Showing affection!

Post Reply New Topic

I believe I've experienced this too- I love knowing that someone else feels this way. If you can, check out the documentary "I Am" directed by Tom Shadyac (director of The Nutty Professor and Ace Ventura movies- dad was one of the founders of St Judes). The movie is in independent theaters now, but you can see the trailer at iamthedoc.com . It discusses our connectivity to those around us. He doesn't exactly cover what you mentioned, but I think some of the things he observes and discusses can be related. He discusses how the heart influences the electro-magnetic field around us and how it influences our environment and the people around us and vice versa. I hope more people get to see this movie- he is hoping to make it into a movement.

I wonder if this has something to do with why some of us also hate looking at people's eyes. Sometimes I feel such stuff almost like a violation of my emotional space. I found this statement interesting:

Intriguingly,an adolescent with Asperger syndrome made the following comment on making eye contact with others: “You always feel as if the eyes are actually burning into you. . . . You can either look between their eyes or you can look at the mouth and you don’t feel as if they are actually burning right into you”

I feel the same way with hugging or getting too close with people even my immediate family. The only exception is my woman when we're having sex. Otherwise I kind of feel violated. I'm not sure why?

I'm like a hedgehog when it comes to showing affection - needdles up all the time.

I can't stand it when people hug me or touch me randomly, it just makes me feel wierd.

I feel the same way, I can't stand hugging, touching or virtually any contact with family, family friends and/or people I dont know. At least that's how I feel now as I've never had a girlfriend or any friends who are girls my age, so my attitude in that respect could change

I like hugging or cuddling if there is some real affecton behind it, but dislike it as a routine thing out of custom or expectation.

During my childhood and teens, my dad used to walk up to me to talk occasionally (later he did not do a lot of talking but did do a lot of complaining about things he disapproved of... same with my two half brothers). As he would be about to leave he would stand with his chin over the top of my head and work his jaw up and down rapidly to create a repeated knocking sensation on the top of my skull. I always found it to be odd but a unique expression of his peculiar personality (his best friend referred to him as "a nut" one time).

This seems relevant to this thread:

A hug machine, also known as a hug box, a squeeze machine, or a squeeze box, is a deep-pressure device designed to calm hyper-sensitive persons, usually individuals with autism spectrum disorders. The therapeutic, stress-relieving device was invented by Temple Grandin in 1965.

i don't like showing affection or touching my parents(or anyone else in my family). i want to recoil from their touch but i do not as i need to appear to like them. whenever they hug me- and it is them hugging me, never the other way around- i turn into a stiff card. it might be because i dont like them. they are repellant. my mum pins this on the aspergers. i dont ususally hug my friends or strangers but i dont think i would mind very much if i hugged my friends. uncomfortable but not entirely unpleasant. overt displays of affection are discomforting. too close for comfort becomes literal. it's more comfortable than with my parents though.

I hate being touched at all by people that I don't know.

I absolutely love hugging family and friends.

I've never liked being touched as for hugging
There seems to be a lot of it lately I feel its an invasion of your personal space.

I'll take a look if I get the chance........I guess we're talking about "vibes." I heard one theory that people somehow show their past emotional experiences through their eyes and other body language, and that those with similar experiences will unconsciously pick up on this and feel a strong sense of identity with them. Also there's this lady with whom I share that deep irrational closeness thing more than with anybody else, and I told her a bit about my mother's extreme nature, and I nearly fell out of my tree when she said "that sounds exactly like me!" I've heard that people tend to pick mates who give out the same vibe as their opposite-sex parent. Scary, isn't it? I mean we think we're making rational selections but the unconscious, subliminal stuff makes a mockery of that every time.

I don't hug readily. I'll give my parents a quick peck on the cheek, when I leave, but there's not much body contact, I think I hold their arms when I do this. The last time I remember hugging someone properly was when my friend's Dad died. Hugging her and her family was the only thing I could do and it felt OK then. They hug a lot and I've received a few from them. I feel fine with that as I know it's something they just do and I can prepare myself for the inevitable.

Yeah, I'm the same way. I've never liked hugs or cheek kisses from family and I still don't. I don't need this kind of affection from them.

I like very tight hugs from my guy friends and affection from girls I am attracted to (I'm gay). But other than that, no thanks.

brrr... this topic makes me think of those kind of people who, when encountering you, would run up and hug.
my mind goes black and I go into hug-ambush mode: stand extremely still/stiff and retreat mentally and hope they won't see you, just like dinosaurs.
unfortionately, it doesn't work...

I think that is a very good point and something worth thinking about. I fought against the subliminal and gut feeling in my last relationship and suffered for it. The guy I'm seeing now...I love it :o) We seem to click on so many levels. We don't necessarily agree on everything, but I love the feeling I get when we talk or I am around him.

That's great I think that for me, thought has to be somewhere in the mix, looking ahead for problems, but my futurology has never proved particularly accurate. I think the best thing is if we can be emotionally driven but with the logical faculty on hand for advice. I have to be quite careful because I've often drifted into relationships which have felt perfectly right for me at the time, but have turned out to be really harmful, and then I've wondered why I didn't think harder.