I really dont feel like this is fair and hurts my feelings from some people because i dont choose to feel uncomfortable with human touch.
My best friend, whom I live with, is usually very open and understanding but honestly when it comes to things like this I feel like she is very judgy and condescending.
I grew up touch-starved. My parents only hugged me on New Year's day and eachother's birthdays and i was warned not to let anyone else touch me cause they would all have sinister intentions, unless ofc it was someone i actively didnt want to hug, then it would be rude to not let them hug me. Eventually I grew up to be an adult who was not touched at all for about 2 years (during covid) and thats when I met this friend who helped me break free from my toxic family.
She's one of my closest friends whom I have given mental permission to hug me. Now we have several conmon friends who I do not want touching me. I do not like people touching me. I dont like human touch. I dont want to be touched by random people, it freaks me out. Take your handshake and be happy. Not everyone has to be hugged and embraced and kissed 3 times!!!! It is so infuriating!!
I started just saying "please don't touch me" cause people dont keep their hands here but eventually I started getting more rude about it. So now people just mock me and touch me with their fingers just to piss me off.
One of our closer common friends is a guy who thinks I'm just being a prude and that keeps mocking me and try to pull a hug out of me or let people touch my hair or pat my back or hug me. My friend agrees that im just being prudish about it. I agreed that im not, since I do let people hug me here and there just specific people.
She complained that she needed a hug many times but will not asked me because she sees how I am and doesnt want a hug from someone who isnt willing to give one. I told her thats not true and I would always be there to offer a hug to her, I just dont want to be touched myself, when i am under stress. She doubled down saying that she doesnt want me doing something I clearly dont want to be doing đ, it was spoken in a very angry, condescending tone. Like im clearly communicating that I want to hug you when you're upset, I want to be there and its just my own personal boundary for when im not well, but to her its either all or nothing now.
I have no idea how to go about it. I dont understand how im in the wrong here. I feel like she thinks im an asshole for refusing to be hugged again and no matter what I say she takes it as aggression on my part and she doesnt want to fight.
Im just sad about it i guess.
Youâre not in the wrong at all. Itâs really hard for people to be respectful about touch boundaries for some reason. I think you may want to rethink your friendship with this girl. She is applying motive to your actions and being passive aggressive, and letting (encouraging?) your other friends to purposefully make you uncomfortable when she SHOULD have your back.
She normally has my back on anything except this one thing and I dont understand why she doesn't see my side here
I am touch starved and love hugs.
But I have a lot of friends who are autistic and/or have PTSD who do NOT want to be touched, and I respect that.
However, even if I didn't know they had those issues, if someone said 'please don't touch me', I wouldn't. It's that easy. You wanna know how easy it is to not touch someone? Here, I'll show you.
...
See, that easy.
Now, maybe these people are ignorant. I suspect your friend has some kind of 'but it happened ages ago!' mentality regarding your trauma, which proves she has no concept that trauma isn't just for Christmas, it's for life.
Have you tried telling them, without going into detail, that you have trauma about touch stemming from your childhood? Sometimes people will be willing to be more understanding with that explanation.
However, I fear your 'friends' are the type who'd push for details, and would give you some bullshit about 'well, you trust us! So let us hug you and you can get over it!' If they do that, then you KNOW they're a bunch of assholes who think their opinions matter more than reality. It's not them who has to suffer.
Alternatively, have you tried doing something else instead of a hug? Could you say "actually, I don't really like hugs, but I'm happy to do a fist bump" or something? You could make up one of those highly complicated and elaborate handshakes they have on tv shows of a certain era featuring characters of a certain demographic.
I would caution you, though. These people seem to have decided that they know better than you, and that's never a good sign.
I dont think of it as trauma tbh. I just dont like being touched, I think that should be reason enough. Its infuriating cause our culture is very invasive and "warm" with eachother
There was a man named Harry Harlowe who did some experiments with monkeys in the 1950s. A lot of scientists were doing some very fucked up experiments in the 50s and 60s, but honestly, they taught us a lot about human nature.
Harlow focused on the importance of maternal care and touch in the early months of a child's life. He started by taking infant monkeys away from their mothers after birth, and putting them into separate cages.
One had a fake mother made of cloth, the other made of wire. Short version: he proved that the monkeys would only go to the wire mother when she had a bottle of food and they were desperately hungry.
He then separated new infant monkeys into two groups, the cloth mother who didn't provide food, and the wire one that did. The monkeys who were 'raised' by the wire mother ended up much more timid, didnât know how to act with other monkeys, easily bullied and wouldnât stand up for themselves, had difficulty with mating, and when they became parents themselves, the females were inadequate mothers.
He also created an experiment call 'the Pit' where he placed infant monkeys in solitary confinement for between 3-12 months. The results were... not good. [Source 1] [Source 2] [Source 3]
What he proved is that touch starvation is a very real psychological trauma.
[Source]
Your parents not hugging you as a kid was basically a form of abuse, intentional or not.
I understand feeling that you're not 'traumatised' because you can still function in society. But remember, trauma, like neurodiversity, is a spectrum. The forms of it we tend to see in media and film is the extreme form of PTSD: people who suffer flashbacks, who cannot function and who are easily triggered. But that is not how all trauma manifests. You can be 'lightly' traumatised by something, which manifests in small ways such as, oh, I dunno, say not wanting to be touched by people and viewing touch as 'invasive' (as a random, non-specific example).
We take it personally when people don't want to be touched because it's such a FUNDAMENTAL human need and desire. Given how integral touch is, to refuse to touch someone is a MASSIVE form of rejection. Consider other people around you: you see them touching all the time, in ways they're not fully conscious of. The gravest insult you can give a person is to not shake their hand. To the point where it becomes headlining news when one head of state refuses to shake the hand of another, or vice versa when someone does shake the hand of a controversial leader.
And it's not just world leaders.
Back in the 80s, when I grew up, men would rarely shake a woman's hand in professional settings because they weren't seen as equal.
These people are getting angry because you are offering them the ultimate form of rejection and snub: refusal to touch. They are ignoring that you have perfectly legitimate reasons for those rejections that have nothing to do with them and everything to do with you.
They are refusing to allow you to go untouched because they are taking it as an insult and trying to 'punish' you by forcing you to touch them. This is also why I suggest you find a type of touch or sign you are comfortable with that you can use in lieu of an actual touch. Something for them to recognise that you are not offering insult.
You need to either be more clear with them, and honest with yourself, or find new friends.
I would also highly recommend you find a therapist who specialises in adults who are carrying childhood scars.
Look the reason I dont think this particular problem is due to trauma is cause I am 100% surely traumatised by worse situations than this that have an actual impact in my quality of life (I am a grown adult who sleeps with the light on so thats one of many).
I think touch deprivation is just minor and more of a preference than a trauma response. I used to "be ok with it" at first which is what bothers my friend but it was still with specific people.
Im not sure what else im supposed to do. Im only comfortable with handshake, which I offer but people want hugs and side kisses like....?? No!!
Im in therapy already but I have been working on more serious issues lately so I didn't really consider addressing this one for the time being..
Unfortunately for me im very well aware of this experiment
as someone whoâs big on hugs, thereâs nothing that would mortify me more than hugging someone who doesnât want to be hugged! a hug is supposed to be a pure, physical expression of joy and love from all involved parties. i always ask new people if i can hug them instead of just going in, because i know itâs not the only way people show closenessâit just happens to be my favorite, but i know itâs not everyoneâs!
your friends sound kinda lame. . are they good about showing love to you in other ways? is there a possibility that they donât know how else to express closeness with you?
They express their care with other ways, but this seems kind of ingrained in people in our country. I just expect my friends to be on my side in this one and they seem to act like im overreacting about nothing.
ah yeah. i understand it being âoddâ as far as cultural expectations go. my culture is also terrible with physical boundaries and iâve had my fair share of people âjust not understandingâ. just know that they do not have to understand your âwhyâ, they just have to respect your âwhatâ which is that you donât enjoy being hugged while stressed.
Thank you
You want to make her comfortable when she's sad but she knows hugging makes you uncomfortable. No-one has done anything wrong here, you both just want to support each other. For the person who keep making a joke of touching you, if you lick his face or maybe even his arm, he'll never touch you again.
Ew why would I lick someone i dont even wanna touch?
Iâm like you. If I am not sleeping with you, donât freaking touch me. I have friends and acquaintances who consider that to be egregious and force hugs on me. Why? Why do you need to make physical contact with me so badly that you donât care about my comfort or preferences? It feels violating, yet I am the one in the wrong.
Stupid other people
I dont even get it. Why do people take it so personally when we don't want to be touched?
I'm not sure these people are friends. Do they understand consent? Because it sure seems like they don't.
I don't like being touched either. The only people I hug are my husband & my children. All of my friends know that and will offer me a hug, but respect me if I say no. There are occasions when I say yes, but they respect that that doesn't mean yes next time.
If this was a question about sexual consent it would be cut & dried so why do your friends think it's any different with hugs etc? They don't respect you. And I think you need to find better friends.
They understand consent. Just not when it comes to innocent, platonic, non-sexual touching. Its a culture thing.
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