Let’s Make Cuddling with Friends a Thing
I’m on a journey to find more physical affection beyond romantic relationships
Touch is a sensitive issue for me. On the one hand, I’m extremely physically affectionate. I’d rather hug someone than shake their hand, I often touch someone’s hand or wrist when I talk to them, and in a relationship, I need to be with someone who loves to cuddle.
On the other hand, I grew up feeling somewhat guilty and almost shameful about this desire for touch. It wasn’t a demonstration of my personal sexual needs, but one of my basic human needs, and friends often teased me or even chastised me for my openness around touching, likening all touch to sexual expression.
Further, I had to learn that people had different boundaries around touch. I hugged far too many people who pulled stiffly away and one day realized that my actions were sometimes unintentionally disrespectful. I started asking people if hugs or other touch was welcome in order to correct my behavior.
After a major romantic partnership ended in 2014, I found myself longing for more regular human contact. I wasn’t dating, so I didn’t have access to cuddles, prolonged hugs, kissing, or sex and I could feel the hunger for skin-to-skin contact. I also missed experiencing a feeling physical intimacy (not necessarily sexual) with another person.
How, I wondered, could I achieve that if I wasn’t in a sexual relationship?
Americans are not known for physical affection. We’re a culture that values our personal bubbles and we tend to be wary or dismissive of touch that occurs outside of a sexual relationship.
In fact, our avoidance of touch appears to be growing, according to Tiffany Field, head of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. Field’s observations have led her to believe that social media and smartphones have been detrimental to our physical interactions. Over four decades of research, she has witnessed an alarming decline in Americans’ touch patterns.
Our social policies are also becoming less “touch-friendly.” We’re instructed not to touch coworkers. And for those who work in education, as I did for over 10 years, you are taught to never touch your students and to discourage them from touching one another. Sure, this is safer in a litigious country that is increasingly suspicious of all forms of touch, and a culture that hasn’t taught us to understand boundaries and consent, but also, it’s having an effect on our children and even ourselves as we miss out on the physical and emotional benefits of touch.
Thankfully, if you’re single, you have one last option for socially acceptable touching. Showing physical affection to your children, grandchildren, or young nieces and nephews is generally considered acceptable so long as you have the consent of the parents and the child in question.
I have always relied heavily on this form of touch, especially during the years my relationship was disintegrating and in the years that I’ve been single. I’ve been blessed to have a close relationship with my sister’s six children, all of whom who seek out hugs, kisses, cuddles, or backrubs.
But at some point, that just wasn’t enough for me. Further, I was tired of the notion that my only socially-acceptable options for grown-up touch were hugging or kissing my parents or having a sexual partner. It seemed absurd to me that we should expect so damn much from one relationship (that with a lover) — from sex, to financial and emotional support, to affectionate touch, to… I could go on, but I’m sure you get my point.
In my defiance of this outdated fetishization of romantic love, I was determined to find another solution.
My friend Sunny was the first person who opened my mind to platonic touch between friends. It was early spring 2019 and like me, she was single and itching for some physical contact.
“You know, I have friends who get together and just make a big cuddle pile while they’re watching a movie,” she said. “It drives me nuts that such a simple thing makes me feel so nervous to try, but also, I’m getting to the point where I want to be daring enough to do that. Like kissing a friend on the cheek! People in Europe do that. Why shouldn’t we?”
“Yeah,” I said, nervously agreeing, realizing she might want to start experimenting on me. All of a sudden, all those vague feelings of shame were starting to arise, as if it was deviant, somehow, to want to kiss a friend on the cheek, or cuddle with an adult who isn’t a sexual partner.
But she knew I was exploring ways to be more intimate with people, and dammit, she pretty much called me out on that. How could I say no?
She never directly asked me if I would be willing to do it, so a few months later, I brought it up and suggested we go for it. And just as I suspected, it was awkward as hell. I wasn’t sure this new level of physical intimacy would actually add anything to our friendship, but we kept at it. One day, it didn’t feel so weird or awkward. And one day, I realized that yes, it did add to our friendship and I was very grateful to have someone to share a cheek kiss with.
Things got even more complicated with my other best friend, Frank, who one day last fall, during a day trip into the mountains, unexpectedly planted a kiss on my lips after I’d shared a deep personal revelation with him. We had never talked about kissing before, the way Sunny and I had, and I was so shocked by his action that I immediately turned my face away.
It wasn’t a great way to initiate more physical touch in a relationship. He should have asked for consent, first. But over time, we worked through it, and just like with the cheek kiss, I grew to enjoy having an adult friend that I could kiss on the lips. In fact, I came to love it.
People often ask me how this all started, almost as if kissing your friends is weird or unusual. (Is it?) And I tell them it started like most things in a relationship where intimacy is being explored — awkwardly, curiously, and with a dash of uncertainty.
When they ask how I would recommend they initiate more touch in friendships, I’m not sure what to say. In some ways, you really can’t make generalizations about this process. So much depends upon the people who are exploring further intimacy — what they want, what their comfort levels are around touch, how deep the friendship is…
But then again, I don’t think it would be wrong to generalize by saying that it really all starts with communicating the desire to try it. No matter what your personalities are like, what boundaries around touch you have, or how close your friendship is, you have to start with a discussion.
I began by simply openly sharing with all of my friends that I wanted to have deeper, more intimate relationships. I told them I didn’t agree with the way our culture fetishizes romantic relationships and demands that we get all our needs met from that one person. I wasn’t interested in that. When I found myself in a new relationship, I wanted to arrive there with a posse of intimate friends already in place, all of whom helped me meet my needs for intimacy.
My friends understood this. They even agreed. My two besties, Sunny and Frank, were both also single and I could see them struggling with this, too. They wanted more touch, just like I did.
Simply starting that conversation set things in motion. Each one of them picked up the baton and started running with it. So we kept trying and exploring and that’s how we got to where we are today.
None of it is perfect. I still don’t see my friends, or even my nieces and nephews enough for me to feel fully satiated when it comes to touch. I still want more. I long for cuddles with people who don’t fit in my lap (though I’m not complaining about cuddling babies). I long for a shoulder or back rub. I can’t even begin to describe how hungry I am for those interactions.
One of the hard parts about this process is, surprisingly, my own hang-ups about touch outside of a sexual relationship. Yes, I still struggle with those low-grade feelings of shame. I still feel like some kind of pervert at the thought of asking one of my friends to cuddle with me. (Which is, I want to emphasize, absolutely ridiculous and just more evidence of how backward American culture can be when it comes to touch.)
If I want to cuddle with a friend or ask them for a shoulder rub, I’m going to have to get over my baggage about it, first. And then find the courage to bring it up. And then find even more courage to try it and let it be awkward and weird and clumsy again and again until one day…it won’t be.
I have to admit, it isn’t easy. Bucking the cultural narrative about touch outside a sexual relationship is challenging. There’s a lot of emotional unpacking to do not just beforehand, but throughout the process.
Is it worth it, though? Yes. I will say without reservation that all the fear, awkwardness, and uncertainty are worth it when you realize that you are doing what it takes to make sure you’re getting the nurturing and love that you need and deepening your friendships in the process.
Now go call your BFF and ask her how she feels about being kissed on the cheek. You might be surprised by her answer.
Author’s note: This essay was originally published in 2020, in the publication P.S. I Love You. Their domain recently expired, and my essays have since been deleted, so I will be republishing them in my own publication.
In the years since I wrote this, Sunny and I stopped kissing on the cheeks and last year, she drifted out of my life after meeting a wonderful boyfriend. Frank and I are still close, though we no longer kiss on the lips. Kisses are rare and remain on the cheek at this point. I also haven’t been brave enough to join cuddle parties. But I’m still working on this. ❤
Y.L. Wolfe is a gender-curious, solosexual, perimenopausal, childless crone-in-training, exploring these experiences through writing, photography, and art. You can find more of her work at yaelwolfe.com. If you love her writing, leave her a tip over at Ko-fi.
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