I have been thinking a lot about my unwritten contract with society. I read about this concept in a book once and as I recall it had to do with acceptable and unacceptable behavior and the agreement that we all have with each other to do the former and not the latter (in public anyway). Every time that I am asked to do something (socially), I think back to what is expected of me from society and if the thing that I am asked to do is required from this social contract. Let me give you an example.
I just returned from a short trip back to Kokomo, Indiana, where I spent most of my time visiting with my mother and grandmother. I did meet friends for lunch or dinner but most of the time was spent at my mother’s house. I did visit my old church and spent a few minutes each with the people that I know that still attend there and greeted them with the socially acceptable hand shake. I think a few minutes each is the socially acceptable amount of time and if you divide the number of minutes that I had by the number of friends to greet then the math works out. Before I left however my wife asked me to say “Hi” to several, specific people. I thought this a little overkill as she and the kids were up in Kokomo recently (about 2 months previous) and she does keep in touch with most of the people that she asked me to greet via Facebook, E-mail, etc. Also, the people that she asked me to greet were not folks that were necessarily on my short list of folks that I wanted to chat with. Given my short time there and her recent trip, I basically told her that I did not feel it necessary to greet them for her. I do not think that part of the social contract requires me to be the conduit for greetings in this manner. I actually think she bought my reasoning / excuses however this was not the end of her requests for me.
She also wanted me to visit a pet store where she worked off and on for the dozen or so years we lived in Kokomo. Now I did spend a lot of time at this store but mostly it was either dropping her off for work or picking her up or the occasional time we had to run in for pet supplies. I got to know some of the workers there and know all about them and their families but only because the wife talked about them quite a bit and kept me up to date (note: I think this is part of the marriage contract, namely to listen whether you are interested or not). I am sure they know way more about me than I am confortable with as well as I imagine that the wife also talked about me when she was at work. I probably would have stopped by to see the employees there even if my wife did not ask me to but I would not have hugged them.
That is right, my wife asked me to give one of the folks there a hug for her. Now, as you can imagine, if I didn’t feel that I should be a conduit for a greeting to our friends at church then I certainly do not feel that I should be the middle man in this hug scheme. I am not a hugger. My mother only got 2 the entire time I was there (a hello hug and a goodbye hug). So, to give out a hug to someone that I would not otherwise hug simply based on a request from the wife seems a bit of a stretch of the terms of the social contract. Also, I only have so many hugs in my reservoir so there is the possibility of running out of hugs and not having enough for friends and family that I might otherwise hug.
I typically only give one armed hugs anyway (I think they require less transfer of affection funds) but if the huggee is a two arm hug person then I have a decision to make. Unfortunately, the person that the wife asked me to hug preferred the two armed variety so my affection funds went down double the normal amount. This act might even have put me in the red as the wife did not excessively hug me to make up for the upcoming deficit.
The wife has asked me to hug someone for her before but I have noticed a pattern (or an omission rather). She never asks me to hug any female younger than me (other than relatives). She has never asked me to hug a very pretty, 21 year old girl (and I am not holding my breath). At any rate, I made it home and had enough in the hug tank for goodbye hugs for both my grandmother and mother. And, I can say here in truthfulness that the wife did more than make up in the affection department once I got to the DFW airport and back home. I do not think it is socially acceptable to go into much more detail here in this blog.
Jon
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