The whole idea of starting a blog arose when I was reading Gretchen Rubin's "The Happiness Project". In this book, I found lots of interesting facts about happiness (and silly quotes that I now intend to use in my everyday life to all my friends' annoyance) - one of the most interesing things I found was the '6 second hugs'.
Evidently, studies have shown that for a hug to promote the flow of oxitocin and serotonin (both involved in improving your mood and social bonding) it should last at least that long...
It wasn't until then that I realised a big problem we have in our cheuvanistic culture: the macho hug. Most straight men tend to 'hug' in the quickest possible way, avoiding body contact as much as possible - basically they just crash against each other's chests (God forbid their lower-body touched!), pat each other on the back two or three times (four if they're REALLY good friends) and then bounce back as if they were made of rubber.
Now, considering how us members of the 'bear community' (in Mexico) pride ourselves in the fact that we are "warmer and more affectionate" guys, you would think we were better at it - we are NOT!
I have noticed that it IS, indeed, more likely for a gay bear to hug someone else for longer periods of time... And, ironically, these seem to be happier bears than the rest!
Sadly, this is something I learned way after my interaction with American bears so I cannot give a really accurate comparison on this matter, but I do seem to recall they tend to be more huggy than us (ironic, since Mexicans are supposed to belong to the close-culture group).
So, from now on I have decided to (semi-force) hug my friends for at least that long and see how it goes...!
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