We’re facing a hugging epidemic in America: not only do we hug our friends constantly, we’re also expected to hug our friends’ girlfriends’ coworkers, writes Juliet Lapidos in Slate. Sure, there are times when hugs are called for: when the hugger is your boyfriend, or your mother, or when you haven’t seen someone in a very long time. But “why is it that when I go over to your house for dinner, you wrap your arms around me, even though I saw you last Friday?”
The problem is that “it’s such an awkward interaction. One arm or two? Should there be space between us? And for how long, exactly, should we be touching?” These “obligatory hugs mock true intimacy,” Lapidos notes. The hug “descended from the American ethos of hyper-friendliness,” like our first-name obsession, says an etiquette expert. But according to the website of authority Emily Post, they’re not a part of the standard greeting—unless you’re meeting “a relative or close friend.” (More hugging stories.)
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