Emotional and Physical Closeness

Although it may be the delusion setting in since my eyes have been stuck to my computer screen all week for finals, all I can think of is the lyrics to Sweet Caroline while writing this blog on touch. So bear with me here...

Physical touch has always been a key factor in my relationships growing up. I always felt a sense of emotional closeness to a person by literally being close to them. I was used to the constant PDA with my boyfriend growing up, used to the sleepovers in the same bed with my girlfriends in high school, and used to hugging anyone I saw when saying hello or goodbye. Not hugging was weird... who didn't like hugs?? I didn't know any person of this nature until I met my roommate heading into freshman year. May God bless her, the girl did not like hugs! Because of this, I went into panic mode thinking that we wouldn't form a close relationship and that ultimately, I wouldn't be able to express how much I loved and appreciated her without the best way I knew how. Long story short, we are heading into our senior year living together for the fourth year in a row and she is more than family to me (and is even a sister to my own sister back at home!). It sounds dramatic, but with this limit on physical closeness, I was able to find new ways to express my appreciation for her and she even adapted to hugging a liiiittle bit more than she used to.

My importance on touch, especially shown throughout my relationship with my roommate, is one that emphasized the positive connotation that I have towards the sense of touch. This is something that has not always been the norm for people. Constance Classen's book on the Deepest Sense: Cultural History of Touch involves the chapter on the focus of the negative aspects of touch; pain. She writes, "Pain--caused by hunger and thirst, heat and cold, injuries, overwork, and illness--was a commonplace of premodern life" (Classen 47). I was surprised by this in how someone could immediately reference negativity with the sense of touch. I had been surrounded by such positive ones that I was almost blinded by the relationship that physical closeness had to my emotional connections with others.