azurelunatic | (no subject)

lady_angelina, I immediately thought of you: http://www.cybermoonstudios.com/PhoenixBoot.html

http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/49/realizations.html -- nsfw, Ari.

Today one of my co-workers hopefully learned that you do NOT touch me, and especially do not touch me roughly, when I am not expecting it (cannot see it or am concentrating too hard to see). I was on the phone, and I don't think I bobbled, but I was distracted, and fight-or-flight is not a good thing to have in the workplace. Not at all. I made frantic "oh no do not do that the fuck again, woman" gestures at her, and when I do have a moment I will apologize for flailing at her but NO. Pagan Dude got away with poking me in the ribs because he is him, and has jumped a few levels on the trust scale. Not other people on the team.

People can touch me, but there's a hierarchy of who's allowed to touch where and when. If I don't know you, you should be in visual range and have made eye contact, and touch only my hand or forearm. Acquaintances should have at least passed through my visual range, and that tap-the-opposite-shoulder thing is getting old enough that it's almost a shoving offense. (People can tap me from behind, but I don't prefer that.) I am a wacky combination of highly socialized introvert, with bonus snuggle fiend requirements. I really do need a decent amount of hugging, but I don't seem to have particularly many friends I can lean upon on a regular basis. I've developed more complex layers of guardedness, which leads to being stiff and less huggable in general. Many of the people who would volunteer to hug are more than welcome to do so ... except there are those, inevitably, who would volunteer but I'm really not hugging-close to, and some people would take the news of that well and some would take it poorly, and sometimes I just prefer to circumvent the drama by not playing the "oh woe I am hug-deprived won't someone hug me -- but not you, or you, or you!" game.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oooh, Cyteen fic. I was hoping it was that.

:D There's so little of it out there, because it's so hard to do well. There's a (forever) unfinished Harry Potter epic, Riley's Pawn to Queen, with Catlin and Florian as Slytherins, and that is love and it's regrettable that she had to stop work on it.

I'm that way when it comes to touch. If I don't know you, unless it's to save my ass from doing something mortally stupid, there is to be no touching, and there will be consequences if you do.

The list of people who can touch me and who don't run the risk of getting slugged afterward is very, very short. Mostly populated by cats. Mostly not populated by family. When it's rough, all bets are off. I don't respond well to rough at all, mostly because a small careless touch on their part can mean hours and hours, if not days, of pain on mine.

Actually, it's more complicated than that... I should probably try to flesh this out in a post soon.

If you do, I'm interested. (As with most everything, you - generic yu, that is - deprive me of an opportunity to safeword out at your own risk, so I try to respect others' limits, to the extent I'm aware of them, no matter how... atypical those limits or the reactions to a breach or attempted breach are.)

It's going to take some thought, because it's hard to give an exact guideline and say "here is who is allowed to and why, and this constitutes a breach in what is comfortable for me." My original statement comes close, but is not conclusive, mostly because it is so vague.

Well, you can always give examples.

I will use those, although to be honest mostly there aren't hard and fast categorizations because I usually don't look at someone and place them in $CATEGORY. I usually don't know which category someone is in until they try, which isn't fair to them, and which I hope to end by trying to articulate it.

*LOLs at the video!* XDDDDDD Too funny! :D

Also, I totally hear you on people touching you, especially without your permission. =/ I'm very liberal with virtual hugs online, but in RL, I seldom give or accept them. Only a select few are allowed to even touch me, let alone hug me, and I hate how so many women seem to feel the need to put their hand on your shoulder or grab your wrist, etc., for no good reason >.<;; Maybe it's because women in general are brought up to be "touchy-feely" or something, but to me, that's an invasion of personal space and a sign of disrespect. ^^;; I certainly would never touch someone (especially an acquaintance or stranger) without asking them first.

And there's a difference between touch-and-withdraw, maintain contact, grasp, and strike. Touch-and-withdraw is far more acceptable from someone farther out in the social diagram than maintaining contact.

I wonder if the women touching thing is a symptom of the (typically female) social game that it's better to pretend to be someone's friend even when you're not than to be distant and thus perceived as "unfriendly" or "cold". I would rather have a dozen cordial acquaintances than the same number of "friends" who are nothing of the sort.

Though there aren't enough words in English for all the kinds of friends people have.