The PAT-HUG

Do you watch people who do the pat-hug?  It is a curious half-hearted combination of two very personal actions, showing that neither is very sincere.

Just watch the end of a round of golf in the LPGA.  The pat-hug has become the de rigueur counterpart to the male hand shake when competitors wrap-up a day's play.  (Those hand-shakes can come across as pretty uninspired, too!)  The pat-hug is used in many other situations as well, but to me anyway, it seems most practiced and least effectual here in the LPGA.

Perhaps I am totally wrong in this observation, but I do believe I see something that screams insincerity.  And it can show up by surprise in varied circumstances. 

In my estimation, the whole miss-managed action should be forsaken altogether.  Think about it.  If you know someone well enough that you feel a proper hug is called for and would not be offensive, then by all means, give a real hug.  Let that person know you mean this personal gesture as your outward show of whatever love or condolence or congratulations the situation calls for.  If you feel a person deserves a pat on the back, then give a sincere pat-on-the-back.  That's it!  No half-hug, piddly-pat combination gesture that lessens both in meaning.

Ever notice a referee in a wrestling match when a hold needs to be released?  He gives a pat on the back to tell the person committing the disallowed hold that it's time to break it up.  When I see a person involved in any hug that includes the little flutter pats on the back of the huggee, it says to me that the hugger is making that referee call on himself to his own desired end - that he entered the hug with the thought in mind that it needed to be broken up immediately.  No lingering body togetherness to be endured for more than a split second.  That's no hug!  And the patting part is not really intended as a sincere pat-on-the-back with gusto.  It merely says, "That's it, now I've done what I needed to do; please pull away!"

Recently I witnessed a man giving the pat-hug to his wife.  That is really ugly.  It literally made me wonder whether they might be fighting but had to show a good front to the public.  My wife and I have been together for eighteen years, during which time I do not believe I have ever given her one of these less-than-real hugs.  If my arms are around my wife, my hands on her body at some natural position gained when the hug began, the hands stay there, firmly saying "it's good to be next to you, holding you."  If my wife deserves a pat on the back, I can also do that, and with full meaning, physically indicating "Congratulations," or "Well done," or whatever the case calls for.  But since I am a hugger, she usually gets that full-bodied treatment over the pat because it goes farther to show my warm delight in her.  She does NOT get both together in that silly little pat-hug.

When I hug a good friend, female or male, my hand on the back does not flutter in a method that calls the hold "disallowed."  I hug meaningfully or I do not hug at all. 

Have I ever committed the pat-hug?  Yes, I confess to having done it, which is how I know what it means.  Maybe it isn't the same for others, but it was clear to me that I was about to hug someone I didn't really want to pull against my own body, yet the circumstances seemed to say I should.  Well, I don't do that nowadays.  Because when I did it I felt myself allowing a "should" concept to override a desired (lack of) action, I gave myself permission to drop such half-meanings in the future.  If you're getting a hug from me, prepare to be hugged, not patted!  If you deserve a meaningful pat-on-the-back, I will stop short of knocking the wind out of you, but you will know I sincerely mean the pat!