It’s the love season again. The anticipation and anxiety of Valentine’s Day tingles in the air with people stepping to the ‘gram with their long-time love or short-time situations. And hey, if you like it… I love it. Whether or not the spirit of love is actually in the air during these dark times or we are just being sold another distraction of consumerism masking as thoughtfulness and care, romantic and platonic love can’t help but be pushed to the front of your mind. Valentine’s Day especially is a reflective time advocating for care and an opportunity for you and your community to provide a space for that care. 

But how do we communicate a need for care in our community and weave actions of care as a norm? 

Remember being in elementary school and skipping and holding hands with your friends without the bat of an eyelash? Remember giving valentines to any person you thought was nice in your classroom without the obligation of romantic advances? Could you imagine actions like that normalized today? This reminds me of a high school character I am convinced every school in the United States is plagued with. You have the familiar tropes… but one guy in particular sticks out. I call him the “where my hug at” guy. 

He is classified by his name, characterized as any off-putting extroverted boy roaming your high school halls asking any girl in sight to give him a hug. The reputation of this trope is in the name; he is a guy who expectantly surveys the surroundings, desperate to get a girl to give him a special greeting with a hug. Not getting asked by this guy “where my hug was at” is nothing to be envious of since he asks about every girl he sees the same question. But I am misjudging this man; though the guy wears the hug like a badge of honor, maybe he should. 

Let’s zoom out and think about it. In 2024, we are actively living in the digital age, the height of technological advancement and the ability to connect with humans in a variety of ways, yet we are lonelier than ever. 

A term that has gained popularity for this phenomenon is the “loneliness epidemic.” The loneliness epidemic refers to the widespread and growing issue of people experiencing feelings of social isolation and disconnection from others. Despite living in an era of unprecedented connectivity through technology and social media, many individuals report feelings of loneliness, which can have profound effects on mental, emotional and physical well-being. I mean, are we surprised? 

Gen-Z is well aware of the influx of mental health issues that have gripped our community; numerous people our age and even younger have lost their lives to suicide. Should we keep chugging ahead? Just this past semester, we lost a fellow student to suicide, and yet it made little more than a murmur across campus and sparked no genuine conversations about what is actively killing us. We put safety precautions on the Washington Avenue Bridge rather than figuring out how to stop the situation from escalating in the first place.

How do pestering teenage girls for hugs and loneliness connect? World-renowned family therapist Virginia Satir said, “We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.” I don’t know about anyone else but I think I am sufficiently lacking in this fundamental component of touch in my life. Maybe I am too quick to judge the “where my hug” guy. Maybe he is as touch starved as the rest of us and just brave enough to make sure he gets his filling. What if we pushed ourselves to be brave and even audacious enough to ask for the little things we need that can ground us into ourselves and our environment. In a world that only seeks romantic encounters as a valid avenue for connection, how can we diverge and form a new path? Though I could be misjudging the youngin asking all any unsuspecting girl walking the halls for a hug I’d recommend him to start with his own homies rather than the opposite sex. We can be brave enough to lean on the roots that create.