Editor's note: People living alone during the coronavirus pandemic were interviewed for this story. We took the unusual step of granting anonymity upon request in order to obtain authentic opinions and private details on this personal subject matter. In those cases, we’ve altered first names only.
No one has been cuddled at Samantha Hess’ business, Cuddle Up To Me, since widespread quarantining began in March. Hess founded the 24-hour business in Portland seven years ago, a service where she and her staff cuddle with people for $1 per minute.
Most people need the love that comes from being held, Hess said. That includes her, she added. She is too broken up to say much more, she said.
“This has been personally devastating for me, and I can’t think about it more than I already am,” Hess told Street Roots in an email. “I can’t stay hydrated enough for all the tears.”
But social distancing isn’t difficult for everyone.
Cuddling people for a living? “That sounds like the worst thing in the history of badness,” said Joanne, a high-end Portland real estate agent who lives on the exact opposite end of the spectrum. She hates being touched.
“To me, honestly, one of the best things about staying at home and its associated protocols has been that I no longer have to worry about being touched when I don’t want to be,” she told Street Roots in an email exchange. “I hate hugging, shaking hands, all the casual friendly contact that seems to be de rigueur.”
She insists she is not anti-touch.
“But I am against feeling pressured to accept touch that I did not explicitly invite and which I cannot refuse without hurting someone’s feelings,” she said. “I am actually really worried about how my stress level will skyrocket again when and if casual touch is once again normalized. I didn’t realize what a horrible drain it was on me until it went away.”
The pandemic has also paused on Michael Dukart’s touch-heavy work. These days, he spends more time than usual watching old television shows.
He provides massage therapy to his clients in Salem, but with the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing lockdown, business has slowed to nonexistent.
Something struck him while watching reruns of “Leave it to Beaver” and the residents of Mayfield, the fictional town where the show was set.
“I noticed the significant amount of touching that occurred between characters in the show, especially parents and children,” said Dukart, a licensed massage therapist for the past 20 years. “I thought to myself, ‘It’s what healthy people do.’ We shake hands, hug, tousle hair, kiss, rub each other’s backs.”
He worries that when the pandemic fades, people will remain afraid of direct human contact.
“I’d hate to see a world where the concept of having someone touch you in a healthy way was considered a negative, believing touch equals disease,” Dukart said during a phone interview. “That would be so wrong.”
Human touch is important, said Cynthia Mohr, a professor of psychology at Portland State University.
“We human beings are social creatures,” Mohr told Street Roots. “We really need other people. We need that contact. It’s really important to our well-being and our physical health. It helps improve our immunity when we have physical touch and social interaction.”
Physical touch triggers the release of oxytocin, she said, a hormone that decreases stress. Bereft of human touch, many people find their stress level escalating to the point of depression and misery.
Dawn Steel, a Woodburn resident, spent most of her time alone and isolated in her apartment because of various medical conditions well before the pandemic struck. An introvert by nature, she said understands Joanne’s feelings.
However, with the lockdown, she told Street Roots in a phone interview, she misses small forms of human contact.
“I need my alone time, but it had traditionally been alone time I could control — when I wanted it and as long as I wanted it,” she said. “All of that has been taken away. That control that we had over our social interactions has been completely hijacked by a virus.”
She was never a big hugger, she said, except among her closest friends.
“I had my gang down at the dog park,” Steel said. “It’s not like we all went around hugging. It wasn’t the actual physical touching. It was just the option of being able to put a hand on someone’s shoulder or shaking hands. That option was always there. Now touch is forbidden.”
People can’t even sit next to each other at a picnic table or on a park bench for the time being, she observed.
“It’s not just that we can’t hug people,” Steel said. “We can’t be close to them or sit next to them. That’s the most devastating thing. It’s not that we give everyone bear hugs. There’s a certain amount of satisfaction sitting next to someone and talking freely.”
Mohr, a psychologist, said the world is changing in ways many people could find deeply disturbing.
“This experience is going to make us really rethink casual hugging,” she said. “It’s a really natural thing for us to do. We have a tendency to engage in physical touch, especially when we’re stressed. We need to rethink that.”
She suggested people touch one another emotionally rather than physically.
“People are recognizing the importance of checking in with one another, even if you can’t visit or give hugs,” Mohr said. “Waving to neighbors and asking them how they’re doing may seem like small actions, but they can be really helpful. We just need to think about going about it a little bit differently now to stay connected with other people.”
Humans release oxytocin in ways other than touching other people, she said.
“One of them is petting a dog,” she said. “Meditation has also proven to help, also just talking to other people; it’s making that connection.”
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Mohr said social isolation might not be the best way to describe staying at home during a pandemic.
“A different way to think of it is distance socializing,” she said. “We still need one another, and those connections are really important.”
Andrew, a Beaverton blogger who lives alone, said he worries about what will happen if he gets too used to being alone and untouched.
“What worries is me is that I fall into this state too easily, and it probably takes a toll on me, but I won’t notice until later,” he told Street Roots in an email.
He used to find solace in nightly visits to his neighborhood bar.
“The last couple of years have been really, really hard anyway, and I was just coming out of that in January, and this hit,” he said. “I know that meager hour of contact a night really helped, as dysfunctional as that bar scene can be. It was great to get the hell out of the house.”
However, Andrew said he no longer misses the bar that much.
“The hardest has been not having that hour a day,” he said, “but then I started to not notice, and that kind of scares me. Like I might be going mad and not know it.”
Tara lives in Monmouth to avoid being isolated from her parents.
“As awful as it is not being able to hug my mom and dad and family, I am really glad that I decided in the beginning of this to basically forsake all else so I could continue to see them,” she told Street Roots in a phone interview. “We basically act like we live together even though I am two blocks away.”
Tara said no one has touched her in three months, except for two people who hugged her against her will.
“Both times I was not pleased, as I’ve been very careful about not interacting with anyone so I can feel safe about interacting with my folks,” she said.
She misses being held.
“Not really with friends, but definitely with my family, especially when I feel like they could come down with the virus any day and die, and then I would never get to hug them again,” she said.
“I already don’t get much physical affection because my luck in matters of romantic love stinks, and I’ve given up,” Tara said. “Every once in a while, I get upset, and my mom’s hugs really help. I also used to have this cute ritual where I kissed my dad’s feet when I left his house if he was in bed.”
Mohr said the importance of such emotional and physical interactions are too often underrated.
“Our social relations are as predictive of our health as things like cigarette smoking,” she said. “We can’t completely put them on hold. We have to figure out ways of working around it.”
For now, Joanne said, she remains supremely content in lockdown.
“I would be perfectly happy never touching or being touched by another person again, and I am by no means shut down or socially backward,” she said. “I do, though, have some form of hyperesthesia that makes most contact unpleasant — even from animals. The pandemic has been a bizarre relief from expectations.”
She bristles at the concept that the desire to touch and be touched is somehow the default setting for humanity.
“Disinclination to casual touch is far more like thinking cilantro tastes like soap than it is like some social disorder,” she said.
“And why may I not flip that around and say that the people suffering during the pandemic are needy sponge-leeches?” she said. “But if I say that, I sound crazy, whereas it’s totally fine for people to judge me personally.”
Everyone needs to define the parameters of human contact for themselves, Mohr said.
“There are individual differences based on our previous life experiences and our personalities,” she said. “It’s making that human connection that feels right for you. Not all physical touch is pleasing for a variety of reasons. It can mean a lot of different things. It’s not always intended to convey caring and concern.”
Steel said she used to tap people on the shoulders, shake their hands and offer side hugs.
“The most devastating thing is there’s no timeline for when that’s going to return,” she said. “Human beings don’t do well with uncertainty.”
She misses those little touches, Steel said.
“Those were nourishing in their own way as long as they were welcome by other people,” she said. “All those little touches brought nourishment to the soul. Now our bodies are devoid of touch, and our minds and souls are paying the price.”
Disclosure: As the former publisher of South Salem News, Michael Dukart employed the writer of this article in the 1980s.
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