To Hug or Not To Hug…
No matter how poised and polished a person may be, we all encounter awkward social situations now and then. Some, like I, face these experiences more often than others. However, I feel that many people often find themselves in commonly uncomfortable situations more often than they think. They simply do not realize the extreme level of awkward that these encounters rank on the – well, my – metaphorical awkward scale. These people have not taken the time to truly consider, analyze and appreciate the awkwardness of the situations they encounter because, quite frankly, they have lives. Luckily for these people, I do not. Therefore, I will be highlighting one commonly uncomfortable social situation each week in this column. I will delve so far into my own personal analyses of such situations that you will have no choice but to think of this column every time you find yourself in one of these positions for the rest of your life. Consider me the queen of awkwardness (especially because I just coined my own nickname).
For this week’s column, I would like to discuss that uncomfortable scenario of seeing somebody for the first time after Summer break and not knowing whether or not to hug the person. You might read this and think that I’m crazy and obsessive for dramatizing such an insignificant matter. But I believe (and, for my own sake, hope) that the fear and discomfort of this particular situation is more common than one might presume. For example, say you’re walking through College Walk one crisp September’s eve on your way to Dodge (or, lets be real, on your way to John Jay) and you see a familiar male figure walking toward you. You ran in the same circles as this person last semester, and often found yourself at the same social gatherings – perhaps sober gatherings, perhaps not. You even engaged in pleasant yet somewhat trivial conversations with him a few times at said gatherings. Now, as he walks toward you, you face the cringe-worthy dilemma of deciding the appropriate way to approach the encounter. You wonder whether a hug would be overly friendly, but feel that a simple smile and nod might not be friendly enough. You consider pulling out your cell phone and pretending not to notice the guy as you walk by, seemingly engrossed in an all-encompassing text message. Unfortunately, you have already made eye contact with the person and can do nothing but acknowledge and dread the upcoming encounter.
So, you now have a decision to make. You can dive right into a zealous hug and risk the humiliation of his body becoming uncomfortably rigid at the sudden and unexpected contact. You can simply smile and nod and risk the second-hand embarrassment of continuing to walk as he goes in for the hug. Or, you can cautiously attempt to take a cue from his body language and slightly lean in when you think he might be going for it. But this option sets you up for that weak half-hug, which often ends up taking on the form of a very uncomfortable, one-armed side-hug. In any case, there is simply no escape from the discomfort of this situation. Each option is worse than the last. All you can do is get it over with as quickly and painlessly as possible, continue on your way, and later think to yourself: That was awkward.