Dear Dr. Henry:
I think your idea of a B.C. Hug day, maybe as soon as July, is wonderful.
I know you won’t be coming to Prince George next month to receive your honourary degree from UNBC in person but when you do visit, I hope you are willing to receive a hug from this grateful British Columbian for your work. I particularly want to thank you for keeping your humanity in spite of all of the abuse you’ve received since last spring. I haven’t always agreed with your choices but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate you and everything you’ve done.
I hope you’ll be able to forgive me for my recent hugging behaviour.
This week, I have publicly hugged three friends. In my defence, I did not initiate two of those hugs but there was no damn way I was going to say no for some love from these good friends. And in the case of the hug I called for, it was my dear friend’s birthday, which we were not able to celebrate last year, and I took the “we’ve both had our first vaccine shot” risk.
My friend loved it and thanked me for being a good friend.
I have no regrets.
So like you, I am a hugger but I want you to know I am a socially aware hugger.
In other words, I rarely initiate hugs with people I haven’t hugged before. It’s not that I want them to beg for it but I’m uncomfortable instigating hugs, particularly with women. I just think it’s uncouth for men of any age to be throwing themselves at female acquaintances and expect loving arms wrapped around them. I’ve done it a couple of times and just didn’t feel good about it.
Fellas, ask any woman and they will tell you their life story of unsought, unwanted and unappreciated hugs from men.
Early in my career, a young, female reporter I worked with had the nerve to raise a stink about unwanted hugs from a much older local political figure. She had asked him twice before that she didn’t want the hugs, particularly because she was covering public meetings as a reporter and felt his affectionate greetings were unprofessional.
He didn’t listen.
But our editor did.
He assigned a reporter to do a story about it and wrote an accompanying editorial in support of both the story and our reporter.
The local political figure was indignant in his “I hug everybody” defence, until it was pointed out that by "everybody", he meant every woman he met, whenever he met them, regardless of whether they actually wanted a hug or not.
There is no such thing as hug entitlement, boys.
Much better to be stingy with hugging women than to be known as a creep.
In fact, I almost lost my wife due to my hug philosophy. We met for coffee after talking a bit online and hit it off. As we were saying our noncommittal goodbyes (“It was really nice meeting you” – “Well, it was nice meeting you”), she asked me for a hug (because she’s a fearless hugger).
So I gave her a hug.
But it was as noncommittal as my words – no squeeze, no firm hands, no pause. A gentleman’s hug, I say in my defence to this day.
Except that she left thinking “he’s just not that into me” because I failed the hug test.
Fortunately for me, I followed up the next day (and every day after that for months) to show I really did think she was all that and a bag of chips.
So, Dr. Henry, I really do hope I have the opportunity to give you a polite, gentleman’s hug sometime in the future when it’s kind and safe to do so.
But I’ll follow your lead because that’s what I do.
