Touch, boundaries, and love in diversity
There is hugging, and there is touch. They are not the same thing.
The first is a movement. The second is a sensation. And sensations do not obey calendars, hashtags, or good intentions.
Touch is our first dictionary. Before we learned words, we learned what warmth means, what pressure feels like, what it is to breathe in sync with another body. Some hugs do not squeeze you. They assemble you. As if they gather pieces that have been drifting apart all day and quietly click them back into place. No questions. No advice. Just presence.
And then there are hugs that are not a given. Not because love is missing, but because the body speaks a different language.
For some people, touch can be noise. Not poetry. It can be overload, intrusion, something that translates not into “safety” but into alarm. And that is where the difficult lesson begins for those who love such people.
Because how do you love someone who cannot tolerate your touch?
Between us, it is simple.
You love them without taking their boundaries personally, boundaries that may be more tangible than those of the general population. You love them by learning that intimacy is not always physical. That a hug can be space. It can be time. It can be choosing not to come closer when the other person’s body is clearly saying “no.”
The raised eyebrow here is for the social obligation to hug. For the “come on, it’s just a hug.” For the assumption that contact is automatically good, without actually listening to the person in front of us. It is not.
International Hug Day does not need tighter squeezes. It needs better listening. It asks us to embrace the world as it is, not as it is convenient for us. With its needs. With its nervous systems. With its differences.
Sometimes, the bravest hug is the one that is not given. The one that respects. That leaves space. That says:
“I see you. I feel you. Even if you never touch me.”
And even if it does not photograph well for a story, this is love in its purest form.
🖤 zerofack$: International Hug Day does not mean the same thing to everyone.
And that is precisely the point.
Touch, boundaries, and love in diversity
The first is a movement. The second is a sensation. And sensations do not obey calendars, hashtags, or good intentions.
Touch is our first dictionary. Before we learned words, we learned what warmth means, what pressure feels like, what it is to breathe in sync with another body. Some hugs do not squeeze you. They assemble you. As if they gather pieces that have been drifting apart all day and quietly click them back into place. No questions. No advice. Just presence.
And then there are hugs that are not a given. Not because love is missing, but because the body speaks a different language.
For some people, touch can be noise. Not poetry. It can be overload, intrusion, something that translates not into “safety” but into alarm. And that is where the difficult lesson begins for those who love such people.
Because how do you love someone who cannot tolerate your touch?
Between us, it is simple.
You love them without taking their boundaries personally, boundaries that may be more tangible than those of the general population. You love them by learning that intimacy is not always physical. That a hug can be space. It can be time. It can be choosing not to come closer when the other person’s body is clearly saying “no.”
The raised eyebrow here is for the social obligation to hug. For the “come on, it’s just a hug.” For the assumption that contact is automatically good, without actually listening to the person in front of us. It is not.
International Hug Day does not need tighter squeezes. It needs better listening. It asks us to embrace the world as it is, not as it is convenient for us. With its needs. With its nervous systems. With its differences.
Sometimes, the bravest hug is the one that is not given. The one that respects. That leaves space. That says:
“I see you. I feel you. Even if you never touch me.”
And even if it does not photograph well for a story, this is love in its purest form.
🖤 zerofack$: International Hug Day does not mean the same thing to everyone.
And that is precisely the point.
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