I enjoy a good hug, but I rarely take the initiative for a hug, except with my kids. My friends will hug me mostly to say goodbye, rather than when we say hi. I will hug a friend in distress, but I worry about coming across as patronising and I'm really careful with it. Within my family it is not part of our body language, even in terrible situations where a hug could be ace. It surprises me that noone has mentioned the body-odour yet. To me, hugs can be great or awful because of how someone smells. I'm not even referring to perfume or sweat, just the natural smell of someone is so prominent in a hug. I read somewhere that we subconsciously check out other people's smell and prefer those people with the set of antibodies furtherst related from ours, in other words (if I'm saying this correctly) the ones that would produce the most resilient offspring. Innocent hugs, ha? Who were you fooling? ;) An