My love language

I've been thinking a lot lately about the power of touch. Quite a few months back, Chrissy gave us a quiz to determine our love language. Mine was physical touch. My close friends laughed when they heard this because they know how freaked out I can be when the wrong person touches me. That's because touch can either be a very positive or a very negative thing, depending on where it's coming from. I offer some recent examples.

On Friday night I slept over at my sister's house. Early this morning I woke up to the feeling of little hands touching my feet. A moment later, I opened my eyes to see this cute little face (Austin) peering over the couch at me.


He was beaming with excitement and exclaimed "Becky!" He was just thrilled to see me. Following closely behind him was this little guy (Liam, 3-1/2 years):

I opened up my blanket, and both kiddos crawled up onto the couch to cuddle with me. It was the best wakeup call ever! A little while later I stumbled into the living room where they were watching cartoons. Austin saw me come in and again squealed "Becky!" He then started patting the couch, motioning for me to sit by him, so I obeyed. After I sat down, he scooted over into the crook of my arm and leaned up against me for the next 30 minutes. It melts my heart to even think about it. These are examples of the good kind of touching, the kind that I can't get enough of.

Sometimes, however, touch has quite the opposite affect. Tonight was the adult session of stake conference. I got there right before it started and quickly found a seat. One of my friends came and sat in the chair to my left. Instead of sitting in the middle of his chair, though, he decided to sit so he was practically in my lap. I kept scooting more and more to my right to avoid being smashed up against him. No such luck; he responded to that by leaning even closer. Then he kept nudging me with his shoulder, trying to get my attention. When I would look over at him, he would respond with a "bouncing eyebrow" and a grin. I failed to see the humor in that situation. The whole time I kept comparing his size to the size of every other person around me. Could he possibly be so big that he can't help but spill over into my personal space? Nope, not the case. So I spent most of the session with my arms tightly folded, trying to make myself as small as possible. At one point, he even reached over and started rubbing my hand, asking if I was cold. I quickly jerked away (pure reflex), and now I feel bad because I think he was offended. It was awkward beyond awkward, though. I was just so uncomfortable, wishing I would have stayed home to study. That is the kind of thing that makes people think I'm anti-touch. If my instinct is to flinch when you touch me, there's likely something wrong (i.e., don't touch me).

While touching sends powerful messages, so does NOT touching. I've had this conversation with a few of you, some of whom think I'm a whack-job for feeling this way. I'm gonna repeat it anyway. When I'm dating a guy I feel like there needs to be a bit of physical contact after you've been out a few times. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the type who wants my date to be hanging all over me (especially not in public) or who wants too much physical contact too quickly. A little bit of physical affection would be nice though: hold my hand, put your arm around me, hug me, sit close to me, touch my hair... something! Sweet words are nice -- and they certainly make me smile -- but if you make no effort to touch me, I'm going to forget all of that sweetness and worry that you're not really interested after all (no matter how many times you tell me you are). Dating without any sort of physical contact puts you dangerously close to the friend zone. I'm just sayin'...