Free Hugs

Many years ago, I launched a website called findmysexpert. com. 

It was probably slightly ahead of its time.

The idea was to create one place where people struggling with their sex lives, their relationships, their bodies or simply themselves could find somebody qualified to help them.

But I didn’t want it to belong to one particular school of thought.

So it was multidisciplinary.

There were counsellors and psychologists alongside sexological bodyworkers, somatic sex educators, tantra practitioners, massage therapists and people working within BDSM.

Different approaches.

Different qualifications.

Different ways of helping people.

The common denominator was sex, relationships, bodies and human connection.

And for reasons that seemed entirely sensible at the time, I decided the perfect place to launch it was at a huge singles and dating event in London.

So off we went.

We had a big roller banner that said:

SEX LIFE NEED A BOOST?

We had sweets.

We had business cards.

And on the back of every business card, I’d printed a different affirmation, quotation or little message for the person who picked it.

They were all thrown into a big jar on the table, and people could rummage around and choose one.

It was a brilliant idea.

Mostly.

Until a woman in her early sixties reached into the jar and pulled out:

You are unfuckwithable.

She stared at it.

Then she stared at me.

“I don’t know what that means.”

I attempted to explain.

She wasn’t impressed.

“It just feels very crude.”

And, looking back, she was absolutely right.

Not necessarily about the phrase itself.

But about that phrase being completely wrong for her.

She had lost her husband and was only just beginning to consider dating again.

This wasn’t somebody marching triumphantly back into the world wanting to be told she was untouchable, unbreakable or unfuckwithable.

She seemed gentle.

A little apprehensive.

She was dipping one toe into a world she hadn’t expected to have to enter again.

And I had essentially handed her a business card telling her to put her armour on.

Lesson learned.

Then another person came along.

A man in his thirties reached into the same jar and pulled out a card that said something along the lines of:

A stranger will come into your life sometime soon. Be open to it.

He read it.

Looked at me.

And said:

“Are you my stranger?”

Now that one landed.

We started talking.

He was giving a talk at the event that day, and it turned out we had loads in common. We ended up having a brilliant conversation and making a useful professional connection too.

Throughout the day, people kept dipping their hands into that jar.

Some laughed.

Some thought.

Some started conversations.

One apparently reconsidered my entire business based on the word unfuckwithable.

But there was something else sitting on our table that day.

Something much simpler.

Inside a little picture frame I’d put two words:

FREE HUGS

And something happened that I hadn’t really anticipated.

People started walking past.

Then walking past again.

And again.

They weren’t necessarily looking at the website.

They weren’t particularly interested in the sweets.

They weren’t even choosing a card.

They were looking at the sign.

Free hugs.

As a sexological bodyworker, I knew touch mattered.

But I don’t think I’d ever seen the absence of it quite so clearly before.

People would come over for a hug and then, afterwards, tell me things.

That they lived alone.

That they didn’t really hug anybody anymore.

That they wouldn’t know how to ask someone for one.

Some seemed almost surprised by how much they’d wanted it.

And I remember thinking how strange it is that we talk so much about what single people might miss — sex, romance, companionship, someone to come home to — while something as ordinary as being held can quietly disappear too.

So when I noticed people hovering near the table, I started asking.

“Would you like a hug?”

And they did.

Again and again.

I must have hugged fifty or sixty strangers that day.

Men.

Women.

Younger people.

Older people.

Some were quick hugs.

Some were proper squeezes.

And some lasted just a little bit longer.

Not in an uncomfortable way.

More in the way somebody hugs when perhaps they haven’t been hugged properly for a while.

And what surprised me most was how many conversations began afterwards.

People told me they didn’t really hug anyone.

That they lived alone.

That they didn’t know how to ask somebody for a hug.

That they missed touch.

Some hadn’t even really considered that they missed it until somebody offered it to them.

And suddenly this silly little picture frame sitting on a table at a dating event became one of the most meaningful things we had brought with us.

Because we spend so much time talking about what single people might be missing.

A partner.

Sex.

Romance.

Someone to come home to.

Someone to go on holiday with.

But I wonder whether sometimes what people miss is much smaller than that.

And much more human.

Someone touching their arm when they laugh.

A hand on their back.

Sitting close enough to another person that your legs touch.

Being squeezed.

Being held.

A hug that lasts long enough for your body to realise that it can soften.

Touch doesn’t have to be sexual to be intimate.

And intimacy doesn’t have to be romantic to matter.

That was something I understood through bodywork, too.

The work wasn’t simply about sex.

Sometimes it was about helping somebody understand their own body.

Recognising what they wanted.

Recognising what they didn’t want.

Learning that they were allowed to communicate both.

And sometimes it could be as fundamental as learning how to say:

“Could I have a hug?”

Because asking for touch can feel incredibly vulnerable.

Especially when you haven’t done it for a long time.

I don’t remember how many people visited the FindMySexpert website after that event.

I don’t remember how many business cards disappeared from the jar.

I don’t know whether the man ever found the stranger his card promised him.

And I sincerely hope the woman who pulled You are unfuckwithable eventually forgave me.

But I remember the hugs.

I remember watching people circle the table before finally coming over.

I remember how often a hug became a conversation.

And I remember thinking that perhaps, in a room full of people searching for connection, one of the most useful things we offered that day wasn’t a website at all.

It was two words in a picture frame.

Free hugs.