there's a new epidemic in the world of hetero relationships*, and it's called, for lack of a better term, "over-excited affection." boys, it seems, have a hard time administering affection that's not either:
a) bouncing up and down
b) picking their girlfriends up and tossing them (nicely, but still tossing)
c) poking in inappropriate places/at inappropriate times
d) grabbing or squeezing all manner of body parts
Now, it's understandable that boys like to show their affection in a variety of ways, but when it's done in one of the above ways 90 percent of the time, it's also understandable that a girl's gonna get annoyed.
I myself am often a victim of a, c, and d, with an occasional butt slap thrown in. early on in our relationship, RL stopped hugging me normally and started hugging me while jumping up and down (with weird sound effects). When i asked him for a normal hug, he said "come on! this is the deluxe hug! you're so lucky!" the other day i asked him again and he complied. for about five seconds. then he says "boorringg" and starts bouncing again.
now the "deluxe" has come to mean any sort of bouncing that RL does, and my least favorite is the i'm-still-sleeping-and-RL-is wide-awake deluxe. usually he does this because he wants me to wake up, and sometimes it works. My favorite is when i wake up to him standing over the bed with a wild-eyed look on his face and his body poised to jump on me.
when discussing this with my girlfriends, including Sara over at
Dating Tales, we realized that one of the issues is that you have to laugh when someone is bouncing/poking/grabbing you, which naturally means that the boys think we're enjoying it. Which we're not. But laughter is the go-to response that we fall back on, and sometimes we just can't help it.
So what's a girl to do to stop the over-excited affection onslaught? More importantly, why do boys have to be so difficult?
+++++++++
*i have no idea how this is playing out in other types of relationships, and it may very well not just be limited to the heteros i know. it does seem to be kind of a straight boy thing, though.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
can't i just have a normal hug?
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6 comments:
O, it's so true. I'd like to add e and f to this list.
e: The airplane dive-bomb neck-kiss. This move starts with a crashing noise from above (think: FEEEeeeeooooooo) and culminates in a bombing explosion on the neck (think and cringe: fpow, bbballooosh, pooohhh, booommbamabambam).
f: The "croth assist" involves a boost up the stairs. While it is somewhat helpful at the end of a long day, it is not at all that exciting. To me.
There are others, which I can't even detail in a respected space. However, I have to say that I'd much prefer a tiny amount of excitement over a predictable relationship. But regular hugs.
ha! i'm sure you have more to add to the list. but i totally agree that the weird forms of affection totally outweigh a predictable relationship.
I have developed a fear of climbing stairs ahead of DH. For the past 10 years (yikes!!) every time I am ahead of him on a staircase, I'm always goosed. And I totally agree that the smile/laugh is an instinctual reaction, so he is encouraged to keep doing it even when I plead him to stop. I also do that when I'm mad/embarrassed so he thinks what he's just said to playfully insult me is actually kind of funny, when really it's not!
Plus, wouldn't you agree that there is a time and place for groping or butt slapping? Why is cooking dinner the prime time? I am crazily trying to time the food to be done at the same time, while trying to keep kids from eating their hands due to starvation (didn't they just snack 30 min. ago?) so the last thing I need is to jump out of my shoes due to a hand looking for a warm spot!!
The more PDA the better, just better timing is all I ask for.
oh my gosh dinner preparation is the worst! and it's always when i have a hot pan in my hands or am chopping tomatoes so i am completely defenseless against the hand-looking-for-a-warm-spot. erg.
Ahh yes, well we've all experienced the awkward affection display dynamic. My personal pet peeve is the constant playful bite or kiss with tongue when you are not expecting it.
Tee, the simplest way to end these types is to threaten his manly area during every one.
Automatically, playtime is over, and will reinforce that his female lover/playmate doesn't like that.
Crude? Absolutely.
Not everything can be explained in emotional "See, what you are doing makes me feel X" Zzzzz.
(I may have just correlated men to dogs, sorry lads but you know EXACTLY how to stop one of your boys from doing something annoying, just passing it along to the baffled sex.)
RL, sorry man, try ice if that happens.
SA
My BF has a strange habit of going from a nice little hug and kiss on my neck to obnoxious, loud, and fast sniffing in my ear. Hard to explain and less annoying than a tongue in the ear, but since he's made a habit of sniffing my ear every day for the last year and a half, I'm sorta over it.
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