I am a Hugger
It’s how I’m wired to show and to receive affection. My friends know this about me and I prepare them before I come in to squeeze them tight, potentially adjusting their back 😊. Similarly, I love strong arms (hopefully from a beefy bear) around me and if possible, please pick me up while you’re embracing me.
Among my friends and the bear community in general, HUGS or BIG HUGS is used in the written and spoken word to say I love you in an informal way. I just love the mind-body connection here – it’s shorthand for “I love you and I want to express my love for you by putting my arms around you and cementing our connection with physical touch.”
Love Languages
You know about the Five Love Languages – it’s your preferred method of feeling love and appreciated. Well, one of them happens to be Physical Touch! The crazy thing about me is that I didn’t know this about myself for the first 44 years of my life. Coming out of the closet and finally receiving love in a way that warmed my heart was a life-altering revelation.
The only downside (tongue firmly planted in cheek) is that it takes so dang long to leave a party after giving back-to-back-to-back hugs to everyone. It’s exhausting.
Peter Leahy
A self-proclaimed “ideas guy,” I’ve worked in marketing for over twenty-five years. After years of sadness, emptiness and self-loathing, I finally came out of the closet in 2013 and reinvented myself. Now happily married to my husband for over two years, we live in California with our Chihuahua Felicia, the queen of our household.
