am truly in-adept at hugging. And this is not a one-off incident. Very recently, I helped one of my friends wear a sari for a function. Since it was an emergency the girl was really thankful and wanted to hug me at the end of it. So we both turned towards each other to hug, except neither of us could figure out which side to go, and we ended up bumping against each other not once, not twice, but thrice. Yeah am that bad at hugging! Incidents like these is what have fueled my irrational fear of hugging. Nowadays, whenever a person tries to hug me, I slyly turn so that my side is perpendicular to their face, indicating that I don't want to hug. The only option the person then has is to pat me on my back as I pull away happily. If ever there was a course to learn the art of hugging, I'd be the first customer (just kidding, am really broke. So if there is a course don't give me a call, I'll manage). Finally, all I can say is I hope I am not the only one with this inadequacy and there are others like me. If not, aah well, you guys can always pat me on my back as I turn to say goodbye!
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