When is it okay for one man to embrace another man?
That is the question I've been pondering for the past couple of days. I heard some guys on the local sports show here talking about the rules of hugging. One of the hosts was a big time hugger. He said that he hugs anyone and everyone. Although, I somewhat agreed with his theory of any-time-is-a-good-time-for-a-hug, I would be lying if I said that I didn't have my own reservations about man-hugging.
It's not that I am homophobic or anything like that, I just haven't hugged many dudes through the years. The opportunity just hasn't presented itself, I guess. I'll admit, I don't go looking for other dudes to hug. This would clearly blur the social lines of bicurious-ness if you ask me. But it's a good question to think about for the times when, for whatever reason, a male on male hug is proposed.
So I went searching the internet and asked a couple of my buddies, and this is what I've come up with. Here are some various rules or guidelines for when hugging is acceptable and when it's not in the cards.
- It is acceptable to hug any male that is related to you. This one is quite obvious.
- If you meet a fellow male at a temple, church function, wedding or funeral, you may hug another man.
- It is not okay to hug another man when one or both of you is wearing any type of swimming suit.
- It is never okay to hug another dude, if one or both of you is shirtless. Big no-no here.
- If a family tragedy has occurred to one or both of you, it is okay to hug another man. This is along the same lines with the funeral, etc.
- If you are playing a sport, and your team wins the respective title of that sport, you may hug another man. However, this hug needs to be brief. After all, it's just a game dude.
- If your wife or your buddy's wife gives birth to a newborn baby, it is acceptable to hug this guy.
- If you went through a traumatic event with another dude (like near death type stuff), and you see that same guy after, say, a year...you may hug this dude.
- If you and your buddy are watching a game on TV or in person, and your team wins the game, you may not hug this guy. Hugging in this instance is reserved only for the players on the field.
- You may not hug another man if you both have the same first name. This is just weird.
- If at all, a guy comes at you with an uninvited hug, you must do your best to make that hug as un-bicurious as is humanly possible. This may be difficult but this can be attempted by putting only one of your shoulders into the hug and giving him a slap on the back.
- You may never, for any reason, hug a dude that you just met. I don't care if this is your fiance's brother and he's going to be "part of the family", there is no excuse for this to occur. This should be a given, but you never know, this situation might come up.
- As a general rule -- Man hugs should be limited to 5 seconds. The only exception is a funeral or tragedy....then it should still be limited to 10 seconds or less.
- If another man is wearing the same shirt as you, it is not okay to hug this man, unless he's related to you and you're at a family reunion or something like that.
- When hugging another man, there should be no vocals emitted from either party. Any vocal sounds may very well be construed as very bicurious to any witnesses and also to the dude you're hugging.
- If a dude on the street is holding a sign that says "Free Hugs", never, under any circumstance is it okay to hug this dude. (see above for overly-bicurious visual.)
- If you or the other dude or both of you own a Subaru, you may not hug this man.
- You may not ever hug another man during a woman's sporting event of any kind. At all.
So there you go. If there are any that I have left off, please let me know. I will add them to the list, because we all need to know these rules, guys. For a guy, there really isn't too much you can know about hugging guidelines. These rules have saved me from a very awkward experience, many a time.
I also need to give credit to this dude named Paul Davidson. I sorta stole some of the rules from his list. Check the list out, though, it's pretty good.
