Do you know your answer to the hug questions? Are you asking yourself what questions and wondering why am I asking you about hugs? If last month’s column escapes your memory or it did not make your reading list my talking about hug questions must seem pretty random. This leads us right back to my promising to tell you about my social adventure with my sister Jacqui, our friend Jack and the strangers we met on our day of my giving random hugs to people we do not know.
Before I tell you about our hug adventure I want to explore the answers people give when I ask: what do you think will happen if you go up to a complete stranger and give them a hug? On the surface it seems like a strange question with an easy answer. People will either welcome the hug or they won’t. It is only after people answer the question that I realize contemplating giving hugs to strangers leads to two really big questions.
Answers to the hug question might reveal how much we trust people, especially strangers, and how much we think they trust us. You might remember as a hugger I think the more natural question is who would not want a hug? Turns out when it comes to the hug question I am in the minority.
So far almost every person that answers the hug question tells me they are very unsure how people will react to a hug from a complete stranger. One of my friends went so far as to tell me to look into the legal ramifications in case random hugs qualify as an assault. Scary thought…to think reaching out to a stranger with something as kind as a hug might make them feel like you are trying to harm them. Thankfully this answer to the hug question is also in the minority.
Most people want to believe strangers will welcome a hug. They are just unsure if strangers will actually welcome a hug and they really do not want to go up to a complete stranger and try to give them a hug to find out if their hug will be welcome. They are however more than willing to stay on the sidelines and watch someone else go up and give hugs to random strangers. This may be why Jacqui and Jack let me do all the hugging on our social adventure.
Our hug adventure begins at the Saltwater diner in Hull, Massachusetts when Jax asked me what happened to the attack hug. This prompted me to walk back into the diner, go over to the two people on the bench, say today I am giving random hugs, lean down and hug the man that gave us our seats and then walk over to the woman who took such great care of us and hug her too.
Back outside Jax said, “Wow they really like the attack hugs.” I ask her how she knew and she said, “They hugged back.” I tell her it is more than hugging back. The man actually said, “Thank You…I haven’t been hugged in so long.” Thanks to Jax we got to make this man’s day and our social adventure was on.
Our next stop: a walk on Nantasket beach. But I am over my word count again. On the upside, I get to continue chatting about our hug adventure with over 30 random strangers again in next month’s column…even better: if you tell me your thoughts I’ll get to share them too. Please give me a ring at 781-331-5308, email me at kristan@mooneytunco.com, or join the conversation on the Lets Chat Blog at www.nomispublications.com.