Pandemic and boundaries

Dear Miss Manners: I enjoy personal space and do not like being touched, other than by my husband. I am a friendly, outgoing person who simply doesn’t like to hug.

It shouldn’t be a big deal, except to my mother-in-law, it is. She insists on hugging me upon her arrival and departure — of every visit.

I dread it. I try to avoid it, then submit to it stiffly. This has gone on for10 years. I have told her I don’t like to hug. She says, “Well, I do!” and hugs me.

Why do people feel the need to force themselves upon others in this manner? I finally had enough at a family event when she walked up to where I was seated, announced she was leaving and demanded I stand and hug her. I told her in front of the whole family I do not like to hug and that she shouldn’t demand hugs.

Now she makes many angry passive-aggressive comments.

Is this really a social convention I must accept? I am so uncomfortable now that I don’t know what to do.

Gentle reader: You are in luck. It is not often one can say something positive in regard to the pandemic, but it certainly has cut down on unwanted hugging.

You can now say sweetly, as you hastily back away, “I think we’d better maintain social distancing. I certainly wouldn’t want to endanger you.” For that matter, you don’t need the virus to do this, as if alluding to some ordinary indisposition.

Miss Manners has been hoping that the pandemic has taught all kinds of people who go in for unwanted touching to keep their hands to themselves. Hugs should not be a benefit that the arrogant can bestow on the unwilling, but a matter of mutual consent.