The Side Hug

I think its time we eliminate the side hug. Perhaps we should replace it with the enthusiastic high-five.

You see, you have your two types of hugs: full-frontal and side hug. The full-frontal communicates care, concern, and closeness. The side hug seems to say, "Nice to see you...now be on your way." Its almost like the proverbial question of "How are you?" asked merely out of politeness.

Now I realize that the side hug probably started occuring because of two main reasons. First, there was some concern amongst churchfolk that full-frontal hugs could arrouse sexual tension between a man and a woman. It might send mixed signals and confuse both parties, thus we should clearly communicate with perhaps a few pats around the shoulder, "Hey...you're...a...good...friend." Thus we came up with the side hug to avert this all together to show people that we're close, but not that close. The second reason is because somewhere along the way guys were educated to the point that they realized that giving hugs showed they had some degree of emotional depth. However, going in for the real deal posed too much of a threat to their masculinity, so they came up with the side-hug as a worthy compromise.

Here's what I'm proposing. The high-five can send a much stronger message of warmth and concern then a 3-second side hug. So if you can't come to terms with a full-hug, than the high-five will suffice. This would work particularly good on dates that doesn't go as expected. Recently I was on a date and I was given the side-hug. I'm not ignornat, I knew this meant that I was now her new "good friend." Wouldn't it have been such a better story though if we ended on a high five?