Embracing a Social Complexity
Embracing a Social Complexity
A week or so ago Susan Paynter, a columnist for the Seattle P-I, wrote this piece about the arcane protocols of men hugging men. The catalyst for the article was a front-page picture of two cops hugging at the funeral of a fallen peer. Paynter interviewed various men about appropriate times for guy-on-guy embracing (most seemed reluctant to comment, even off the record), but the consensus seemed to be “deaths and sports championships”.
I’ve never been a real touch-ya kind of guy, regardless of whether you’re man, woman, gay or straight. It just doesn’t come natural, I can’t be both this snipe-and-run conversationalist one second and be clinching and squeezing the next. I’m probably even more careful with women and touching, having attended many HR seminars where harrassment is explicated, and, here in Washington, watching the stunning demise of Senator Brock Adams and the sorely-missed liberal warrior Mike Lowry as a result of unwelcome grippings and gropings (of female staff, not each other). Plus, my wife just climbed Grand Teton (the mountain), her blood’s overstocked with hemoglobin, and she’s capable of breaking my arms in such a manner that I couldn’t squeeze the Charmin, even if in dire need.
So I encountered a sort of hugging conundrum when we were in Wyoming. My wife and a climbing friend had hired a guide with whom they had been acquainted in Seattle, who was now guiding Teton climbs professionally. I had met her only briefly in Seattle. After arriving in Wyoming, we headed over to the guide station to meet up with her and get scheduled. When we espied her, happy hellos ensued, and she hugged first my wife and then her climbing partner, and as she approached me I was taxing my underpowered male social processor chip with the calculations - they knew each other well from before, they were fellow (!) women and women hug anyway, she was gay and perhaps any wan cordiality towards me would only be professional courtesy (half a step away now) and the answer flashed across my dim pixel-poor intracranial display: “Handshake, non-emphatic”. I began to extend my hand just as she began to open her arms for a (probably spontaneous, generous and uncalculated) hug. It was reminiscent of the old “scissors, stone, paper” game - we both hesitated for a second, then seemed to agree that, like paper, the handshake wins in that instance. Then came the recriminations - what if she thinks I hesitated to hug her because I knew she was gay?
Later in the week I accompanied the three intrepid climbers partway up their approach hike to the mountain, and the guide and I had a delightful 5 mile long conversation, despite the altitude and 3,000 feet of elevation gain, and we all parted in a marmot-ridden meadow, I to return to delicious Snake River Pale Ale, an elk chili-burger and a warm cabin, they to freeze-dried cuisine and a cramped and crowded hut at their base camp at 10,000 feet.
The next night when they returned from summitting and then a grueling downclimb and hike out, we greeted them at the trailhead with cold pizza and watery margaritas. We dropped the guide off at her office, and in the roseate afterglow of their feat, there was no calculation or hesitation - we embraced and I calculated nothing except gratitude for guiding my wife to the undisputed high point of her year. Now that I think of it, it qualified as a sports championship, so that’s at least one green light I didn’t misinterpret.
