Hugging

For years I couldn’t look people in the eye, let alone touch them. Now I hug people, and it’s the best thing I’ve done for my relationships.

Not the dating kind. All of them. My mum, my mates, my brother, the girl I’m seeing.

Most men don’t. Two reasons, from what I’ve seen.

• They think it looks weak.

• They don’t know how, so it feels awkward, so they don’t.

Both of those were me. So let me tell you what changed, and what the science actually says about it, because the number everyone quotes is wrong.

That was my thought, not so long ago.

I avoided getting physically close to most people. A handshake if I had to. A nod if I could get away with it.

And I knew I was missing something, because I could see it in other people. The way two old friends grab each other. The way a woman’s shoulders drop when a man she trusts puts an arm round her.

So I got a bit brave. Started with my family. Then close mates. Then everyone I was glad to see.

I’m not an expert hugger yet. But I can’t recommend it enough, and here’s what I’ve worked out so far.

Some men think hugging is for wimps. I’ve spoken to a lot of women about this, and it couldn’t be further from the truth. Few things land better than a man who steps in and hugs her like he means it. She feels safe. You look sure of yourself.

Showing affection doesn’t make you weak. Hiding it because you’re scared of how it looks does. I wrote about that in Vulnerability.

Then there’s the awkwardness. If hugging isn’t part of your routine, it feels weird as hell. You worry about overstepping, about looking silly, about where your arms go. This was my problem.

The fix is boring. Start with the people you’re closest to, where a bad hug costs nothing. Do it enough and it stops being a thing you think about.

The last one is the walls. We build them to keep the hurt out, and the same walls keep everyone else out too. I’ve not found a shortcut for that one. You lower them a bit at a time, with people who’ve earned it.

Everyone quotes the twenty seconds. I quoted it myself. So I went looking for where it comes from.

It comes from a lab in North Carolina. Karen Grewen and her team, 2003, sat couples down, had them hold hands for ten minutes and then hug for twenty seconds, then sent one of them off to give a speech. The ones who’d had the hug had smaller jumps in blood pressure and heart rate than the ones who sat alone.

Two years later the same group found that women who got hugged more by their partners had higher oxytocin and lower blood pressure.

And in 2021 a team in Frankfurt gave people a twenty-second hug before a stress test. Less cortisol in their saliva afterwards than the group that got nothing.

So hugs do calm you down, and the hormone bit is real. But nobody tested nineteen seconds against twenty-one. Twenty was the length the lab picked. It isn’t a switch.

What has been tested is the short end. Anna Dueren’s team at Goldsmiths, 2021, hugged people for one, five or ten seconds and asked how it felt. The one-second hug came out worst every time. Five and ten were both fine.

Which is the real lesson. The problem isn’t that your hugs are nineteen seconds short of the magic number. It’s that they’re one second long, with a pat on the back to prove nothing’s going on.

Hold it. That’s all the science says.

Hugging is the best icebreaker there is. A handshake on a first date tells her this is a job interview.

Greet her with a short, confident hug. Not a long one, not a limp one. Then, while you still have her eyes, a sincere compliment. “You look amazing, by the way.”

That one move does three things. It puts touch on the table from minute one. It makes her feel good. And holding her eye while you say it tells her you’re not nervous, even if you are.

From there, touch escalates, and I covered how in Touch. But it starts with the hug at the door.

Physical touch is a love language, and for a lot of people it’s the main one. Holding your partner close does more than any amount of talking.

I found this out far too late, which probably explains a few of the rows I had in past relationships. I was there, in the room, and not touching her.

So try this. Cuddle your missus for twenty seconds a day, and actually mean it. Not the lab’s twenty, just long enough that it stops being a gesture and starts being a cuddle.

Sounds gay? F*ck off, it’s beautiful.

Mates, family, the people you’re glad to see. Hug them. Especially the ones you’re closest to and touch the least, which for most men is their own family.

You never know when it will be the last time you get to hug that person. I mean that literally. Make it count.

Work is the one place I’d hold back. A firm handshake in the office. But at the leaving do, after a few, a hug goodbye builds more trust than a year of meetings.

Not every hug is welcome, and the rules are short.

Read the room. If they lean back or offer a hand, take the hand. If they pull away mid-hug, let go straight away, no comment.

Go in like you mean it. A hesitant hug is worse than none. But a meaningful hug is not a lingering one, so know when to stop.

Other cultures have other rules, and you’re a guest. And if you’re sweating, nobody wants it.

Hug more

I spent years thinking I was the kind of man who didn’t do this. I wasn’t. I was scared.

Hug more. That’s all.