Unbearable hugs
Earlier this year, 14-year-old Cazz Altomare was given detention by middle-school authorities in Bend, Ore., for embracing her boyfriend, thereby violating the administration’s “hugging ban.” After a brief spate of controversy, covered mostly on local television news outlets and the Internet, the story flamed out. But I just can’t get that hugging issue out of my mind.
Hugging, of course, has replaced the air kiss as the go-to gesture for awkward encounters. Maybe it’s a form of late-blooming anti-French sentiment, the social equivalent of freedom fries. Too heavy on our feet to undertake the petits gestes necessary for efficient cheek kisses, we’ve taken to initiating half-hearted embraces of the I-know-you-too-well-to-just-shake-your-hand-so-I’m-not-sure-what-to-d o variety. Sandwiched somewhere between an actual hug and a three-second opportunity to assess the quality of someone’s jacket while peering over his or her shoulder to see who else is in the room, this maneuver reduces us to cootie-phobic adolescents being forced to embrace our weird cousins when they visit from Akron. These are most definitely not bear hugs. They’re air hugs.
The air hugging phenomenon would be perilous enough if it had outright replaced air kissing. But more often than not the air hug is combined with the air kiss, resulting in a botched job on both scores. We’ll see our friend or acquaintance, move in for the air kiss, and abort at the last second in favor of an upper body embrace that involves as little physical contact as possible. Just as a well-executed air kiss suggests lip-to-cheek contact without actually making it, the air hug is kind of a limp version of that “hug a tree” posture best known to yoga classes and gyrokinesis exercises. The fact that we often
attempt this with just a single arm while balancing a drink and a plate of sauteed dumplings in the other hand brings to the enterprise an element of peril that even the air kiss,
with its tendency to make people inadvertently lick each other’s ears, does not offer.
As the unfortunate Oregon teenager learned the hard way, hugging is dangerous.
But I’m beginning to wonder if the administration of the Bend-LaPine School District is on to something. While punishing kids for modest displays of affection represents the most self-parodying form of political correctness, it may be true that the imperialism for which the Europeans already hate us has permeated even our personal interactions. In the last few years, I’ve found myself in air hugs with what, a decade ago, would have been considered the unlikeliest of parties. I’ve air hugged my real estate broker, my accountant, my hair dresser, my agent, my cleaning lady and hundreds of casual acquaintances who, in my parents’ generation, would have been greeted with a respectful smile or handshake.
In navigating the treacherous terrain of the air kiss-air hug combo move, I’ve accidentally nuzzled a few of these people’s ears. No wonder my cleaning lady bought a house in Palmdale and quit on me.
What the Oregon hugging debate really makes me think about is how inconsequential the concept of good manners has become. Evidently that’s what the school district had in mind when it devised the policy -- “all we’re trying to do is create an environment that’s focused on learning, and learning proper manners is part of that,” a principal in that district was quoted as saying -- and evidently that’s what was lost among the dissenters, especially the girl’s mother, who referred to hugging as a “fundamental right.”
There are lots of fundamental rights that become less fundamental when they’re inelegantly executed (example: the wearing of visible thongs on certain body types.) And clearly what’s called for is better education, not only in civics, but in manners.
My vote would be to nix the hug, bring back the air kiss and make sure every child in the nation receives adequate instruction on how to perform it. Granted, this means the girls will have to pick up a little extra slack since unlike the gender neutral hug, air kissing is a male-female or female-female procedure (unless one is a dreaded European.) But I think it’s worth it. It’s also something that the Christian right, with its fear of body fluids, and the liberal elite, with its love of cocktail parties, can get behind in equal measure.
I can say with certainty that I never really needed that trigonometry I learned. But I could have used a few pointers in how to avoid slobbering on people. You don’t see the French doing that. Or the Chinese. In a global economy, we need all the help we can get.
Meghan Daum can be reached at weekend@latimes.com.
