“Welcome” I said and I reached out to hug her to make her feel welcome.
Suddenly I had an aggressive finger being pointed in my face and eyes of fire glaring back at me.
“I don’t do hugs” she said.
I stood there for a few seconds quite confused, thinking this was some kind of a joke, until I realised it wasn’t!!
I was totally taken aback as this is a person we knew and would have considered to have had a “good” relationship with before this interaction, and in fact there would have been routine goodbye hugs the last time we had met.
This incident happened many years ago and at the time it totally floored me. My nature is to be warm and friendly and a “signal” of this would have been a hug, one of my ways of conveying a genuine welcome.
Instead of reflecting on what I considered to be the positive aspects (at least I thought so) of my personality, I did the opposite and ever since greetings have been cautious and it has brought out a much more guarded Greg. And of course then we had Covid, which added an even bigger barrier between people and how we greeted each other.
Walking the dog with my headphones on just this weekend, I stumbled upon an episode of the wonderful podcast, ‘Heavyweight’ called “Cody” , which touched on the subject of hugs and I am so grateful for what I heard.
Basically, a kid who lost his mum suddenly received a random, huge hug from his football coach who he barely knew and he claims that it changed his life.
He was lost and hurting and this hug was exactly what he needed from someone, in fact anyone, and his coach delivered just that.
Neither of these men were “huggers” but they both realised at big moments in their lives, the power of a genuine hug, and since then it is part of their daily practice to be generous with warm hugs to their friends and colleagues and also, not to be afraid to say “I love you” when it’s appropriate.
To the producers of this podcast, thank you and to anyone I have had an encounter with since that very odd interaction, I sincerely apologize for being guarded and I hope you were still made to feel welcome by me.
It’s time to hug again ….
Greg
Greg
Greg is a partner at Fuzion Communications, a full service Marketing and PR agency with offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland
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